I'm building a personal finance tracker for Indian users and thinking about adding a feature where users can share their UPI payment receipts (screenshots from PhonePe, GPay, Paytm, etc.) directly into the app.
How it would work:
After a UPI payment, the user shares the receipt screenshot to the app
The app parses the receipt (OCR/image parsing) to extract amount, merchant, and date
It automatically creates a spending entry
If the merchant is unrecognized, on next login the user is prompted to categorize it
Once mapped, future payments to the same merchant are auto-categorized
Why receipts instead of email/SMS parsing:
UPI apps (PhonePe, GPay, Paytm) all have a "Share" button on every receipt
No need for SMS permissions or email forwarding setup
Works cross-platform — the receipt format is consistent enough for OCR
Less privacy-invasive than reading SMS or email
My questions for HN:
Would you use this? Is the friction of "share receipt" low enough?
Any existing apps doing this well (India or globally)?
Is OCR reliable enough for this, or is there a better parsing approach?
How it would work:
After a UPI payment, the user shares the receipt screenshot to the app The app parses the receipt (OCR/image parsing) to extract amount, merchant, and date It automatically creates a spending entry If the merchant is unrecognized, on next login the user is prompted to categorize it Once mapped, future payments to the same merchant are auto-categorized Why receipts instead of email/SMS parsing:
UPI apps (PhonePe, GPay, Paytm) all have a "Share" button on every receipt No need for SMS permissions or email forwarding setup Works cross-platform — the receipt format is consistent enough for OCR Less privacy-invasive than reading SMS or email My questions for HN:
Would you use this? Is the friction of "share receipt" low enough? Any existing apps doing this well (India or globally)? Is OCR reliable enough for this, or is there a better parsing approach?