A spreadsheet total is useful. Being able to look at the receipt picture in the same file makes that number easier to check later. Piggy Sheet's web beta creates one Excel Receipt Book from one selected photo, with reviewed details, separate line items and the picture embedded inside.

Scan a receipt now. Open Piggy in Safari or Chrome, including on iPhone. No account or app download is required. The native iPhone app is a separate product and is still coming soon.

For a separate price experiment, try your numbers in the coffee calculator. It does not scan receipts or build the workbook; the editable example later in this guide is a planning scenario, not your purchase history.

1. Start with a readable photo

Keep the whole receipt flat, well lit and in focus, with the printed details large enough to read. In the scanner, choose Take a photo or Choose photo. The current beta accepts one JPEG, PNG or WebP up to 15 MB. If a HEIC image cannot open, use a JPEG or a screenshot you have checked for legibility.

Tap Read receipt locally. The English recognition engine downloads from this site on first use and processes the selected image on your device. A scan can take a minute or more. It is not a cloud photo Vault; the picture and edits remain in the open scanner tab, and leaving or reloading loses that work. Export before navigating away.

Image extraction still needs a human check. Microsoft's own Data from Picture instructions also tell users to review and correct extracted results before inserting them. That is general context, not a claim that Piggy uses Microsoft's recognition service or is affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft's instructions, checked October 19, 2026.

2. Review the merchant, currency and amounts

Compare each suggested field with the picture. Check the merchant name, purchase date, currency, subtotal, tax and printed total. A blank field means unknown, not zero. Do not turn an unreadable date into today's date, or assume a dollar-like amount identifies a currency.

For our public test on October 19, we used a clearly fictional, AI-generated SAMPLE MARKET picture marked ILLUSTRATIVE DEMO and NOT PROOF OF PURCHASE. Recognition suggested ILLUSTRATIVE DEMO as the merchant. We corrected it to SAMPLE MARKET after looking at the picture. We left the absent date unknown and manually chose USD as an example assumption; the image itself does not establish USD.

That correction is the point of the review step. A successful scan is not proof that every extracted detail is right. If a number or word remains unclear, keep the uncertainty visible rather than filling the gap with a guess.

3. Check line totals without inventing quantities

Our fictional picture shows line totals of 5.95 for cold brew, 4.65 for a croissant and 14.90 for groceries. With USD manually selected for this example, $5.95 + $4.65 + $14.90 = $25.50. The printed subtotal and total are both 25.50, with printed tax 0.00. These are invented demonstration amounts, not a shop's prices or a recommended budget.

The exported Line Items sheet stores those amounts as numbers. Quantities remain blank because this picture does not establish them. A line total is not necessarily a unit price: an amount of $14.90 beside groceries does not tell you the count, package size or price of each item.

Discount, tip and fee fields were also left unknown in the test. Although the three entered line totals add to the printed subtotal, that agreement alone does not verify every component. The scanner correctly warned that full reconciliation was unavailable. Check any warnings before acknowledging the review.

4. Keep the picture inside the XLSX

After reviewing, acknowledge any unknown fields or reconciliation warnings and explicitly choose to include the full selected picture. Then select Create Excel Receipt Book and Download Excel file, or use Share file / Save to Files where your browser supports it.

The workbook has three tabs: Receipt for reviewed details, Line Items for separate entries, and Receipt Picture for the selected viewing copy. In our fresh live-tool test, we downloaded the XLSX and checked that the image bytes were inside its file package—not just an external picture URL. The image is an orientation-corrected, metadata-stripped viewing copy, not an untouched original file.

This first web beta handles one photo per workbook, not a batch of receipts. Spreadsheet viewers differ: reopen the file in the viewer you intend to use, find Receipt Picture, and check the image and numbers before relying on it. We verified browser export and workbook structure on a Mac; this guide does not claim a fresh physical-iPhone acceptance test.

5. Save it deliberately, share it selectively

On iPhone, check Downloads or choose Save to Files through the share sheet. A download click is not confirmation that a file is safely stored. Reopen it. If you want protection against losing the phone, keep a checked copy in an off-device location you trust. Piggy does not create a restorable cloud backup for you.

The workbook is not encrypted. The full picture may reveal purchases, addresses, card details or handwriting that do not appear in the summary cells. Review the whole picture and the recipient before sharing. An embedded image makes the file more self-contained; it does not make it private automatically.

If you only want a family spending check-in, the separate Create My Piggy budget tool and Send Piggy PDF may fit better. Create a budget and record entries first, then choose and preview the information in the PDF. Income and tax reserve are not automatically shared, and nothing sends automatically. The PDF is a selected report snapshot, not this receipt-picture workbook or a restorable backup.

A separate what-if: what might the next coffee cost?

A receipt records one purchase. It does not prove a future price change or a weekly routine. To explore one possible change, make the assumptions explicit.

Suppose one same-size, same-specification drink costs USD $5.95 now and $6.45 in a hypothetical scenario, with one drink per purchase and four purchases per week. Both prices include consistent tax and mandatory-fee treatment, with no tips or discounts. Assume the routine lasts 52 weeks. This is a new fictional assumption, not a quantity or frequency inferred from the demo picture.

($6.45 − $5.95) × 1 × 4 = $2.00 more weekly. Over 52 weeks that is $104.00, or $8.67 per average month, rounded from $104 ÷ 12. At 40 active weeks instead, the difference would be $80.00; do not present the 52-week result as an exact calendar-month bill or money already spent.

Open the coffee calculator, which starts at $5.00 to $5.50 and five weekly purchases. To reproduce this guide, change the prices to 5.95 and 6.45, keep quantity at 1, change frequency to 4 per Week, select USD, and confirm compatible units and tax/fee/discount treatment. Currency labels do not convert amounts. The calculator keeps quantity and frequency constant; it does not read the workbook or automatically change your budget.

Two questions to ask before relying on your export

Is the receipt picture actually inside the Excel file? In the tested Piggy export, yes: it is an embedded viewing copy in Receipt Picture. Reopen your own file to verify that your chosen viewer displays it. Do not assume a preview thumbnail proves the complete export is intact.

Does scanning a receipt prove my full spending or make it tax-ready? No. Missing purchases remain missing, and OCR needs review. This tool organizes the data and selected picture; it does not determine deductibility, file a tax return or guarantee acceptance by an accountant or authority.

Your takeaway: keep the evidence within reach

Choose a readable picture, correct the suggestions, preserve unknowns, and reopen the exported workbook. The useful feature is simple: your selected receipt picture and reviewed data travel in the same XLSX.

Scan your receipt in Piggy. For the separate hypothetical price experiment, try the coffee calculator with your own comparable numbers. Your routine is yours to choose; the numbers are there to help you plan, not to judge it.

Sources and coverage

Evergreen walkthrough checked October 19, 2026 against the public Piggy web beta. Microsoft Support does not display a publication date on the retrieved page; checked October 19. Public AI-generated SAMPLE MARKET example is fictional, not proof of purchase; USD is a manually chosen assumption. A fresh browser OCR, manual review and XLSX export were tested on a Mac, with embedded media and numeric cells inspected. No fresh physical-iPhone or every-viewer compatibility test is claimed. The separate coffee scenario assumes identical specifications and tax/fee/discount treatment, constant quantities and frequency, and no tips or discounts. No real merchant prices, private data, complete spending, tax acceptance, automatic savings or cloud backup is implied.

A little clarity, not a guarantee

Projections are not recorded spending or confirmed savings. No national average or future price is inferred. The web calculator does not upload receipts, send family requests, or update the iPhone app.