Using OCR for Receipts to Extract Data

What is OCR (optical character recognition)?

In receipt processing, OCR automates data capture from sales receipts, invoices, and purchase records, reducing manual effort and errors. Using advanced OCR, like SnippCheck, organizations can validate purchases in real-time, drive promotions, reward customers instantly, and gather first-party shopper insights, including purchase patterns, store preferences, and product combinations. Overall, OCR transforms raw receipt images into actionable data, making campaigns more efficient, accurate, and data-driven. 

OCR recognizes letters and numbers within a digital image (such as a PDF, scanned document, or photo) and ‘reads’ the image to produce editable and searchable text. It’s technology that has been around for a long time, with origins that go back to telegraphy over 100 years ago. 

OCR has been in widespread commercial use for over 20 years, continually improving in its accuracy, capability, and speed. Companies use it to digitize documents, automate data entry processes, and improve accessibility and readability. 

Using receipt OCR software to extract data from scanned sales receipts, invoices, purchase orders and more means there’s little need for manual intervention or receipt processing. It’s an efficient and time-saving way to capture data and reduce the risk of human error, and with the right integration, organizations can link it with other systems for seamless data flow. It also provides valuable first-party data that can be aggregated and used for analysis, or even personalization.

Why Use OCR for Receipt Recognition?

Using OCR for Receipts for receipt validation in consumer promotions, incentives, channel, and customer loyalty programs is fast, efficient, and accurate. Using receipt processing, integrated via a receipt OCR API, you can run purchase-based campaigns that help drive sales or increased basket size while providing you with valuable shopper data. It provides an improved customer experience that helps to drive engagement, reward consumers, and scale activations. OCR is:

• Efficient: eliminating onerous manual processing saves time, especially for large-scale promotions, making it more cost-effective and removing the risk of human error. 
• Rich in data: delivering first-party shopper insights, including the quantity purchased and other items purchased at the same time, favorite stores, time of purchase, and much more. 
• Responsive: purchase validation in real time means that you can confirm acceptance to customers and even deliver rewards straight away (we all love a little instant gratification). 
• Accurate: as well as eliminating the need for manual checks, OCR receipt scanning will filter out non-qualifying receipts and digitize everything, not only providing verification but also much more shopper data.  
• Safer: Using OCR and a receipt processing platform allows you to spot fraud that human processors might miss – especially things like duplicate or altered receipts. 

Receipt OCR Software Captures Valuable Receipt Data

Receipts data provides valuable insight into consumer demographics, preferences, and behaviors, including:  

• Retailer and location 
• Date and time of purchase 
• Product choices, combinations, and quantities 
• Other brands purchased, including competitors or potential marketing partners 
• Brand share of wallet 

Receipt OCR software can capture a wealth of data which, when presented as readable and meaningful output, can be analyzed for key insights and a deeper understanding of consumer behavior, purchasing patterns, and preferences that can be used for personalization, segmentation, and retargeting. 

A scanned supermarket receipt displaying line items, product codes, quantities, prices, and the store details. Highlighted sections show the data that can be extracted using OCR software. It then structures this data, turning raw receipt information into readable, actionable insights for purchase validation and  analytics.

How Does Snipp’s OCR Improve on Regular OCR?

Regular OCR gives you exactly what’s printed on the receipt: a combination of letters, digits, and words which can seem random. And this isn’t always an advantage. 

As an example, on one retailer receipt, Kellogg’s Froot Loops might appear as an alpha-numeric product code, like this: FL MRSHMW 003800014815 F. On others, it could appear as any one of many different abbreviations, such as FRULP, Kell FRU or K FL MW. These assorted jumbles of characters make the output difficult to read – especially when the report includes multiple retailers. This is inconvenient for brands wanting to understand and use the data to inform future marketing and promotional activity. 

SnippCheck’s receipt OCR uses machine learning and a proprietary product and retail taxonomy built up over more than ten years to add intelligence to the process. It maps what it scans to this universal taxonomy, recognizes the product reference, and translates the code or abbreviation into readable output. For example: 
 
Froot Loops 003800014815 Kellogg’s Froot Loops Cereal Marshmallow 17.7oz 4.981 
 
This smarter output makes data reporting intuitive and easier to manage. 

Real-world Receipt OCR examples using Snipp’s Receipt Processing Engine

1. Delivery Validation for Sika

Sika used delivery note validation technology via OCR to support their B2B programs in Indonesia. The solution automatically scanned and extracted transaction details from delivery notes, enabling Sika to match sell-out (products sold to consumers) with sell-in (products delivered to retailers). This provided accurate SKU-level sales information by region, distributor, and retailer. 

By applying OCR across the distributor and retailer network, the solution ensured consistent and accurate validation, helping Sika measure distributor performance, understand retailer demand, and support loyalty and promotional programs with reliable data. 

2. Transforming Receipt Data into Insights for Purina 

Purina leveraged SnippCheck to validate receipts submitted by consumers through its app. Beyond simple purchase confirmation, each receipt was processed to unlock richer insights. By capturing data for basket analysis – including transcription, brand identification, and product categorization – the receipt processing system transformed receipt uploads into deeper insights. This ensured accuracy in purchase validation while also providing a more nuanced view of shopper behaviour. 

3. Enhancing Transaction Accuracy for Starbucks Nespresso  

Starbucks used receipt processing technology to validate consumer-submitted receipts for purchases of Nespresso Original coffee products. Each receipt was scanned and verified, ensuring that every transaction was accurately captured. By applying OCR to the receipt data, the system identified the number of qualifying products purchased in a single transaction, enabling precise tracking without manual intervention. This approach ensured consistency, reduced potential errors, and converted receipt images into structured, actionable information that could be used for reporting and insights. 

4. Receipt Validation & OCR Across Regions for Kellogg’s 

Kellogg’s used receipt validation technology via API to power promotions across multiple regions, including France, Germany, and the MENA region. Leveraging OCR, the solution automatically scanned and extracted purchase details from a wide range of receipt formats, supporting multiple languages and currencies with high accuracy. Flexible enough to process receipts from any retailer – in-store or online – the system ensured a seamless consumer experience while also delivering invaluable consumer data. This consistent, scalable capability empowered Kellogg’s to efficiently run multi-language, multi-currency campaigns tailored to diverse markets. 

5. Receipt OCR for Perrigo’s Formula Rebate Program

Perrigo’s rebate program required consumers to upload receipts of qualifying infant formula purchases. OCR receipt processing scanned each submission to identify eligible products and confirm purchase details. By digitizing receipts in this way, the process ensured clear recognition of qualifying transactions and enabled efficient validation of rebate claims.

6. Optimizing Purchase Verification for Kraft Heinz Canada 

Kraft Heinz Canada’s nationwide program relied on OCR receipt processing to manage the variability of Walmart receipts. Each submission was scanned to detect qualifying products and standardize purchase details, ensuring accurate validation across thousands of entries. This approach delivered cleaner data for reporting and compliance while giving consumers a straightforward way to participate. 

7. Scaling Receipt Validation for Chevron’s Walmart Programs 

Chevron’s recurring cashback programs at Walmart used OCR receipt processing to validate submissions across multiple promotions. Each receipt was scanned to detect qualifying products, ensuring consistent and accurate verification. This centralized approach allowed multiple campaigns to run simultaneously while maintaining efficiency and reliability in purchase validation. 

See SnippCheck’s Capabilities for Yourself

The right receipt validation technology makes purchase validation easy, fast, and accurate for you and your customers. SnippCheck’s specially designed OCR receipt processing software delivers rich and meaningful outputs packed with valuable first-party shopper data and helps to reduce receipt fraud. 

FAQs

How accurate is OCR in extracting purchase data? 

Modern OCR solutions are highly accurate, even when faced with complex layouts, varying languages, currencies, and low-quality images. Advanced models can reliably capture structured details such as store names, line items, totals, taxes, dates, and payment methods from receipts, invoices, purchase orders, and delivery orders. Accuracy is further enhanced by machine learning, which continuously improves recognition and validation as the system processes more document types at scale. 

What sets Snipp’s OCR apart from other solutions? 

Snipp’s OCR is purpose-built for promotions, shopper marketing, and loyalty programs. 
It is: 

• Retailer agnostic – able to process proofs of purchase from any store or channel. 
• Multi-format – extracting data from receipts, invoices, POs, and delivery orders. 
• Multi-currency & multilingual – capable of handling global campaigns seamlessly. 
• Rich in data extraction – capturing everything from transaction IDs and SKUs to totals, taxes, dates, currencies, promo codes, and loyalty IDs. 

This combination ensures brands get clean, structured, campaign-ready data that not only validates purchases but also fuels analytics, personalization, and consumer insights across markets. 

What kinds of data can OCR extract from receipts? 

OCR can capture a wide range of structured and unstructured data, turning raw images into actionable insights. This includes: 

• Retailer & transaction details: store name, address, transaction or invoice number, terminal ID. 
• Purchase information: product names, SKUs, quantities, line-item prices, subtotal, taxes, and total. 
• Time & date stamps: purchase date, time of transaction, delivery confirmation. 
• Currency & language: recognition across multiple regions and markets. 
• Metadata: payment methods, promo codes, loyalty IDs, and campaign-specific fields. 

By extracting this depth of information from receipts, invoices, purchase orders, and delivery orders, OCR enables brands to validate purchases, analyze shopper behavior, and run global campaigns with confidence. 

How easily can OCR integrate with existing CRM or loyalty platforms? 

Most modern OCR solutions offer APIs and pre-built connectors, allowing seamless integration with CRM, loyalty, and marketing platforms. This ensures captured receipt data flows directly into your systems for analytics, segmentation, and campaign automation. 

How does OCR support compliance and data privacy requirements? 

OCR platforms can be configured to anonymize or securely encrypt personal data, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR or CCPA, while still providing actionable data and insights for promotions and consumer behavior analysis. 

How can OCR be used across different promotion types? 

OCR provides the foundation for running fair and scalable promotions. By instantly validating proof of purchase, it ensures only eligible entries qualify – whether that’s a contest, rebate, or loyalty program. This not only enforces campaign rules accurately but also speeds up reward fulfilment, reduces fraud, and delivers a smoother experience for both brands and consumers. 

Schedule your SnippCheck receipt OCR demo today