Payment Accounts: Receipts That File Themselves

What the tender line gives you

Printed receipts are remarkably consistent at the bottom: a line naming the card network or the word for cash, usually with a masked card number beside it. ReceGuard reads it.

It detects the network — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Maestro, girocard, Cartes Bancaires, JCB, UnionPay, Diners Club — and the tender type: cash, credit, debit, mobile wallet, gift card, bank transfer, cheque, or on account. It works in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, because "Barzahlung", "Espèces", "Efectivo" and "Contanti" all mean the same thing to a receipt.

Why the last four digits matter

Two Visa cards in the same wallet are told apart by nothing else. The masked tail is what lets one receipt be matched to a line on a card statement, and what lets the app tell your business card from your personal one without asking every time.

So the detection is deliberately careful about digits. Four numbers are only ever taken from a line that also names a card or shows a mask, which means a four-digit year, store number or item count cannot be mistaken for a card tail.

Name it once

Save a receipt as "Business Amex" and the ···· 1007 is remembered. Every later receipt from that card arrives pre-filled with the account and a Recognised badge.

The app never invents accounts on its own — a wallet of six cards would turn into six accounts nobody asked for. It only learns the mapping when you name an account yourself. And an ambiguous tail shared by two of your cards matches nothing rather than guessing, unless the brand settles it.

Reconciling against a statement

This is where it pays off. Once a quarter, run down the card statement and look for business charges with no matching receipt. Matching "Visa ···· 4242" against a statement line takes seconds; matching by amount and approximate date does not.

The payment method and card tail are included as their own columns in the CSV and XLSX exports, and in the tax substantiation package, because reconciliation is usually where the accountant starts.