From the Store description:
Receipt Tracker, a Microsoft Garage project, is an expense tracking app that uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to automatically extract information from receipt photos. Receipt Tracker allows users to categorize and visualize their expenses into organized collections of receipts which can then be emailed or sent to OneNote.
It's a super idea, so I raided my receipts drawer for a dozen examples and.... hit a complete block. Not one of them was remotely recognised correctly. Not one. Admittedly the problem is immense, since the formatting of receipts is extremely variable, plus this is in the UK and maybe things are more standard, or at least different, in the USA?
Anyway, here's an illustrated walkthrough:
Stepping through the attractive introductory screens - I love how every application seems to include these on first launch now.
I tried about a dozen receipts, but will use this one as typical, from a couple of birthday presents I bought a few months ago. Note the item details, total price and date...
Oops, the OCR added another £200! Moreover, it got the date wrong and the item title was taken from the shop slogan! This was typical of the other receipts and in no case did it get more than the odd fact or number right, disappointingly. The 'London Vodafone event' bit was added by me, since you have to tag every expense with an event name. This event tie could actually be quite useful in the real world - at least if the main OCR worked more reliably. On the right, above, I've manually edited another receipt's data, adding a category (it was a top-up voucher) and a note, all of which get filed away.
So nice idea, shame about how well it works. Or rather doesn't. If one has to put in most of the information by hand anyway, you might as well use a traditional expenses manager, of which there are several. Let's see how Receipt Tracker evolves, if at all.
In the meantime you can download the application here.