Getting started with Capture

Otto Capture uses AI to extract structured data from receipts, bills, and invoices. Once extracted, you review the data and publish it to your accounting platform.

Creating your account

You can sign up for Otto Capture directly. If you use Xero, you can also install Capture from the Xero App Store, which signs you in with your Xero login and prefills what it can (see Xero). During sign-up you name your organisation and choose the email address your clients will use to send in documents.

Setup steps

1. Connect your accounting platform: Authorise Capture to access your client’s accounting data, on Xero or FreeAgent. This syncs contacts, account codes or categories, tax rates, and currencies.

2. Configure your client: Set an email prefix for email submissions, choose default publish states if your platform supports them, and review the synced accounting data.

3. Submit documents: Upload files through the web interface or forward emails to your client’s unique email address.

4. Review and publish: Check the extracted data, make corrections if needed, and publish to your accounting platform.

Your dashboard

When you sign in, Otto shows you what to do next. A new organisation sees a short setup checklist:

• Link a client: connect a client’s accounting platform so Otto can publish to it.
• Invite a teammate: give a colleague access to review and publish documents.
• Set up a custom email domain: let clients submit to an address on your own domain instead of ottocapture.email.

Once you’ve linked a client and documents start arriving, the dashboard switches to a Needs attention list showing the clients with documents waiting on you. When nothing is outstanding, Otto lets you know you’re all caught up.

Submission methods

• Web upload: Drag and drop files or use the file picker in the Capture interface
• Email: Forward receipts and invoices to your client’s dedicated email address
• WhatsApp: Share a client’s invite link so their people can send receipts and invoices over WhatsApp. See WhatsApp submission

Supported file types

Capture accepts the following file formats:

Category	Formats
Documents	PDF
Images	JPEG, PNG, HEIC, HEIF, WebP, TIFF, GIF, BMP, AVIF
Office documents	DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, ODT, ODS
Web pages	HTML

Tip

For best results, submit clear, high-resolution images or native PDFs rather than scanned documents.

What happens after submission

See Submitting documents for full details on the processing pipeline and document statuses. In summary, every document goes through a malware scan, AI classification and extraction, validation, and contact matching before appearing in your review queue.

Next steps

• Connecting your accounting platform: Set up your integration, with platform-specific steps for Xero and FreeAgent
• Configuring clients: Customise how each client works
• Submitting documents: Start sending documents to Capture