Shoebox: a small model reads your receipts overnight, slowly, and never guesses a number
This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 3: Slow and Steady What I Built Receipts are the paperwork nobody does on time. They go into a wallet, then a drawer, then a shoebox, and at the end of the month (or the end of the tax year) someone sits down and types them into a spreadsheet one by one: date, shop, total, category, then files the paper or the photo…
This is an open-source AI challenge submission for the third week called Slow and Steady. Shoebox is a folder that organizes your receipts while you sleep. You just take photos of receipts whenever you get them and drop them into Shoebox's inbox. At night, Shoebox processes the new photos, one at a time, on your own computer using the Gemma 4 model.
The model examines each photo and copies down every line printed on the receipt, including the total, discount, tax, and change. It confirms the total by checking other figures on the same receipt. If the total checks out, the receipt is filed with a name that includes the date, shop name, and amount. If the total doesn't match, it's flagged and left in a "Check me" folder for further review.
Shoebox only adds a receipt to your expense sheet once it's been confirmed by the model. If a receipt can't be processed automatically, it waits until the morning and gets a note indicating that it needs to be checked. Shoebox runs locally on your computer, so you don't have to worry about anything. After processing, Shoebox provides a summary of what it did overnight, including the total amount spent and any receipts that still need your attention.
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