Sending receipts digitally to your accountant: what they really need

In short: Your accountant needs your digital receipts as readable PDFs with descriptive file names, plus a list with date, merchant, amount and category, sorted by month or year. Add the bank statements and the invoices you issued yourself. No accountant needs 400 individual photos sent over WhatsApp.

Switching from the paper folder to a digital handover saves time on both sides, but only if the files arrive in a form the accountant can work with directly. A folder full of unnamed phone photos is digital, but no better than the shoebox. It costs the accountant hours, and you pay for them.

In Switzerland this work is usually done by a Treuhänder (the Swiss term for a trustee or accountant who handles bookkeeping and tax returns for small businesses). This article shows what they really need, in which format, and how to prepare the handover so that no questions come back.

What does your accountant really need?

Your accountant needs three things: the receipts themselves, a list that summarises them, and the bank documents to reconcile against. Everything else is an attachment.

• Receipts: every expense as a single, complete, readable document. Till slips, invoices, expense claims.
• List: a table with date, merchant or supplier, amount, currency, category and note, one row per receipt. This lets them book without opening every PDF.
• Bank documents: statements for the business account and card for the whole period, ideally as PDF and as CSV.
• Your own invoices: every invoice you issued, marked as paid or open.
• Other documents: payslips, insurance certificates, the AHV statement (Swiss social security), the pillar 3a certificate, and leasing or rental contracts for new items.

If you are not sure which documents apply to you, start with the checklist for preparing receipts for your accountant.

Which format should the receipts arrive in?

PDF is the standard, because every accountant and every accounting tool can open it, archive it and attach it to a booking. Photos in JPG or HEIC format are second choice: they are large, hard to search, and often get compressed in transit until the amount is no longer legible.

Three simple rules apply to the files:

1. One receipt per file. No ten till slips on a single A4 scan, no 80-page PDF collection.
2. A descriptive file name: date, merchant, amount, for example "2026-03-14 Digitec 249.00 CHF.pdf". The folder then sorts itself chronologically.
3. Readable and straight: the receipt is fully in frame, not cut off, not blurred, and the amount is unambiguous.

Why PDF wins over photos is explained in the article on converting receipts to PDF. If you scan with Belego, the app handles all three rules: it crops and straightens the photo, saves it as a PDF and names it by date, merchant and amount on export.

How do you hand over receipts so that no questions come back?

Hand over one package per period, not a stream of individual files. A package is a ZIP folder with all PDFs for the month, quarter or year plus the list. This matches the rhythm in which the accountant books, and they see at once whether something is missing.

A clean package looks like this:

• One folder per period, such as "2026-Q1" or "2026".
• Inside it, the PDFs with descriptive names.
• A CSV or Excel list with one row per receipt: date, merchant, amount, currency, category, note, file name.
• A short text file explaining what is included and how to read the columns.
• The bank statements for the same period in a subfolder.

This is exactly the package Belego's export produces: a ZIP for any period you choose (year, month or a from-to range), containing the original PDFs named by date, merchant and amount, a CSV list with category and note, and a README. Which columns the CSV contains and how to get it into accounting software is covered in the article on exporting receipts as CSV. The PDFs suit bexio and similar tools, the CSV suits Banana, CashCtrl or Excel.

For the handover itself, use the channel the accountant specifies: their client portal, a shared folder or encrypted email. Ask once, rather than delivering differently every year.

What does a poor digital package cost you?

Accountants bill by the hour. Every receipt they have to open, rotate, decipher and match to a booking costs minutes. With 300 receipts a year and one extra minute per receipt, that is five hours on your invoice.

The table shows where the time goes and how to avoid it.

The last point is underestimated. A CHF 120 receipt from a specialist shop needs explaining without a note. With "tools for the Huber job" it is booked in seconds.

How do you prepare the handover throughout the year?

The handover becomes easy if you capture receipts as you go rather than at year end. In practice: scan the receipt right after the purchase, set the category and note, done. At month end, a quick look at the monthly overview to check that the total is plausible and that every card payment has a matching receipt.

A realistic routine for a small business:

1. Daily: scan the receipt when it arrives. Ten seconds.
2. Monthly: reconcile the bank statement against the receipt list and request missing receipts from the supplier.
3. Quarterly (if you are VAT-registered): export as ZIP, send the package to the accountant, settle input tax.
4. Yearly: annual export, plus the annual documents such as the AHV statement, insurance and certificates.

If you are only starting shortly before the closing date, the article year-end receipts: ready to hand over in three steps helps. And if the bookkeeping of your sole proprietorship needs a fresh setup, the article self-employed in Switzerland: receipts, expenses and bookkeeping covers the basics.

One advantage of capturing locally: your receipts stay on your device, not in a third-party cloud. You decide when the package goes out and to whom. A backup is included in the export, so your data survives a change of phone.

Note: This article is general guidance, not tax advice. The law, the official guidelines and the information from your tax authority or accountant take precedence.

Frequently asked questions

Does an accountant accept scanned receipts instead of paper?

Yes. In Switzerland, business records may be kept electronically as long as they remain unaltered, legible and retrievable at any time (Art. 958f of the Code of Obligations and the Business Records Ordinance). A clean PDF is enough for the accountant to book. You can discard the paper originals of plain till slips; contracts, warranty receipts and signed documents are better kept in the original too.

Should I send receipts continuously or in batches?

In batches, one per accounting period. Most accountants book monthly or quarterly and want a complete package, not individual files spread across the year. Ask for the preferred rhythm and delivery channel. Still capture receipts continuously, so that the package is ready with a single export on the due date.

What do I do with receipts that arrive by email as PDF?

Save them using the same naming scheme as your scanned receipts and put them in the same period folder, so the accountant has a single source. With a receipt app, import the PDF or photograph the screen; what matters is that the receipt appears in the list and is not forgotten in an email folder.

Do I need accounting software for a digital handover?

No. A tidy package of PDFs and a list is enough. The accountant uses the accounting software. Your own software only pays off once you want to book yourself, write invoices or file VAT returns. Check with the accountant which tool they use, so that your export can be imported directly.