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“Do I need to upload receipts for every transaction?”

The short answer is no, not at all.

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IRS compliance

Back in the old days, when money was predominantly transacted through paper bills and checks, the IRS started a compliance requirement asking businesses to keep receipts of those purchases for anything over $75. It’s still like this today, even though most startups now operate entirely with digital transactions. In fact, only 0.0012% from millions of transactions from Finta’s database today involve cash or checks.

The IRS wants businesses to keep receipts in case of a tax audit. An audit is just a request for information, typically triggered if something in your tax filings looks off. Like reporting $10 million of revenue but paying no taxes.

In these cases, the IRS is practical. They just want backup records that show your expenses are legitimate. That’s where receipts come in. As long as you can pull up a digital copy when needed, you’re more than fine.

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Receipt reminders

Getting pinged by your credit card provider to upload receipts? Turn off the reminders. There’s no benefit, only distractions, since it’s all getting captured digitally. Unshipped features, cold sales pipelines, missing receipts. Guess what your investors care about?

At Finta, we changed the receipt requirement threshold in Ramp from $75 to $1,000. This isn’t even for the IRS. We just want better info for large purchases in case we need it internally later. Like when you’re trying to figure out what a $5,000 purchase was for years later.


Receipts requirements have gotten so pointless that Brex built an AI feature to generate fake ones for you. If you use Brex, just turn it on.


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Compliance is a growing requirement

Your biggest risk early on isn’t missing a $76 receipt in an IRS audit. It’s running out of energy, time, and money. Manually tracking receipts doesn’t solve that. It adds to it. Focus on building the product and talking to users instead.

As your company grows, so do requirements. Investors, auditors, and regulators will increasingly expect clean and consistent records. That’s when systems and compliance matter; when your company is public and beyond. But by then, you’ll have a dedicated in-house Controller to handle it.

For now, don’t stress over this distraction. Focus on making something people want.