Tax tips and honest notes on building Starlog. Written by the person building it.
I kept watching smart, busy people lose Sunday afternoons to a shoebox of crumpled paper. That is the problem.Company
The receipts problem is small enough that most builders skip it and big enough that everyone who runs a one-person business loses an afternoon to it every month. Here's why I'm spending years on it.
The spreadsheet works for about three weeks, then quietly rots. Why it always fails — capture friction, no image, drift — and how to track expenses without one.
A deliberately fair roundup — Expensify, Zoho, Wave, Ramp, Starlog and the receipt-only veterans — judged on capture, data ownership, team pricing, and export. Including our own honest catch.
Expensify bills per active user, so an occasional contractor costs a full seat. When the platform is genuinely worth it, when it's three sizes too big, and what a small team actually needs.
Every field a professional invoice needs to get paid without questions — numbering, terms, line items, tax — plus a free, no-sign-up generator in six currencies.
The seven columns that matter, a template you can copy in five minutes, and an honest note on the exact moment a spreadsheet stops being enough.
Two businesses, one shoebox, and a weekend that disappears every April.Customer stories
No stock-photo testimonial — just an honest picture of the owner-operator Starlog is built for. Two businesses, one shoebox, and the weekend that disappears every April.
The business rate is up again for 2026. What's inside that 72.5 cents, standard mileage versus actual expenses, who can claim it — and the log the IRS expects you to already have.
After fifteen years stuck at 45p, the approved mileage rate finally moved. How the two bands work, what happens when your employer pays less (or more), and the record HMRC expects.
There is no official rate — there is your employer's policy, and there is your logbook.Tax tips
There's no IRS-style per-kilometre figure here — just your employer's policy, Section 10(14), and a logbook requirement most people discover at the wrong time. How the system actually works.
Soft-copy receipts are accepted for GST — within limits. What India's retention rules require, what counts as a valid record, and how to store receipts in Google Drive so they hold up.
Google Drive can scan and store receipts for free — and sometimes that's all you need. Where its built-in scanner stops, and what to add without giving up your own Drive.
A folder structure and naming convention that make receipts in Google Drive actually findable at tax time — plus the point where manual filing stops scaling.
If you stopped paying tomorrow, what would you actually keep?Company
When a receipts app holds your data, you're renting access to your own records. Why business receipts should live in your own Google Drive — and outlive any app.
No employer is withholding your taxes anymore — that's the 1099 surprise. The 2026 due dates, the safe-harbor rule that ends the guesswork, and how much to set aside.
“We export to CSV” sounds like a feature. For whoever has to load it into Tally, it's a starting line. The hidden cost of a raw CSV versus a Tally-ready voucher export.
The standard mileage rate is 72.5¢ for 2026 — but “just use mileage, it's easier” costs some people real money. How to choose between mileage and actual expenses, and the lock-in nobody mentions.
The home office deduction isn't an audit magnet — that's an outdated myth. Who qualifies, simplified ($5/sq ft, max $1,500) vs the regular method, and the documentation that settles it.
You don't need per-seat software for a three-person setup. How to run expense reports for a small team — and let contractors submit receipts without seeing your books.
The shoebox of receipts is the most expensive thing you hand your accountant. How to organise a year of receipts end to end — so filing is faster and cheaper.
A little, done regularly — not a lot, done in a panic.Tax tips
Ask any accountant and the wishlist is the same every year. The handful of things to do before tax season that make your return cheaper, faster, and less stressful.
Most expense apps charge per seat, which taxes you for adding the people you most want submitting receipts. Why Starlog is free for your team and charges for multiple businesses instead.
“Just snap it and we'll read everything” is a half-truth. What receipt OCR still gets wrong — faded thermal, handwriting, odd layouts — and how we handle it without silently guessing.
Searching “Google Drive receipt scanner” returns Google's own tool plus a dozen apps that aren't the same thing. The criteria that separate them — and the one question most people forget to ask.
Two businesses in one bank account and one folder is a tax-season trap. Why GST and income tax force you to keep them separate — and a system that keeps them one tap apart.
Not every bill earns you input tax credit. What GST actually requires before you can claim ITC, the two deadlines that quietly kill it, the receipts that are worthless for it, and how long to keep the rest.
Getting expenses into Tally is rarely the import button — it's the field mapping and the ledger names. Here's what Tally actually needs per voucher, the three ways people do it, and a workflow that skips the month-end retyping.
What Indian freelancers actually need to track in 2026 — a practical system for income, expenses, and GST, without the panic of keeping everything. How much you track turns on one decision.
Presumptive tax promises you can declare 50% and skip the books. Where that's genuinely true, who actually qualifies, and the four places it quietly bites.
What the IRS genuinely requires, what's overkill, and what the freelancers I've watched do today — shoebox, Excel, half-installed apps. A grounded guide for the 1099 and small-LLC crowd.
The IRS's 'ordinary and necessary' test, applied to the expenses freelancers actually have: coffee meetings, new laptops, Uber to a client, gym memberships, home offices. Where the line is sharp, and where it's fuzzy.
What the IRS actually requires you to retain, for how long, and in what form. Digital vs. paper. The honest list — without the paranoia of 'keep everything forever.'
OCR does the typing for you — but only if the photo gives it something to work with. Seven habits that turn a blurry, half-lit slip into a clean, correct capture.
What Starlog can and can't see in your Drive, how to connect it in under a minute, and how to fix the most common snag — signing in with Apple and wondering where Drive went.
One tap gives you a single ZIP: a spreadsheet plus every receipt image. Here's exactly what your accountant receives, and how to hand it over so they don't bill you to sort it.
Tax season wants your year sliced by month. But you think in trips, projects, and clients — and so does your profit. How to group receipts the way the work actually happens.
Photograph a receipt and the numbers type themselves — most people never ask how. The plain-English version: the two jobs hiding behind one tap, and where each one stumbles.
A growing share of receipts arrive as PDFs and email attachments, never as paper. How receipt OCR handles a digital receipt, why a PDF isn't automatically 'done', and a workflow that files it in your own Drive.
Use one bucket and tax season tells you nothing; use forty and you stall at the counter. The default set to start from, when a custom category earns its place, and how to keep the list small enough to be automatic.
Side-by-side reads on the receipt and expense apps people compare us to — written honestly, including where another tool is the right call.
AP-team T&E platform with corporate cards and policy engine.
Compare Zoho Expense alternativesBroad SMB T&E suite, India-friendly, predictable per-seat pricing.
Compare Ramp alternativesFree, card-led spend management for US small businesses.
Compare Wave alternativesFree accounting suite with bundled receipt scanning.
Compare Fyle alternativesIndia-localized expense management with real-time card feeds.
Compare
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