Receipt Scanning for Loyalty

Samantha Brown Updated by Samantha Brown

Friendbuy’s Receipt Upload feature allows merchants to reward loyalty members for in-store purchases by submitting physical receipts. This document outlines how to configure, manage, and automate this process in your Loyalty Program.

Adding the Receipt Upload Earning Event

Add this earning event tile to your Earning Event Widget so customers can see the option to upload a receipt in order to earn rewards.

Use Cases:
  • Incentivize in-store purchases
  • Run regional promotions for specific retail partners
  • Reward for specific products/SKUs

To get started:

  1. Navigate to your Loyalty Program settings.
  2. Click “Add Earning Event.”
  3. Select “Receipt Upload” from the available event options.

Once selected, you’ll begin configuring the event logic in the “Event Rules” section.

Configuring Event Rules

Define when and how rewards are issued by setting conditional logic for the receipt:

Required Rule
  • IF: Customer uploads a receipt

Optional “AND” Conditions

You can refine the rule further using attributes such as:

  • Purchase Source (e.g., must be from an in-store location)
  • Order Value / Order Subtotal
  • Member Tier
  • SKU
  • Custom Attribute
  • New Customer
  • Store details: Store Name, ID, Country, State
  • Dates: Submission Date, Purchase Date, Purchase Day of Week

These options help restrict receipt rewards to specific campaigns, time periods, or customer types.

Event Scheduling

You can optionally schedule when the receipt event will be live: (e.g. if you want to schedule a weekend-only event where a customer can earn 5x points for purchasing in-store)

Use Cases
  • Short-term pop-up campaigns
  • Seasonal promotions
  • Time-boxed retail partnerships
  • Options:
    • Start Date – The event begins earning points at this date.
    • End Date – Points stop being earned after this date.

- Leave this blank for the event to stay continuously active.

Receipt Automation

Friendbuy’s Receipt Automation uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to automatically review and validate receipts submitted by loyalty program members. When enabled, this system can significantly reduce the manual effort required for reward approval — while still allowing flexibility via timing, validation logic, and control parameters.

Automate Processing toggle:

When ON: Friendbuy automatically processes incoming receipts using OCR.

Choose your Auto-process timing:

  • Immediately: Scan and validate right after submission.
  • After X Days: Introduce a delay before the auto-processing (useful for returns windows or fraud checks).  

Example: Set to “After 7 days” if you want to wait until return periods expire before issuing points.

• When OFF: All receipts remain in a pending state until manually reviewed and approved or rejected by a team member.

 Advanced Options

Expand Advanced Options to configure additional controls around validation, delay, and limits.

Option

Description

Use Case

Custom Reward Validation

Allow Friendbuy to hit a URL endpoint to validate the receipt upload for any custom reason

Account for item returns

Reward Delay

Delays the issuance of points after a receipt has been approved (automatically or manually)

Delay 7 days post-approval

Max Reward Allowance

Set a limit on the number of rewards a customer can earn from receipt uploads.

Limit to 10

Viewing & Managing Uploaded Receipts

This tab gives you a comprehensive view of all uploaded receipts submitted by loyalty program members. It’s a central hub to monitor submission status and view receipt details

Navigate to Loyalty > Receipts to view this information

Receipt Information

Column

Description

Order ID

System-generated receipt identifier. Clickable for full detail view.

Status

Displays the processing state: • 🟢 Approved• 🔴 Rejected• 🟡 Pending

Customer

Customer’s email and unique Friendbuy ID.

Purchase Date

Parsed from the uploaded receipt. Helpful for identifying anomalies or filter-based logic.

Store

Name and optional Store ID from the receipt.

Details

“View” button to access full receipt content.

  • Date Filter: Specify a time range to view receipt activity (e.g., last 30 days).
  • Search by: Email address, order ID, or other metadata for quick lookup.

View Receipt Details

Example: Approved Receipt Detail

Clicking into an approved receipt shows:

Left Panel:

• Receipt Status: Shows approval or rejection date.

• Image Link: View the submitted receipt image.

• Points Rewarded: How many points were issued, with a link to the relevant earning event.

Right Panel:

• Order Metadata:

• Order ID

• Order Date

• Submission Date

• Customer Email & ID

• Store Info: Parsed address from the receipt image.

• Itemized Purchase:

• SKU

• Item Name

• Quantity

• Unit Price

• Subtotal

Pro Tip: This screen is particularly useful for validating whether the right items were purchased and whether the receipt meets configured earning event criteria (e.g., specific SKU, order subtotal, etc.).

Example: Receipt Image

Friendbuy’s OCR engine extracts data from uploaded receipt images, including:

  • Store name and address
  • Purchase date and time
  • Product names, SKUs, and prices
  • Subtotals and totals

This data is used to:

  • Trigger reward rules
  • Validate event criteria
  • Provide auditability

Manually Creating or Uploading Receipts (Customer Support Workflow)

If customers call / email in to customer service because they're having issues uploading their receipts, you can:

  • Upload a receipt on behalf of a customer
  • Create a receipt entry manually using key order details
Locate the Customer in Friendbuy
  1. Navigate to Customer Service > Customer Look Up
  2. Search for a customer
  3. Click on the “Receipts” tab to see any past receipt submissions associated with that customer.
  4. Click the Create Receipt button

Option A: Upload a Receipt Image
Use this when a customer provides a valid receipt image via email or chat but cannot upload it themselves.
  1. Choose “Upload receipt image”
  2. Upload 1–5 images of the same receipt (formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, or PDF; max 6MB).
  3. Make sure the receipt is legible and includes:
    • Product names
    • Prices
    • Store name
    • Purchase date
  4. Click “Upload receipt image” to submit.
  5. A confirmation message will confirm that the receipt has been created successfully.

Click Choose photos button

Select Images You want to Upload

Click Upload Receipt Image Button

Receipt Creation Success Message

Option B: Manually Add Receipt Details

If a receipt image is unavailable or OCR fails, use manual data entry:

Create a Receipt

Required fields:

  • Receipt ID
  • Purchase Date
  • Subtotal
  • Store Name
  • Store ID
  • Store Country / State
  • SKUs Purchased

Once completed, click Create Receipt to save the entry. This will then go through the same processing and validation workflow as standard uploads.

Best Practices for Support Teams
  • Always confirm customer identity before uploading on their behalf.
  • Ensure you're familiar with the reward criteria for approving points
  • If uploading on behalf of a customer, ensure receipts meet the earning event rules to avoid rejection.
  • Use manual creation when image upload is not viable.

How did we do?

Manually Opt a Customer In or Out of Loyalty

How to Display Loyalty Points on a Product Detail Page (PDP)

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