The most peaceful way to deal with a CEO who sends crumpled receipts in a Letter Pack even after you've asked them 10 times to 'send them as data'
To all accounting staff across the country, and everyone in accounting firms, thank you for your hard work again this month.
I imagine that today, in some office somewhere, this conversation (or internal scream) is echoing.
"President, starting this month, due to the invoice system and the Electronic Book Preservation Act, please take clear photos of your receipts with your smartphone and send them via chat. It's easier for both of us!" "Oh, got it! So it's all about digitizing from now on! Leave it to me!"
A few days after receiving such a reliable reply, a red or blue envelope, bulging at the seams, arrives in the mailbox.
Yes, a Letter Pack it is.
When you open it with trepidation, what comes out are receipts with oil stains as if they were touched by hands that had been eating potato chips, and a pile of crumpled receipts that look like they have been aged at the bottom of a wallet for three months.
"Sorry! I was too busy to digitize them, so I'm sending the originals! Thanks!"
...Where on earth did that energetic reply go? It's not a "Thanks!" situation at all. lol
Why can't the CEO follow the instruction to "send as data"?
Before getting angry, let's first understand the enemy (the CEO). Why can't they scan and send them neatly one by one? The reason is simple.
"Because it's a hassle"
That's all there is to it. The CEO's main job is to generate sales. For them, the task of smoothing out each receipt, focusing the camera, and attaching them to a chat one, two, three... at a time is nothing short of ascetic practice. By the time they reach the third one, they think, "Argh! I can't take it anymore! I'll just stuff them in a Letter Pack and send them!"
In other words, no matter how many times you logically state "send as data," as long as the "hassle" of the task exceeds the CEO's capacity, this Letter Pack bomb will not stop every month.
Fighting with logic only leads to stress for both sides. So, what should you do?
Here, I propose the "most peaceful way to deal with it that hurts no one," which I have arrived at.
Conclusion: Give up and change it to the "world's lowest hurdle rule"
Give up right now on telling the CEO to "digitize them neatly one by one." Instead, rewrite the rule like this.
"President, just lay the receipts out on the desk, take a burst photo from above with your smartphone, and throw that photo into the chat as is. They can stay crumpled."
That's it. They don't do it because you make them scan one by one. If it's just "lay them out, take a burst photo, and drop it," even the most lazy CEO can finish in 30 seconds.
"No way, if they send such messy summary photos, my data entry will become a living hell!" You thought that, didn't you?
Normally, that's how it goes. Open the image, zoom in, check the date, check the store name, tap-tap-tap manual entry... But, here is the secret trick for 'those of us doing the processing'.
Make the latest AI pay for the boss's laziness
The 'randomly lined up and snapped burst photos' sent by the boss. I drag and drop these in bulk into a custom Google Apps Script (GAS) tool I built.
And what happens then?
The tool automatically combines the multiple images into a single PDF neatly fitted to A4 size
The latest AI (Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite) automatically recognizes and separates each individual receipt
It quickly parses the 'date,' 'account title,' 'amount,' 'details,' and 'vendor,' and outputs them in a CSV format that can be imported directly into Yayoi Accounting
That's right. I've built a pipeline behind the scenes where the boss just has to 'be as lazy as possible and line them up to take a photo,' and for me, 'just dropping the received images' completes the entry into Yayoi Accounting in an instant.
This creates a gentle world where no one gets hurt: the boss thinks, 'I don't get scolded, it's easy, it's the best!', and I think, 'I'm freed from the pain of manual entry, it's the best!'
I made a tool that embraces the 'grittiness' of practical work
The world's great systems say, 'Please upload as a clean PDF,' but the reality on the ground isn't that beautiful. It's a battle between crumpled paper and people who won't listen.
That is exactly why I built this tool to cover that grittiness on the system side.
Even quirky personal rules like 'put all gas money under vehicle expenses' can be handled by the AI just by writing it in the memo field in Japanese. Plus, since it runs using Google's free tier, the monthly system usage fee is completely 0 yen.
'I don't want to despair over a mountain of Letter Packs anymore' 'I'm tired of telling my boss to "send it as data" for the 11th time'
To all you accounting staff and accounting firms out there. I have published the complete source code and setup instructions for this 'Receipt Bulk Processing Pipeline V4.12,' which can be implemented in 5 minutes just by copy-pasting into GAS, in a separate article.
Please use it as a weapon to be as lazy as possible in your practical work!
👇 Click here for the complete code to be freed from Letter Packs