WhatsApp AI Receipt Scanner

The WhatsApp AI Receipt Scanner lets workers send receipt images through WhatsApp, validates the media source, extracts receipt data with AI vision, stores the structured receipt and line items, and keeps admin review screens guarded from public access.

Challenge

Small teams lose time retyping receipt data, chasing workers for clearer records and reconciling purchases after the fact. The workflow needed to accept phone photos, enforce sensible usage limits and keep receipt images out of public web access.

Solution

The webhook receives Twilio WhatsApp media, validates that the image comes from the expected Twilio account, downloads it with authenticated access, checks image MIME type and size, stores the upload in private storage, then sends the image to an AI vision model for structured extraction.

Data Flow

Extracted store, date, address, payment, total, tax and item rows are inserted into MySQL using prepared statements. Daily per-phone usage limits reduce runaway API spend, and the WhatsApp reply confirms the saved receipt summary.

Admin Controls

The public directory blocks direct browsing of the legacy admin CRUD files, while the dashboard scripts also require an explicit admin-enabled environment flag before rendering receipt records.

Outcome

The project turns an informal WhatsApp receipt photo into structured accounting data, while retaining review/edit/delete paths for internal users and keeping runtime files, logs and uploads outside the public document root.