Receipt Scanners Compared: Dext, Hubdoc and BAS Buddy (Australia)
If you run a small business in Australia, you have probably considered letting software read your receipts instead of typing them into your accounting software yourself. This page compares the three options most Australian small businesses actually look at — Dext, Hubdoc and BAS Buddy — honestly, including where each one wins and where it doesn't. It was written in September 2026; pricing and product details change, so treat the specifics as a starting point and check current details before you commit.
The short version
| Dext | Hubdoc | BAS Buddy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Bookkeepers and teams processing high volume | Existing Xero subscribers wanting basic capture | Small businesses whose receipts already live in Google Drive |
| Where receipts go | Forward emails, upload, or mobile app | Forward emails, upload, or mobile app | Stays in your Google Drive folder |
| GST and ABN extraction | Yes | Yes | Yes, with confidence scores and a review step |
| Export | Syncs directly to Xero/MYOB/QBO | Syncs directly to Xero/MYOB/QBO | CSV exports in Xero, MYOB and raw formats |
| Price (Sep 2026) | Paid subscription (third-party sources list around A$30+/month — check dext.com for current AU pricing) | Bundled with some Xero plans; availability is changing as Xero moves to its own Smart Document Capture | Free during early access |
One thing all three have in common: none of them lodge your BAS for you. They get your receipt data into shape; the BAS itself is still yours (or your accountant's) to prepare and lodge.
Dext: the established heavyweight
Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) is the most mature of the dedicated capture tools. It pulls receipts from email, mobile captures and supplier feeds, extracts the data, and pushes transactions straight into Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks with ledgers attached. For a bookkeeper processing hundreds of client documents a week, it is a genuine workhorse.
The trade-offs are price and weight. It is a paid subscription priced per business (third-party comparisons from 2026 put entry plans around A$30+ per month, with document limits), and it is built around the bookkeeper workflow — publishing rules, client queues, practice-level reporting. If you are a single business owner who wants receipts handled and nothing else, you are paying for a lot of machinery you will not use.
Hubdoc: free with Xero, but in transition
Hubdoc was acquired by Xero in 2018 and has been bundled with Xero's business plans — for many Xero subscribers it was the free, obvious choice for document capture.
The picture is changing. Xero has been building its own native document capture (announced as Smart Document Capture at XeroCon London 2026) and has begun withdrawing Hubdoc in some markets. There is no single global shutdown date we could verify at the time of writing — check Xero Central for the current status in Australia — but if you are choosing a receipt workflow today, it is worth knowing that Hubdoc's roadmap is being absorbed into Xero itself. If you already have it and it works for you, there is no emergency; if you are choosing fresh, it is reasonable to ask what the migration path looks like before you build a habit on it.
BAS Buddy: the Drive-native newcomer
BAS Buddy takes a different starting point. Instead of asking you to email receipts in or capture them with a mobile app, it watches the Google Drive folder your receipts already land in — read-only — pulls out the vendor, ABN, invoice date, total, GST and line items with AI, flags anything it is not confident about for your review, and exports clean CSVs for Xero, MYOB or plain spreadsheets.
Where it wins:
- Zero new habit. If your receipts already get photographed into Drive, there is nothing to forward, upload or install.
- Read-only Drive access. Your Drive is never modified.
- A review step before anything is final. Every extraction carries a confidence score; low-confidence items are flagged for you to check, which matters when the numbers feed a tax document.
- Price. Free during early access, every feature unlocked.
Where it honestly doesn't win (yet):
- No direct ledger sync. Exports are CSV hand-offs, not live pushes into Xero/MYOB. For many small businesses that five-minute import is fine; if you want zero-touch publishing, Dext is better at that today.
- No mobile capture app. It relies on receipts already being in Drive (phone photos, scans, email-to-folder).
- Young product. Early access means fewer sharp edges polished, and pricing will eventually arrive — early users will be told first and can leave before anything changes.
How to choose in one minute
- You have a bookkeeper, or process hundreds of documents a month → Dext.
- You are on Xero, already have Hubdoc, and it keeps working for you → keep using it, but keep an eye on Xero's Smart Document Capture transition.
- Your receipts already land in a Google Drive folder and you want BAS-ready numbers without another subscription → try BAS Buddy — it is free during early access, takes about five minutes to connect, and your data is always exportable.
Frequently asked questions
Does any of these lodge my BAS?
No. All three prepare data; the BAS lodgment is done through the ATO portal, Standard Business Reporting software, or your tax/BAS agent.
Will BAS Buddy touch my Google Drive files?
No — access is read-only at the API scope level. It can list and read the files you point it at; it cannot modify, move or delete anything.
Can I leave with my data?
Yes. Raw CSV export includes every extracted field for every receipt, any time, no conditions.