Build on the Digital Receipt Network.

01 · Vision

Overview

Paper receipts fade, get lost, and lock purchase history inside merchants' silos. The Digital Receipt Network flips that model:

• Every company can send a receipt — from a corner shop to a global chain, delivering a structured digital receipt should be as easy as one API call.
• Every customer owns their receipts — purchase records belong to the person who paid, not the merchant and not us. Export, share, or delete — always.
• Receipts live forever — a receipt is a durable, structured document: proof of purchase, warranty anchor, tax record.
• Privacy first — the Snaptab app is offline-first with no account required; everything that touches the network is explicit and opt-in, and data is never sold.

The Snaptab mobile app (iOS & Android) is the first client on the network. The app is one client; the platform is the product.

02 · Share pipeline

How it works today Live today

Sharing is already running in production. The pipeline is deliberately minimal:

1. User shares a bill in the app. Sharing is opt-in per bill and requires a free account. Nothing is ever uploaded automatically.
2. A minimal receipt payload is published to Firestore under an unguessable 128-bit random token: title, amount, currency, category, date, location label and note. Never photos, GPS coordinates, or raw OCR text.
3. Anyone with the link or QR code opens https://snaptab.glitchfy.com/r/{token} in any browser — no app, no account, no login to view.
4. The owner can revoke instantly. Deleting the share removes the document and the link stops resolving.

Public receipt payload — the entire shared document

{
  "title":    "Team dinner",
  "merchant": "Seaside Grill",
  "amount":   5782.00,
  "currency": "LKR",
  "category": "Dining",
  "billDate": 1753747200000,
  "location": "Colombo",
  "note":     "Split four ways",
  "createdAt": "2026-07-29T09:41:00Z",
  "revoked":  false
}

That is the complete surface area of a share. Fields you leave empty are simply absent, and revoked: true makes the viewer treat the receipt as gone.

03 · Public viewer

Receipt viewer Live today

Every share resolves to a standalone viewer at /r/{token}. It is a single dependency-free HTML page:

• Printable — a dedicated print stylesheet renders a clean paper receipt.
• Downloadable — one tap exports the receipt as JSON, so recipients keep a structured copy.
• Dark-mode aware — follows the viewer's system preference.
• No tracking — no analytics, no cookies, no third-party scripts. The only network request is the receipt fetch itself.

Revoked, expired, or mistyped links get a friendly not-found state — never an error dump.

04 · Intelligence

AI & OCR Live today · on-device

On-device, by default

• OCR — receipt scanning runs on-device with ML Kit text recognition. Images and extracted text never leave the phone.
• Insight chat — a real language model (Qwen 2.5 1.5B) runs fully offline on the device, grounded in the user's actual bills.

Optional self-hosted cloud OCR Opt-in

For harder receipts, Snaptab can call a self-hosted OCR model: baidu/Unlimited-OCR served through a vLLM OpenAI-compatible endpoint. It is strictly opt-in, and because it is self-hosted, receipt images never touch a third-party OCR SaaS. Smoke-test a deployment with:

curl — vLLM OpenAI-compatible endpoint

curl {endpoint}/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "baidu/Unlimited-OCR",
    "messages": [{
      "role": "user",
      "content": [
        { "type": "image_url",
          "image_url": { "url": "data:image/jpeg;base64,<RECEIPT_IMAGE>" } },
        { "type": "text", "text": "Free OCR." }
      ]
    }]
  }'

05 · Platform API

Platform API v1 Coming soon · Phase 2

The REST API that lets any business issue receipts on the network. This is a preview of the planned v1 surface — names may shift before launch, and the base URL will be announced with Phase 2.

• POST /v1/receipts create a receipt (and optionally deliver it)
• GET /v1/receipts/{id} retrieve a receipt
• POST /v1/receipt-links mint a share link / QR for a receipt
• POST /v1/refunds attach a full or partial refund
• POST /v1/customers register a customer identifier for delivery
• POST /v1/webhooks subscribe to events
• POST /v1/verify verify a receipt's signature hash

The receipt object

Designed to outlive the purchase: line items carry warranty and serial numbers, totals carry tax lines, and every receipt can be signed and verified.

Planned receipt object

{
  "id": "rcpt_9f2c1e7a4b",
  "merchant": {
    "id": "mer_seaside_grill",
    "name": "Seaside Grill",
    "tax_id": "LK-99887766",
    "location": "12 Marine Drive, Colombo"
  },
  "customer": {
    "email": "ayesha@example.com",
    "phone": null,
    "snaptab_id": "usr_k3n9…"
  },
  "items": [
    {
      "sku": "GRL-042",
      "name": "Grilled prawns",
      "qty": 2,
      "unit_price": 2450.00,
      "warranty": null,
      "serial": null
    },
    {
      "sku": "APP-011",
      "name": "Bluetooth speaker",
      "qty": 1,
      "unit_price": 8900.00,
      "warranty": { "months": 24, "expires_at": "2028-07-29" },
      "serial": "SPK-77219-A"
    }
  ],
  "totals": {
    "subtotal": 13800.00,
    "tax_lines": [
      { "name": "VAT 18%", "amount": 2484.00 }
    ],
    "total": 16284.00,
    "currency": "LKR"
  },
  "payments": [
    { "method": "card", "brand": "visa", "last4": "4242", "amount": 16284.00 }
  ],
  "refunds": [],
  "issued_at": "2026-07-29T13:05:12Z",
  "signature": "sha256:7c1e0b…"
}

The 15-minute integration

One authenticated call creates the receipt and delivers it to the customer's Snaptab inbox (falling back to a share link when they're not on the network yet):

curl — create & deliver a receipt (planned)

curl https://api.snaptab.glitchfy.com/v1/receipts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: order-10245" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "customer": { "email": "ayesha@example.com" },
    "items": [
      { "name": "Bluetooth speaker", "qty": 1, "unit_price": 8900.00,
        "warranty": { "months": 24 }, "serial": "SPK-77219-A" }
    ],
    "totals": { "subtotal": 8900.00,
                "tax_lines": [{ "name": "VAT 18%", "amount": 1602.00 }],
                "total": 10502.00, "currency": "LKR" },
    "payments": [{ "method": "card", "last4": "4242", "amount": 10502.00 }],
    "deliver": true
  }'

06 · Events

Webhooks Coming soon

Subscribe once with POST /v1/webhooks and receive signed events as receipts move through their lifecycle:

• receipt.created
• receipt.delivered
• receipt.viewed
• receipt.refunded
• receipt.revoked
• link.created
• link.revoked
• customer.created

Deliveries will be HMAC-signed so your servers can verify each event's origin (see Security & privacy).

07 · AI agents

MCP server Coming soon · Phase 5

MCP — the Model Context Protocol — is an open standard that lets AI assistants such as Claude connect to external tools and data sources. An official Snaptab MCP server will let AI agents use the receipt network as a first-class tool: your assistant will be able to file an expense, check a warranty, or pull last quarter's receipts on your behalf — with your permission, against your own data.

Planned capabilities:

• generate_receipt
• retrieve_receipt
• verify_receipt
• search_receipts
• export_receipts
• generate_pdf

08 · Ecosystem

SDKs & plugins Coming soon

Planned SDKs

• Node / TypeScript
• Python
• Java / Kotlin
• Swift
• .NET
• PHP
• Go
• Ruby
• Flutter
• React Native

Planned commerce plugins

Drop-in receipt delivery for the platforms merchants already use:

• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• Magento
• Stripe
• Square
• Toast
• Lightspeed
• …and more

Want an SDK or plugin prioritised? Tell us what you'd build.

09 · Trust

Security & privacy

Live today In production

• Token-capability links — a share is reachable only by its unguessable 128-bit token. Documents are get-only by exact ID; there is no list or enumeration path.
• Owner-only writes — security rules allow only the authenticated owner to create, update, or delete their shares. Public access is read-only.
• Instant revocation — deleting a share removes the document; the link dies immediately.
• Minimal payloads — only the fields shown in the share pipeline are ever published. Photos, GPS coordinates and raw OCR text never leave the device.
• No data selling, ever — no ads, no tracking, no analytics on shared receipts.
• GDPR / CCPA-ready posture — offline-first by default, explicit opt-in for any cloud storage, user-initiated deletion of shares and accounts, and a documented data-deletion path.

Planned With the API

• Receipt signatures — issuer-signed hashes with POST /v1/verify, so any party can prove a receipt is genuine and unaltered.
• OAuth2 for merchant applications, scoped API keys for servers.
• HMAC-signed webhooks and idempotency keys on all mutating endpoints.

10 · Where this goes

Roadmap

1. 1
   Foundation

   Offline-first app, on-device OCR + AI, share links & QR codes, public receipt viewer, instant revocation.

   Live
2. 2
   Developer platform

   Platform API v1, API keys, webhooks, sandbox environment, first SDKs.

   Next
3. 3
   Merchant platform

   Commerce & POS plugins, merchant dashboard, receipt delivery at checkout.

   Planned
4. 4
   Global network

   A customer-owned receipt inbox across every merchant, cross-border currencies, warranties and returns built on receipts.

   Planned
5. 5
   Open standard

   The receipt schema and verification published as an open specification, plus the official Snaptab MCP server for AI agents.

   Planned

11 · Get involved

Contact & early access

Building a store, a POS, an accounting tool, or an AI agent that should speak receipts? We're onboarding early merchants and developers now — early partners get direct input on the v1 API.