SparkReceipt Help

How do I mass upload many receipts at once, and how long does it take?

Mass upload in the web app takes up to 100 files per batch and scans them in the background. You choose the document type during upload, and set Category and Tags afterwards with bulk actions. Covers progress, stuck batches and cancelling an import.

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Written by SparkReceipt TeamUpdated Oct 12, 2026

Mass upload lets you add up to 100 files in one batch in the web app. Click Mass upload in the sidebar, or click Add documents and choose Upload many documents at once. Drag and drop your files onto the upload area or click it to pick them, choose what to import them as under Import files into, and click Start processing. SparkReceipt then scans each file in the background and creates one document per file.

Mass upload is a web app feature. In the mobile app you add documents one at a time. See Can I mass upload receipts that are photos on my phone?

Step by step

  1. In the web app sidebar, click Mass upload. The Mass upload documents page opens.
  2. Drag and drop files onto the upload area, or click it to choose files. Each file can be up to 24 MB. See File format and max file size for upload for the formats.
  3. Under Import files into, choose the document type (see below).
  4. Click Start processing.

If your remaining scans and credits can't cover 100 documents, the page lowers the file limit to what you have left and tells you so.

What "Import files into" means

Import files into sets the document type for the whole batch. The options are:

  • Automatic: the AI decides for each file whether it's an expense, income, a statement or another document.
  • Expenses
  • Income
  • Statements
  • Documents

Any document types your account has added also appear in the list. If you have Accountant access without raised permissions, you can only upload Statements here.

Can I set a Category or Tags during mass upload?

No. Mass upload only lets you choose the document type. Your own Categories (your chart of accounts) and Tags don't appear in Import files into, because that list is for document types, not Categories. The AI picks a Category for each expense as it scans it.

To give the whole batch the same Category or Tag, do it right after the upload:

  1. Open Documents.
  2. Filter the list to the batch, for example with Submitted date set to the day you uploaded and Source set to File upload.
  3. Tick the documents, or use Select all.
  4. Open Actions and choose Set category or Assign tags. For tags you can choose Add to existing or Replace all.

If you upload the same kind of receipts regularly, an Auto-assign details automation can set the Category or Tags for you whenever a document from a given Merchant arrives. See How to set up automations in SparkReceipt.

How long does a mass upload take?

There are two stages.

1. Uploading the files from your browser. Keep the page open until every file shows as uploaded. When they're done you'll see "Files uploaded — extraction begins shortly". If you close the tab before that, the batch is saved as Not started. Open Mass upload again and click Start on it, or delete it.

2. Scanning on our servers. After that, you can close the browser. Files in a batch are scanned one after another, so a batch of 30 files takes longer than a single upload, and timing depends on how busy the queue is. Only a few batches per account scan at the same time (normally two). Further batches wait until one finishes.

Follow the progress in the Previous mass upload tasks list on the Mass upload documents page. Click View results on a batch to see each file's status (Queued, Analyzing, Completed or Duplicate) and open the documents already created. The In progress card on the Overview page also shows how many files have been scanned.

My mass upload seems stuck

  • The batch says Not started. The upload finished but processing never began, usually because the tab was closed early. Click Start.
  • Some files failed. Open the batch with View results and click Retry failed, or Retry this item on a single file. Files that didn't upload at all can be retried with Retry uploads.
  • You ran out of scans. Files after that point aren't processed, and the batch says you've used up your document scans. Get more scans or credits, then retry.
  • The count hasn't moved for a long time. SparkReceipt checks for batches that have stopped making progress and restarts them automatically, so a batch that stalls usually starts moving again within an hour or two. If nothing has changed after a couple of hours, contact support and tell us when you started the upload and how many files it had.

How do I cancel an import?

There's no pause or cancel button for a mass upload that's already processing. To stop it, delete the batch:

  1. Open Mass upload.
  2. In Previous mass upload tasks, select the batch and click Delete tasks, or delete it from its own row.
  3. In Delete task?, tick Also move all resulting documents to trash if you also want to remove the documents it has already created.

Files that hadn't been processed yet are removed with the batch. Without the tick box, documents that were already created stay in your account, and you can trash them later.

Can I cancel all pending extractions at once?

No. There's no single button that stops everything in progress. Stop each one where it runs:

The In progress card on the Overview page lists what's running, but it has no actions. Use it to jump to each item and stop it there.