I have updated and checked the info on a receipt photo but, it there is no transaction to attach it to, will it automatically update? Or do I need to manually create a new expense?

Hello griffiths-braden,

It sounds like you're using the Receipts feature in QuickBooks Self-Employed to speed up your data-entry for your expense transactions. It's a useful feature gives you the opportunity to take or upload an image of your expense receipt and then the program will pull details from it to help you create an expense. I can go over this with you so that you know how to work with this feature and attach receipts.

The Receipts feature is used to create a brand new transaction and is designed to review the image details to help you more quickly create the entry, as I described above. When you use this feature to create a new transaction, the image will then be included with it as an attachment when you're done.

To include images of receipts with existing transactions, the steps are slightly different. I've got a great article here that explains both of these options: Record or attach expense receipts in QuickBooks Self-Employed

With these things in mind, if your transaction doesn't already exist in your books, go ahead with the Receipts feature, but if your transaction does already exist, you'll want to use the second option to attach an image to an existing entry. That way, you can be sure you're not accidentally duplicating the numbers in your books.

Take a moment to review those details and feel free to reply here if you have further questions. I'm here to help!