Bronte Bay CPA Professional Corporation — Hubdoc Partner · Toronto & Vancouver
Short answer: Hubdoc eliminates the receipt shoebox. It captures bills and receipts by phone photo, email, or automatic supplier fetch — extracts the key data, and pushes everything pre-coded to Xero. At Bronte Bay, every monthly bookkeeping client uses Hubdoc. It is the single tool that most dramatically reduces the time our clients spend on bookkeeping admin.
The average small business owner spends 3–5 hours per month manually filing receipts, logging into supplier portals to download invoices, and entering bill details into their accounting software. Hubdoc eliminates all of it — automatically capturing, reading, and publishing documents to Xero without any manual effort.
As a Hubdoc partner, Bronte Bay sets up and manages Hubdoc for every monthly bookkeeping client. Here is exactly what it does and why it matters for your business.
Photograph a receipt, invoice, or bill with the Hubdoc mobile app on your iPhone or Android. Hubdoc’s OCR (optical character recognition) reads the document, extracts the vendor name, date, amount, and tax, and pushes it to Xero pre-coded — with the image attached to the transaction. The paper receipt can be discarded.
Hubdoc creates a unique email address for your account (e.g., yourbusiness@hubdoc.com). Forward any supplier invoice or bill to that address and Hubdoc processes it automatically — extracting data, applying the correct account code, and publishing to Xero. Set up email forwarding rules in Gmail or Outlook to automate this for specific suppliers.
Connect your supplier accounts once — Hubdoc then logs into those portals automatically each month and retrieves your invoices and statements without any action from you. For businesses with recurring monthly bills from the same suppliers, this is the most powerful feature: your bills simply appear in Xero every month without anyone touching them.
Every document captured by Hubdoc — however it arrives — is published to Xero as a bill or expense claim, pre-coded with the correct account, tax code, and contact. Your bookkeeper reviews and approves in Xero. The source document is stored in Hubdoc, permanently linked to the Xero transaction. Nothing is lost and every transaction has a document trail.
Hubdoc connects to hundreds of Canadian and international supplier portals. Here are the most commonly used auto-fetch connections for Canadian small businesses:
Any supplier not on the auto-fetch list can be handled by email forwarding or mobile photo — so every document type is covered regardless of the supplier.
Every bill or receipt captured by Hubdoc is a transaction that does not need to be typed into Xero. For a business receiving 50 supplier invoices per month, Hubdoc eliminates 50 manual data entry tasks — and the errors that come with them. The time saved translates directly to lower bookkeeping costs or more time for your bookkeeper to focus on review and analysis rather than data entry.
The most common bookkeeping problem we see at Bronte Bay is the year-end receipt dump — a folder, box, or email thread full of receipts that need to be sorted, entered, and reconciled in a rush before tax filing. With Hubdoc, receipts are captured and processed as they arrive throughout the year. There is no year-end backlog because there is no year-end backlog to create.
The CRA requires businesses to keep source documents (receipts, invoices, bank statements) for 6 years from the end of the tax year to which they relate. Hubdoc stores every document in a searchable, organized digital archive linked to the corresponding Xero transaction. If selected for a CRA review, you can produce any document in seconds. The CRA accepts digital copies as long as they are legible and complete.
Hubdoc’s HQ Activity Feed notifies your accounting team when new documents arrive — so your bookkeeper and Bronte Bay CPA are always working from the same current information. No more emails asking “can you send me the receipt for that Amazon charge?” Every document is in Hubdoc, linked to the Xero transaction, accessible by everyone with access.
📋 CPA Note: The business that benefits most from Hubdoc is one where the owner is constantly out — meeting clients, visiting job sites, travelling. Before Hubdoc, those owners would accumulate weeks of receipts in their wallet or glove compartment and hand them to their bookkeeper in a stack. With Hubdoc, they photograph each receipt as it happens and it is in Xero before they reach the parking lot. At Bronte Bay, we see Hubdoc reduce bookkeeping time by 30–50% for clients who implement it properly from day one.
| Task | Without Hubdoc | With Hubdoc |
|---|---|---|
| Capturing a receipt | Keep the paper; file physically or scan later; enter data manually into Xero | Photograph with phone; Hubdoc reads it and pushes to Xero automatically |
| Monthly supplier invoices | Log into each supplier portal; download PDF; email to bookkeeper; bookkeeper enters into Xero | Hubdoc fetches automatically; publishes to Xero pre-coded; no action required |
| Emailed invoices | Save attachment; forward to bookkeeper; bookkeeper enters manually | Forward to Hubdoc address; processed and in Xero automatically |
| Year-end document gathering | Hours of sorting physical receipts and reconstructing records | Every document already in Hubdoc, linked to Xero, searchable |
| CRA audit response | Days of hunting through files, email, and boxes | Any document found in seconds via Hubdoc search |
| Bookkeeping cost | Higher — bookkeeper spends more time on data entry | Lower — bookkeeper spends time on review, not entry |
Hubdoc setup, supplier connection, and Xero integration are included in every Bronte Bay monthly bookkeeping engagement. You do not need to figure out the configuration yourself — we handle it, connect your suppliers, and train you on the mobile app in your first onboarding session. Book a consultation to see the full workflow and what it costs.
Related reading from Bronte Bay: Xero Accounting Partner · Plooto Payments · Rotessa Pre-authorized Debits · Accounting Automation for Canadian Small Businesses · Monthly Bookkeeping Packages