Updated July 2026 · written by a vendor, priced honestly
Xero Smart Document Capture vs Hubdoc: what you get, what's still missing
When Xero retired Hubdoc on May 8, 2026, existing documents went to storage-only Xero Files, and the forward-looking answer became Smart Document Capture — Xero's native AI scanner. If your whole Hubdoc use was "scan my own receipts into my own Xero," it may be all you need, and it's free. If you run a bookkeeping practice, it replaces one of Hubdoc's four jobs. Here's the honest breakdown.
Full disclosure: we make Sorted Receipts, which covers the jobs Smart Document Capture doesn't. Details below are as published or as practitioners report them as of July 2026 — the rollout is moving, so check your own region. Corrections to [email protected].
What Smart Document Capture does
Inside a Xero organization, it reads an uploaded or emailed document and drafts the transaction — supplier, date, amount — for that organization's books. It's free (for now), it lives where the ledger lives, and there's nothing extra to buy or bolt on. For a business owner doing their own books in Xero, that's a real Hubdoc successor.
Two caveats practitioners keep hitting. First, the rollout is uneven between regions — UK users report line-item extraction while US users report a single line and no GL suggestions, which looks like staged A/B rollout. Second, it's Xero-only by definition: QuickBooks clients, Desktop clients, and plain-folder clients get nothing.
The three Hubdoc jobs it doesn't do
- Client collection. Hubdoc gave every client a simple place to dump documents. Smart Document Capture assumes the document already reached the right Xero org — the getting-it-there problem, the one that actually eats your month-end, is back on email.
- A practice-wide view. Hubdoc let a bookkeeper see all clients' documents in one place. Smart Document Capture is per organization: thirty clients means thirty places to check, with no cross-client review pile.
- Chasing. Nothing flags that a recurring vendor's invoice hasn't arrived, and nothing reminds the client. Hubdoc didn't chase either — but its auto-fetch quietly made a lot of chasing unnecessary, and that's gone too.
Side by side, for a practice
| Hubdoc (retired) | Smart Document Capture | Sorted Receipts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free with Xero | Free (for now) | Flat $29/$59/$99 |
| Client upload point | Yes — per-client inbox | Per-org email/upload | One private link per client, no login |
| All clients in one view | Yes | No — per organization | Yes — sorted by month/vendor/type |
| Chases missing documents | No (auto-fetch reduced the need) | No | Yes — reminders under your name |
| Works outside Xero | QBO too | No | Yes — CSV + renamed originals for QBO, Desktop, Xero, folders |
| Extraction | Header-level | Region-uneven, improving | Header-level, confidence-flagged review pile |
The practical read
Keep Smart Document Capture switched on for your Xero clients — it's free and it drafts transactions where you'd otherwise type them. Treat it as the extraction layer. What it leaves open for a practice is the collection layer: one place per client to dump things, one sorted view across all of them, and someone (or something) chasing the gaps. That layer is what Sorted Receipts is — and the two coexist fine, because our export hands you a CSV plus renamed originals you can feed to any ledger, Xero included.
Questions people search
Is Xero Smart Document Capture free?
As of July 2026, yes — it's included with Xero, though practitioners widely expect it to be monetized eventually. Features differ noticeably by region during the rollout.
Can Smart Document Capture replace Hubdoc for a bookkeeping practice?
It replaces the extraction step inside each Xero org. It doesn't give clients an upload point, doesn't show your clients in one view, doesn't chase, and doesn't help non-Xero clients — those were the practice-facing parts of Hubdoc.
What happened to documents that were in Hubdoc?
Xero migrated them to Xero Files as flat storage. They're accessible, but the fetch connections, rules, and automation are gone.