Welcome
Outlay Documentation
Outlay is the unified platform for automated receipt extraction, corporate spend management, and intelligent accounting sync built specifically for Indian businesses. This comprehensive guide covers everything from setting up your first workspace to configuring advanced GST integrations.
Need developer API docs?
If you are looking to integrate Outlay's extraction engine directly into your own software using our REST APIs, please visit our API Reference portal.
What is Outlay?
Traditional expense management relies on employees hoarding paper receipts and manual data entry by accountants. Outlay automates this entirely using multi-modal AI to parse Indian merchant receipts, extracting the merchant name, totals, and even the GSTIN with 99% accuracy.
- AI-Powered Extraction: Snap a photo, forward an email, or send a WhatsApp message. We handle the rest.
- Corporate Virtual Cards: Issue virtual cards to your team with strict spend limits to avoid out-of-pocket expenses entirely.
- Automated GST ITC: Our engine automatically matches your Input Tax Credit to the MCA database, generating ready-to-file Tally XML reports.
Core Concepts
Before diving into the quickstart, it is helpful to understand the basic primitives of Outlay:
Workspaces
The billing and management silo for a single company. You can invite multiple team members to a workspace.
Handlers
Accountants or admins who have been granted permission to view and manage expenses across multiple workspaces.