Money Vault vs Dext: Personal AI Tracker or Business Receipt Tool?

Dext (you might remember it as Receipt Bank) is built for businesses. Accountants love it. It scans receipts, extracts data, and pushes everything straight into Xero or QuickBooks. Money Vault is built for you, personally. Voice commands, receipt scanning, an AI that answers spending questions. These apps look similar on the surface, but they're solving completely different problems.

Quick Overview

Dext started life as Receipt Bank back in 2010, rebranding in 2020. It's a document management tool for businesses that happens to be really good at reading receipts. You snap a photo (or forward an email), and Dext extracts the supplier, date, amount, tax, and payment method. Then it pushes that data into your accounting software. The whole point is to eliminate manual bookkeeping.

It's powerful. It's also $20 or more per month and clearly designed for people who know what a chart of accounts is.

Money Vault takes a consumer-first approach. Say "lunch 12.50 at the Thai place" and it's logged with the right category. Scan a receipt from the grocery store and every item gets pulled in. Ask the AI "what did I spend on transport this week?" and get a real answer. No accounting degree required. No QuickBooks setup. Just open the app and start tracking.

Who Each App Is For

This is really the whole comparison in a nutshell.

Dext is for:

• Small business owners who need to track expenses for tax purposes
• Freelancers who send receipts to an accountant
• Teams that need approval workflows for expense claims
• Anyone who already uses Xero, QuickBooks, or Sage

Money Vault is for:

• People who want to know where their money goes each month
• Travelers juggling multiple currencies
• Anyone who's tried manual expense tracking and quit after two weeks
• People who want to track spending without creating a business account

If you're a freelancer using Dext to scan client receipts for your accountant, great. But if you're also wondering "how much am I personally spending on eating out?" Dext won't help with that. That's a different app for a different question.

Receipt Scanning

Both apps scan receipts, but the approach is different.

Dext has been doing receipt OCR for over 15 years. It's very good at it. It reads supplier names, line items, tax breakdowns, and currency. You can also email receipts directly to a Dext inbox address, and they get processed automatically. For high-volume receipt processing (think 200+ receipts a month), Dext's workflow is hard to beat.

Money Vault uses Apple's Vision framework for on-device OCR. It reads totals, dates, merchant names, and individual line items. It's fast and works offline, which means your receipt photos never leave your phone. The accuracy is good for personal use, handling grocery receipts, restaurant bills, and standard retail receipts without issues.

Where Dext pulls ahead: handling invoices, international tax formats, and bulk processing from email. Where Money Vault pulls ahead: privacy (everything stays on-device), speed for personal use, and the fact that you don't need to pay $20/month to scan a grocery receipt.

Integrations and Workflow

Dext connects to Xero, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Sage, FreeAgent, and a few others. It maps expenses to the right accounts, matches them with bank transactions, and handles tax codes. If you're running a business, this stuff matters. It also has team features: approval workflows, multi-user access, and client management for accountants handling multiple businesses.

Money Vault doesn't integrate with accounting software, and that's by design. It's a personal finance tool. You get categories, spending charts, an AI assistant, and data export. The workflow is simpler because the use case is simpler. You're not filing expense reports or reconciling bank feeds. You're just tracking what you spend.

Personal Expense Tracking, Made Simple

Voice input, receipt scanning, and AI chat. No accounting software required.

Feature Comparison

Pricing

Dext doesn't really do free. There's a trial period, but after that you're looking at plans starting around $20/month for a single user. The price goes up with more users, more document processing, and additional features. For an accountant managing 10 clients, you could be paying $50-100/month easily. It's a business expense, and businesses expect to pay for tools like this.

Money Vault is free for core features: voice input, receipt scanning, manual entry, categories, and basic statistics. Premium unlocks AI chat, advanced analytics, and extra features. The free tier covers everything most personal users need.

The price gap here is massive. $240+ per year for Dext vs. $0 for Money Vault's core. But that's comparing a business tool to a personal one. If you need accounting integration and team features, Dext's price is standard for the category. If you just want to track personal spending, paying $20/month for a business tool is like renting a dump truck to move a couch.

Final Verdict

• Choose Dext if you run a business, work with an accountant, or need to push receipt data into Xero/QuickBooks. It's a legitimate business tool with 15 years of OCR experience and accounting integrations that actually work.
• Choose Money Vault if you want to track personal expenses with voice, scanning, and AI. It's free, private, works offline, and doesn't require you to set up a business account or connect accounting software.

These apps aren't really competitors. They serve different audiences with different needs. Dext is an accounting tool that happens to scan receipts. Money Vault is a personal finance app that happens to scan receipts. If you're reading this comparison because you googled "receipt scanning app," the right choice depends entirely on whether you need the data for business bookkeeping or personal awareness.

Try Money Vault Free

Voice tracking, receipt scanning, AI chat, 50+ currencies. No account required.