# Reveal vs Hubdoc: what Xero practices should know

> Hubdoc collects documents emailed, photographed or uploaded to it. Reveal retrieves them from the client's inbox and supplier portals. How they differ.

By [Miles Udemezue](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ude), Reveal. Published 2 October 2026.
Canonical: https://www.revealos.com/insights/reveal-vs-hubdoc

Hubdoc and Reveal both get invoices and receipts into Xero, but they work in opposite directions. Hubdoc collects documents that are sent to it: emailed to the client's Hubdoc address, photographed in the mobile app or uploaded. Reveal retrieves: once the client approves access, it goes to their inbox and supplier portals, finds the evidence for each transaction and links it to the payment.

Hubdoc is owned by Xero and built around it. Reveal works with Xero and with other ledgers.

## At a glance

| | Hubdoc | Reveal |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from | A document someone sends | A transaction that needs evidence |
| What the client does | Emails, photographs or uploads each document, or sets up auto-forwarding | Approves access once, from a link. No app, no account |
| Email | Sent or auto-forwarded to the client's Hubdoc address | Read-only retrieval from the client-approved mailbox |
| Supplier portals | Portal-login fetch retired in 2022; a few direct connections remain | Amazon Business today; other portals after a one-day review |
| Other sources | Mobile app, upload | WhatsApp Business, OneDrive, SharePoint, uploads |
| Ledgers | Xero | Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Zoho and others |

## How Hubdoc works

Clients or their suppliers send documents to a dedicated Hubdoc email address, photograph paper in the mobile app or upload scans. Hubdoc reads them and publishes them to Xero.

Hubdoc used to log in to supplier portals to fetch bills. Xero retired those "standard fetch" connections in April 2022, saying they had become outdated and were often blocked by banks and suppliers. Xero said direct connections through APIs, such as Stripe, would carry on, but for most UK practices, documents now reach Hubdoc because someone sends them.

## How Reveal works

The client clicks a link and connects their email. There's no app to download and no account to create. Reveal reads the mailbox read-only, to recognise receipts and invoices: it can't send, change or delete anything, and the practice sees only the financial documents it retrieves, never the inbox. Supplier portals are connected once, and some ask the client to complete a security step.

For each transaction, Reveal finds the evidence, links it to the payment and shows why it matched and where it came from. It extracts the details and suggests a treatment, but it doesn't decide. Your team reviews it before it goes to the ledger. When nothing is found, the transaction is marked not found rather than filled with a guess.

## The real difference: who does the work

Hubdoc's email address and auto-forwarding rules work well for suppliers who email the same way every month. Everything else still depends on the client: forwarding the one-off invoice, photographing the receipt, logging in to download a bill. That's where the chasing comes from.

Reveal starts from the transaction that's missing evidence and looks for it where it already is, so the client doesn't have to send it.

## Can you use both?

Yes. Hubdoc can keep handling regular suppliers that email it and the paper clients photograph, while Reveal retrieves what never arrives. Decide which tool owns which suppliers so nothing reaches Xero twice.

## Which should you choose?

- **Hubdoc**, if your clients' suppliers email reliably and your clients forward what's left.
- **Reveal**, if your bottleneck is missing evidence from clients who don't send things, or you need it across more than one ledger.

## Sources

- [Changes to how documents are imported into Hubdoc](https://blog.xero.com/product-updates/hubdoc-importing-docs-changing/), Xero
- [Integrations](https://www.revealos.com/integrations) and [Trust Centre](https://www.revealos.com/trust), Reveal

Checked on 2 October 2026. Products change: if anything here is out of date, tell us at hello@revealos.com and we'll correct it.