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· 5 min read

Reveal vs William (Apron): two ways to retrieve receipts

William and Reveal both search client inboxes for missing receipts. The differences: sources, ledgers, who makes the call, and Apron's new pricing.

Miles Udemezue, Reveal
Inbox search

Searches Gmail and Outlook for missing receipts.

  1. A transaction is missing its receipt
  2. William searches the connected Gmail or Outlook
  3. It extracts and categorises the document
  4. On the top plan, it publishes on its own when confident
Reveal
Retrieval

Retrieves from every approved source, and suggests rather than decides.

  1. A transaction is missing its invoice or receipt
  2. Reveal retrieves it from the client's approved sources
  3. It links it to the payment and suggests a treatment
  4. Your team reviews it, and it goes to the ledger

William, Apron’s AI bookkeeping agent, and Reveal take the same basic approach: instead of waiting for clients to send receipts, both look for them in the client’s inbox. The differences are in where they look, which ledgers they work with, and what they’re part of.

William’s published pages describe Gmail and Outlook, publishing to Xero or QuickBooks, inside Apron’s wider platform. Reveal also retrieves from other mail providers, supplier portals, WhatsApp Business, OneDrive and SharePoint, and works with Sage, FreeAgent, Zoho and other ledgers as well as Xero and QuickBooks.

At a glance

William (Apron) Reveal
Approach Searches connected inboxes for missing receipts and invoices Retrieves evidence for each transaction from client-approved sources
Email Gmail and Outlook Gmail, Outlook / Microsoft 365, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and IMAP, read-only
Supplier portals Not described on William’s pages Amazon Business today; other portals after a one-day review
Other sources Not described on William’s pages WhatsApp Business, OneDrive, SharePoint, uploads
Ledgers Xero or QuickBooks Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Zoho and others
When it’s unsure Holds the document for review, with its reasoning Marks it for review, with the reason for the match; not found rather than guessed
Decisions Categorises, and auto-publishes when confident on the top plan Suggests a treatment; your team decides, or you set rules (for example known suppliers under an amount)
Part of Apron, which is regulated by the FCA as an electronic money institution A standalone product from Reveal Technologies Ltd
Pricing Per client, from 1 December 2026: £5, £11 or £21 a month Free first retrieval, then £790 a year for up to 25 clients, or £1,490 for up to 75

How William works

When a transaction is missing its receipt, William searches the client’s connected Gmail or Outlook for it. It extracts the details, categorises the document using the chart of accounts, past coding and the firm’s own rules, and publishes it to Xero or QuickBooks. When it’s confident, it can publish on its own; when it isn’t, it holds the document for review and explains why. Apron says email contents are never visible to anyone.

Apron offers it to practices for their clients, as well as to finance teams and business owners.

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, unless you’ve set a rule to send it automatically. When nothing is found, the transaction is marked not found rather than filled with a guess.

Where they differ

Sources. A lot of missing evidence never reaches an inbox. Amazon Business orders sit in a portal, and receipts get sent over WhatsApp or saved to OneDrive. William’s pages describe email. Reveal treats email as one source among several.

Ledgers. William publishes to Xero or QuickBooks. If some of your clients are on Sage, FreeAgent or Zoho, Reveal covers them too.

Decisions. William categorises each document, and on Apron’s top plan it publishes on its own when it’s confident. Reveal extracts the details and suggests a treatment, and your team makes the call. That’s a review step William can skip, in exchange for nothing reaching the ledger that your team hasn’t approved, item by item or through rules you set.

Platform. William sits inside Apron, alongside payments tools such as payroll payments and expense cards. Reveal does one job, evidence retrieval, and hands it to whichever ledger the client uses.

Price. Apron’s pricing changes on 1 December 2026. Today its Capture plan is £5 per client a month, capped at £199 a month until a practice reaches 200 clients. From December, bookkeeping is priced per client with no cap shown:

Apron plan (from 1 Dec 2026) Per client, a month William documents Also
Books core £5 100 a month, then 20p each No inbox included: £5 a month each
Books plus £11 250 a month, then 10p each One inbox
Books max £21 1,000 a month, then 5p each One inbox; publishes on its own

For 25 clients on Books plus, that’s £275 a month, or £3,300 a year; on Books max, £6,300 a year. Apron’s Books Club partners get up to 30% off. Reveal is £790 a year for up to 25 clients, or £1,490 for up to 75.

Which should you choose?

  • William, if your clients are on Xero or QuickBooks, their evidence mostly lands in Gmail or Outlook, and you already use Apron or want to.
  • Reveal, if evidence is spread beyond email, across supplier portals, WhatsApp and shared drives, your clients use more than one ledger, you want your team to make the final call, or per-client pricing adds up across your practice.

Sources

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.