It’s mid-October. If you’re a freelancer or sole proprietor in Japan, you probably have a pile of receipts somewhere: an envelope, a drawer, a tote bag. It has been growing since January. Filing season for the tax return (確定申告) is still a few months away, so the pile hasn’t felt urgent yet. That changes fast in February.
This post is about Reshito, the AI receipt scanner we built at BenStay. The first half is about the backlog itself and how to clear it, whatever tool you use, because the method matters more than the software.
Every February I see the same thing on social media. Freelancers in Japan photograph a shoebox of crumpled receipts and post “確定申告、地獄” with a crying emoji. I used to be one of them. My first filing as a sole proprietor took three full weekends, and most of that time went on reconstructing things I could have written down in October.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the filing window (usually mid-February to mid-March) is when you report your year. October to December is when you can still change it. If you run a guesthouse or freelance in Japan, the next twelve weeks matter more than the filing season itself.