NeatReceipts Professional Mobile Receipt and Document Scanner and Software Combination Version 3.0
by NeatReceipts
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List Price: Our Price: $179.95 You Save: $70.00 (28%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Office Product See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of NeatReceipts Professional Mobile Receipt and Document Scanner and Software Combination Version 3.0
Customer Review: Where has this product been all my life?
Summary: 5 Stars
As one who runs his own home based business, I accumulate a ton or receipts each year. Not only do the receipts take up their fair share of space, but they also, thanks to thermal paper, seem to "disappear" as time goes on. OK, maybe the paper doesn't disappear, but the writing on the paper does. And what good is a receipt that can't be read at tax time?
I began using the Neat Receipts Pro in late 2006 and haven't looked back since.
The software is intuitive. You create a category (let's say "Office Supplies" or "Fuel" or "Client Entertainment") and then just scan the receipts after hooking up the scanner via your PC's USB port. Scanning involves feeding the receipt into the scanner, waiting a few seconds and then seeing the receipt on-screen. For the most part, the software is pretty good at deciphering what the receipt says, including the sales tax and the total. It does have issues with the vendor at times, since many stores like to use their logo instead of writing out their store name. If there is any information that the software didn't "read", it's just a matter of typing it in manually, which takes no time at all.
Once you have created all of your categories (and you can create both business and personal categories, and label them as such), and you've scanned your first batch of receipts, looking up a receipt takes no time at all. Simply highlight the category and look for the receipt, which is arranged chronologically. If you need a reprint of the receipt, simply select "Print" and it will print it out original size. You can also export to PDF, which is a feature added in the latest software release.
In addition to receipts, you can also scan in documents for putting into a "digital safe". The software categorizes those items also.
I save up my receipts for the week and scan them on Sundays. Once I'm done with the scanning, the best part is coming up: the big pile of receipts gets shredded! Everything is stored on the PC. Obviously its a good idea to create a backup of your receipts and the program has that feature built in also. Since all of the receipts and documents are stored in a database, you simply select "Tools" from the menu, then "Database", then "Backup" and it backs up everything into your My Documents\NeatReceipts folder. I then backup to an external drive nightly. Quarterly I copy the backup to a DVD and place it into a safe.
The Neat Receipts program also scans business cards and transfers the contact information, another neat feature (I see where they get their name now!).
The IRS accepts the receipts in digital format, so there is no issue come tax time.
Bottom line, if you like to have your life organized, and you don't like to have a ton of receipts taking up space, this is one of the best investments you can make.
Customer Review: I love neat receipts
Summary: 5 Stars
This thing is amazing. In an attempt to become organized I have been trying out new software and methods lately. After some research I decided to give this little gizmo a try. I figured if I hated it I could always return it. No such chance! I'm in love with this thing.
Anyway here it goes.... This thing slices, it dices, it does it all. It's so easy to learn that anyone can get the hang of it.
It has three sections. One for receipts, one for 'documents' and one for business cards. Each section lets me create folders. I created folders like 'Ty's Tax Write-offs' and 'Electronics' and 'Home Improvement' in the receipts section.
I click on a 'Folder' and place the receipt in the scanner and hit scan. It pulls the receipt through. It recognizes over 1500 major retailers like Best Buy, Target, etc. If it doesn't recognize it, you type in the business name. Here's a cool feature; the next time you scan a receipt from that company the thing recognizes the receipt and names it by the correct business.
It picks out the tax, the total amount on the receipt and then reads all the remaining text and it indexes it.
This means that if I bought my ipod and scanned it I can type in 'ipod' or 'apple' and it finds the correct receipt. It's awesome. I have started scanning in all of our receipts past and present. Before we visited our accountant I scanned in all of our tax write-offs and ran a report on numbers.
You can click on a particular receipt and it brings up a copy of it. You can print it, pdf it, etc.
You can search by category, business name, amounts, anything.
The documents section is handy too. I'm scanning in all our loan documents, home documents, legal documents, extended warranty information, etc.
The program is amazing and in my opinion that is really what you're paying for is the program. The scanner is pretty great too though. It pulls through receipts of any size and shape with little problem.
Essentially what you're getting is an amazing high tech filing cabinet for $200.
To those that gave it low ratings... it's technology. No it's not perfect, but it's pretty darned nice for the price. I scanned in probably 60 receipts in the first hour and I was just learning how to use it. I would have spent that much time just filing them in a filing cabinet. I had few problems and overall it recognized probably 85% of the vendors and prices correctly.
Customer Review: It keeps getting better ....
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using the Neat Receipts product since its first release and with each subsequent release I can only say it just keeps getting better. The new scanner hardware is a great improvement on the earlier model and the changes to the database engine has made the day to day performance of the application rock solid. Though the OCR accuracy is not 100% it comes damn close considering the variety of receipt layouts and quality that I feed it. It does a superb job of recognizing and tagging the main data elements in a receipt and ignoring the individual line item amounts and sub-totals. It also does a great job of recognizing the form of payment and allowing the user to tie the receipt to a cash account or a particular credit card.
The software does have occasional difficulty with graphic logos on the receipts but the underlying intelligence will pick up the vendor name if it is somewhere else on the receipt. If there is no alternative to the graphic the field is left blank and highlighted. Since the image of the receipt is right next to the data it is a simple matter of reviewing and updating this field. The Neat Receipts software remembers vendors once they have been entered, so this edit is often as simple as entering the first few characters of the name and Neat Receipts will fill in the rest.
I use the product almost entirely for managing paper receipts for tax purposes. My accountant loves the fact that I no longer hand him a box of loose receipts. I now provide him with a printout of the receipts fully categorized. This alone has been worth the cost of the product many times over.
In addition to receipt scanning the application does a great job of scanning and managing business cards. In this area it is definately on par with other dedicated products that exist and is better than most.
Though document management is available as a feature of the product it is not the primary focus. The dpi quality of the scanner is sufficient to keep usable images of scanned documents and the software does a good job of categorizing and managing them. The dpi is also not so high that it creates a burden on processing overhead and storage that would come with a higher dpi.
I would highly recommend this product. There is nothing else out there that comes close to the features and sophistication of the Neat Receipts application.
Customer Review: 2 Year Update
Summary: 5 Stars
In March of 2006 I wrote this...
"I can hardly believe it. Just install it and it works! And boy, does it. A few years back all the rage in big corporations was "Optical Storage". (I know cause I was there) There wasn't anything "Optical" about the service but it did store a copy of the paper document and a system user could access one or thousands of documents by various standard fields; vendor, author, addressee, etc. and print one or all and get reports.
This gadget does the same thing. It's wonderful, even if you are only operating a small business. The only problem is I am having trouble remembering that I don't have to file and cross file every piece of paper after it is scaned. "
Since then the product has only improved. Reading the subsequent negative comments here I can only conclude that the users did not grasp the intent of the product (complaints about what the scanner would not do) or own a computer with a bad Windows install or too little memory.
Like any OCR program, it will not read every receipt with complete accuracy. One must review the information scanned from the receipt for accuracy. I too would estimate that the program is about 90% accurate.
I admit that since I use this in business, the "problem" of not importing electronic (PDF and such) receipts has never come up. I receive so few that I just print them when received and scan them later with all the other paper receipts each week.
I can say that in 2 and 1/2 years I have never had a "lock up" or lost any data. After a complete Windows failure last month I used the Windows "Repair" function three times and got Windows going again. Several programs that use OCR (Twain) no longer worked, including this one. One call to Neat and they e-mailed an automated fix... which fixed all the other programs as well. I cannot explain why others find their support sub par.
Since first using Neat, updates have improved speed and accuracy and I am looking forward the version 4, which promises the be even better.
Customer Review: A "Must Have" Little Gadget!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've owned this little mobile scanner and the related software for about two years now -- initially saw it advertised in an in-flight magazine and bought it from Amazon. While there are numerous mobile scanners available in the market, it's certainly the software that sets this one apart.
I'd go so far as to say that this little gadget now ranks on the indispensability scale right up there with TiVo, iPod and HDTV.
First, I DO NOT use it with a laptop, but have it mounted with my desktop -- it sits perfectly on TOP of my thin flat-screen Dell monitor, and the USB plugs into the back of the monitor (I DID purchase separately a left-hand USB cord for a more streamlined fit).
I scan just about everything now -- and rarely use my downstairs All-In-One scanner because this little gem pretty much does it all (except, of course, hi res photo scanning, etc.)
The software is robust and friendly, and the folks at Neat have continued to improve an already nice app. On those few occasions that I have had issues, I must say that their Customer Support is PERHAPS THE VERY BEST I HAVE EVER DEALT WITH. They are very capable techs located in the Philadelphia area, and it is always a pleasure to work with them. Truly, they know their product backwards and forwards.
I actually don't use the scanner/software for receipts as much as I do for other docs that I want to archive -- medical records, invoices, service records, etc. Of course, the mobile scanner does not have an automatic document feeder (even though you can scan multi-pages manually), but I now see that they are introducing a new ADF type scanner.
I'd say I use this scanner every couple days, and I would immediately purchase another if this one went belly up.
A great product and a great company. Highly recommended.