NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional 2.5 Mobile Scanner and Software
by The Neat Company
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List Price: Our Price: $169.99 You Save: $39.96 (19%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $125.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional 2.5 Mobile Scanner and Software
Customer Review: Great product, finally something to organize my mess!
Summary: 5 Stars
This product is definitely well worth the money (for me). I used to be fairly cluttered with papers. I was never much a filing cabinet type, and instead had an accumulation of 4 years worth of papers stacked or stuffed into envelopes. This is a great product for people who have an unbearable amount of paperwork to deal with, or people who just want to keep careful organization of their most important files. Several things make this product great:
1. The scanner is small and portable, easy to use.
2. The software is fairly decent at recognizing the information on the receipt, without your input.
3. You can sort your files by vender, by date, or by another label. This is helpful in finding something you need.
4. You can export your files as a PDF or excel data sheet, and the files can be reprinted at near original quality.
5. This can be used on a PC or MAC (if you have Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (Intel Mac))
There are, however, a few problems, which in my opinion, can be dealt with easily.
1. The software consumes a lot of memory. I tried this with a 512MB ram dell, and it was just unbearably slow.
2. It is a little glitchy. Frequently it will refuse to open a file, or export a PDF, and I just have to try try again until it works. Also, it has occasionally quit on me and cleared the files that I spent the previous hour scanning. Just don't shred your papers until you've exported your files to a stable format like PDF.
3. Although it does work on a Mac (with parallels), the already glitchy software is a bit more glitchy and just has basic performance problems which can be tolerated. Also, the scanner scans at about 1/3 the speed on a mac using parallels compared to a PC. This can be tedious if you're scanning an 8x11 piece of paper (It will probably take 20-30 seconds).
Overall, aside from the gitches, the product is awesome and has really helped me manage my stuff. I definitely recommend it.
Customer Review: Almost Perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
This scanner exceeded my expectations. It is very fast, especially if you scan receipts sideways (it automatically rotates them). It is also wide enough to scan letter-size paper, perfect for packing slips and receipts printed from online purchases. It's also very small (less than 2" wide, 1.25" high and 11" long).
The image adjustment tools are basic, mainly lightness and darkness. It would be nice if there were more advanced options, but they're really not necessary. I've only had difficulty with extremely faded receipts.
As for the OCR technology, it's better than I expected, but not quite perfect. It works very well with good quality receipts that use a standard format and font. If the receipt is yellow, faded, stylized, or very wrinkled, you will probably have to manually enter most information, but it's very easy and fast to do that. The best part is that the OCR seems to learn. It remembers the type of expense (e.g. meals) that you enter for a vendor and automatically enters it the next time it sees the same vendor. It's very easy to personalize the already extensive lists of vendors, purchase types, and expense purposes. My only complaint with that is there doesn't seem to be a way to delete more than one vendor at a time, and there are a LOT of pre-loaded vendors I'll certainly never use.
The business card reader is very good, unless the card has unusual graphics or background images. It's very consistent. It allows you to scan the backs of cards into the same entry. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to run the OCR software on the back of the card to add to the information already gathered from the front. This isn't an issue on most cards, though.
Overall, it's very fast, intuitive and easy to use. Highly recommended.
A word of warning: When you first install it, run the cleaning sheet and the calibration sheet through it before you try to scan anything. It can do some very strange things if you don't use the cleaning sheet.
Customer Review: Great Product & Getting Better
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not going go into all the technical information because everyone seems to be covering that. I am an owner operator truck driver that travels across the country and into Canada. Because I own my business I have to keep tons of receipts. Since NeatReceipts is still relatively new to the market of course there are going to be issues with it. Just look at Microsoft and how long they have been at it. No matter what you think of Microsoft you have to admit that they still put out a great product. Especially if you consider all the different applications that different people use and how they use them. Anyway, back to the NeatReceipts product. People are complaining about the program not reading all of the information. I have few instances that the receipt does not read well and that's usually because the receipt is graphics heavy. Even then it only takes about 10 seconds to use the drop down boxes to enter the correct info. If you had to sit for hours on end and enter receipts then you might have something to complain about but if you are using the program as you go or even weekly then this is hardly a problem. Also, every time you use the program it gets easier because it remembers such info as "Vendors" and "Categories." Another thing that I was really impressed with is their customer support. I have sent them an email twice already, once for praise and the second was to ask them to consider adding the option to set up an "Auto-Save" feature. Both times I had a personalized email answer within the hour. I was also told the "Auto-Save" option is going to be added in two weeks (end of September) when the new upgrade is released. According to the website they also plan to add color to the scanning with an upgrade this fall. The last point that I would like to make is that NeatReceipts put this product out and they are supporting it. They have been continuously putting out new upgrades which means that this program is only going to get better.Customer Review: The BEST way to organize receipts
Summary: 5 Stars
I have a serious problem with receipts. First of all, I can't throw them out. What if I have to return something?? So, my handbag is full of receipts, old and new. Then, when I need to return something, I can't find the one I'm looking for. Never fails. This cool little scanner solves all of my problems. Now, after shopping, I come home, empty my purse, scan my receipts and throw them all out...except for the ones that have a high probability of a return. Those I save until I'm sure I'm happy with the product. Still, if I ever need to return it or take a look at my receipt, all I have to do is pull it up on Neat Receipts. The scanner works amazingly well on receipts that are faded or wrinkled. A lot of the times the image recognition software doesn't read the information correctly - it doesn't recognize debit payments and always puts them in as cash. It's very easy to correct errors, so it's no big deal. I have different folders set up for different stores that I go to a lot. Then I have general folders for food stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, etc. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT!! The other day a friend asked me how much an item cost that I bought at Sam's Club. I brought up the program, went to my Sam's club folder, and quickly found the receipt. It has a place to check off if it's a tax deduction and even asks you the form number. Now all of my receipts are organized and I'll never be fishing through my handbag looking for that one stupid receipt that I can't find. BUY IT!!Customer Review: Go for it!
Summary: 5 Stars
At first I thought it was pretentious that they call this a "scanalizer" (instead of just a scanner). But after using it, it's true - it's a scanalizer. I've never used another business card scanner so I can't compare but the fact that this one scans documents to pdf and then takes receipts and categorizes them and runs tax reports and downloads to all the popular personal tax software and takes the contacts from business cards and synchs them with outlook makes this one even on paper better than anything I've seen when initially comparing scanners.
When I installed it, it immediately detected an update which ran from the website...however there don't seem to be any 2007 tax reports (just 2006) to "attach" to some receipts.
I'm also not a technical expert and I found it very easy to just start using. Some business cards it has a hard time with (fancy fonts, etc.) but I would say 80% of the cards that I have scanned in so far have been accurate (text in the right fields) - for some I have to cut/paste to move things around...but it's still better than typing it in PLUS the picture of the card is saved along with the contact info.
When I show people at work they're all amazed (even those "tech" types that are hard to amaze!) and my boss is buying two of them to give away as door prizes at our next big meeting.