Automate Scanning In Bills and Financial Statements
My wish is to save all my financial correspondence such as bank statements, credit card statements,
utility bills, tax deductable contributions, etc. To do this requires merging statements from the web with
statements scanned in.
When is someone going to get banks to email statements? Are they worried that they will get into the
wrong hands? Could they be encrypted so that only some program (paperport?) on my computer could
unscramble them? When I scan in my bills, why can't I just stack them up and have paperport sort them
into the appropriate folders? Shouldn't a program that can read in text also recognize the logo on the
top of my phone statement and put that statement into the appropriate folder with similar statements?
Candidates for evolving into such a system:
Nuance Paperport with HP All-in-one devices used as scanners
Fujitsu ScanSnap SI1500
NeatDesk Desktop Scanner
Next
NeatDesk Desktop Scanner and Digital Filing System on Amazon:
I am sticking with ScanSnap for now.
Piece of junk - hardware and software, December 27, 2008
By Perry Blue Buschert - See all my reviews
(btw - this is using the most recent version of the 4.0 Neatworks software).
There is no way of disabling the ANNOYING system notification process (Neat Works has finished
processing yadda....) IT"S 2008!!!!!
Using the Neat Desk scanner: You must hold/guide certain receipts, that are not the exact width of one
of the feeder, to make sure it goes through straight, or it will scan at a crooked angle, and you cannot fix
with the software. (You can only rotate in 90 degree increments.)
Which means you can forget scanning multiple receipts... (which also means you get the annoying
system notification message every time...)
You cannot edit receipt images (especially cropping) once you have filed it. (You must delete and re-
scan. Hopefully you kept the receipt...)
Does not remember (or have) default sort orders. You may set your receipts to sort by date
(descending) and then by vendor, but if you split a transaction it goes away and you have to redefine it
again.
Cannot split transactions duing review & filing process. Very problematic when scanning in multiple
receipts as you have to note each one and where it is filed so you can go find and THEN split.
Cannot enter negative amounts when splitting. (required if you return/exchange something from 1 folder
but purchased other things from other folders.) You have to generate a 'fake' 0 amont split and then
enter negative numbers in that one.
BUT, you must be careful as there is NO way (NONE) to audit split receipts. There is no view, report or
anything to show all splits for 1 particular receipt to make sure totlas were correct. (or even to audit
sometime down the road.)
When working with split transactions you will need an EXTERNAL calculator (or spreadsheet) to
calculate amounts - especially tax amounts as the software does not provide a calculator - or ways of
enetering the tax amounts (while splitting - you can afterwards - just not during...)
All reports are designed for business purporses (all based on spending) and there are no reports for
personal use - AND - there is no way to design or run reports other than the few that are built in. No way
to audit folders or receipts, etc. For instance: a report showing all receipts by folder, or all recipts by
date, etc.
I cannot even run a report without the software locking up and having to use task manager to end app.
And then when I restart I LOSE ALL DATA FROM THE LAST TIME ENTERED. (Which just happened -
and I lost 1.5 hours of work entering2 (yes TWO) receipts.
And, of course, their website has no place for customer feedback... (at least publicly...)
My wish is to save all my financial correspondence such as bank statements, credit card statements,
utility bills, tax deductable contributions, etc. To do this requires merging statements from the web with
statements scanned in.
When is someone going to get banks to email statements? Are they worried that they will get into the
wrong hands? Could they be encrypted so that only some program (paperport?) on my computer could
unscramble them? When I scan in my bills, why can't I just stack them up and have paperport sort them
into the appropriate folders? Shouldn't a program that can read in text also recognize the logo on the
top of my phone statement and put that statement into the appropriate folder with similar statements?
Candidates for evolving into such a system:
Nuance Paperport with HP All-in-one devices used as scanners
Fujitsu ScanSnap SI1500
NeatDesk Desktop Scanner
Next
NeatDesk Desktop Scanner and Digital Filing System on Amazon:
- By Gatekeeper (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
I just bought the desktop scanner a few days ago and am very disappointed with this machine. It's
very slow to scan in color and it takes a while for the .pdf to process. The individual paper slots
are very cool but only if you're scanning very few pieces of paper.
So I'm back using ScanSnap which is far superior. (I thought for sure the Neat Scanner would be
equally good or better.) If you're in the market for a scanner, I recommend buying ScanSnap
especially if you're scanning volumes and volumes of documents. It's more intuitive and easy to
use.
I am sticking with ScanSnap for now.
- My name is Kevin and I work for Neat. Thanks for your comments. We are actively working to
reduce the file size and background on PDF scans. You can scan multiple pages into one
document by adjusting your settings in the Quick Scan Center. You can also combine pages into
one document after you've scanned them into the inbox by simply dragging one page on top of
another. You can also delete pages or automatically have blank pages removed as part of the
scanning process. There are several settings in the Quick Scan Center that can support your
needs.
Thanks Kevin
kgarton@neatreceipts.com I just purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap 1500 and remarked to my friend
that it should recognize logos and sort my Electric bills into one folder, my Gas bills into another
and my credit card statements into their own folders and put them in order by date. It appears
that you are going in this direction but need a bit more time to get the software up to speed. I will
keep tracking this site to see how things are coming. Maybe Fujutsu will add the recognize and
sort proceedures as well.
Piece of junk - hardware and software, December 27, 2008
By Perry Blue Buschert - See all my reviews
(btw - this is using the most recent version of the 4.0 Neatworks software).
There is no way of disabling the ANNOYING system notification process (Neat Works has finished
processing yadda....) IT"S 2008!!!!!
Using the Neat Desk scanner: You must hold/guide certain receipts, that are not the exact width of one
of the feeder, to make sure it goes through straight, or it will scan at a crooked angle, and you cannot fix
with the software. (You can only rotate in 90 degree increments.)
Which means you can forget scanning multiple receipts... (which also means you get the annoying
system notification message every time...)
You cannot edit receipt images (especially cropping) once you have filed it. (You must delete and re-
scan. Hopefully you kept the receipt...)
Does not remember (or have) default sort orders. You may set your receipts to sort by date
(descending) and then by vendor, but if you split a transaction it goes away and you have to redefine it
again.
Cannot split transactions duing review & filing process. Very problematic when scanning in multiple
receipts as you have to note each one and where it is filed so you can go find and THEN split.
Cannot enter negative amounts when splitting. (required if you return/exchange something from 1 folder
but purchased other things from other folders.) You have to generate a 'fake' 0 amont split and then
enter negative numbers in that one.
BUT, you must be careful as there is NO way (NONE) to audit split receipts. There is no view, report or
anything to show all splits for 1 particular receipt to make sure totlas were correct. (or even to audit
sometime down the road.)
When working with split transactions you will need an EXTERNAL calculator (or spreadsheet) to
calculate amounts - especially tax amounts as the software does not provide a calculator - or ways of
enetering the tax amounts (while splitting - you can afterwards - just not during...)
All reports are designed for business purporses (all based on spending) and there are no reports for
personal use - AND - there is no way to design or run reports other than the few that are built in. No way
to audit folders or receipts, etc. For instance: a report showing all receipts by folder, or all recipts by
date, etc.
I cannot even run a report without the software locking up and having to use task manager to end app.
And then when I restart I LOSE ALL DATA FROM THE LAST TIME ENTERED. (Which just happened -
and I lost 1.5 hours of work entering2 (yes TWO) receipts.
And, of course, their website has no place for customer feedback... (at least publicly...)
Inventbot, inventing new creatures
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