NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner and Digital Filing System - PC

I've had this device for about 3 weeks now and I spend a lot of time on the road. I've always dreaded doing expenses, as scanning in receipts was the most time consuming part.The scanner fits neatly (no pun intended) into a laptop bag so I can carry it with me anywhere, and the software works flawlessly. Scanning receipts is easy - Once the software is loaded, just plug it in, insert the receipt and hit the scan button. You can scan into the NeatWorks application, or direct to a PDF.The software has a few quirks - while it does a great job identifying receipts/text, the "autodetect" for the type of scan (receipt, document or business card) doesn't always work - any full page receipts (hotel bills) are detected as documents, and you must file it first before you can move it to the receipt folder. Another shortcoming is you can't create sub-folders for receipts. You can file scans in folders, such as "July Expenses", but you can't further break that folder down into sub-folders (for instance "by client" or "by job"). Again small things...Here's the good stuff... You can scan away and not worry about processing each receipt. Each scan is put into a queue and processed as the last one finishes, so you can quickly feed it 10 scans in a row and then go back and file them later. You can even leave the filing to another day. Pretty slick. You can also import PDFs, so if some receipts come to you as PDFs (Verizon wireless or AMEX statements, you can import them directly into NeatWorks.All scans are saved into a database, so it doesn't create individual files for each scan. Producing a report for expenses is easy, and it will print a report of all receipts you choose, in date order.One issue I had with it - the scanner started not acting up one day and I couldn't figure out why. Scans would be blurred and wouldn't auto-crop the receipt. However, I was outside on a humid day and once I was back inside, it was working fine again. Not sure if that was it, but it's working fine now.Overall, if you need to keep track of receipts or documents, I highly recommend this product. It surpassed my expectations, and the software is very usable. I could easily see buying the desktop scanner to keep home documents/bills filed.

Final Update: A lifetime of just 2 years. Wow.I was somewhat impressed with Neat at first. This little scanner filled a basic need, with several glitches and the occasional total software crash. No big deal. I suggested some improvements, but the software was never fixed. Now, after owning one for just 2 years, Neat has shown why they had no interest in fixing or improving their product...The scanner software started crashing at startup. It had done this on occasion, so I thought "no big deal." When I went online to get support, I received a message that Neat no longer "supports" its devices and software; they just sell a monthly service.Neat got tired of working with ordinary 500% profit margins on $150 portable scanners, and decided they would also require a monthly fee. This is where the real money is. Sony and other companies have been coming around to the same truth. I think they all learned it from the cell phone companies. If you just bill a relatively small amount to a few million credit cards ($5-$50 per account, per month), you can make a fortune in return for absolutely nothing, and no one will protest because it seems like such a small amount each month.I guess some people like having all their finances and other personal information out there in the "cloud," but I don't. Besides, if you just want an online backup of your data, there are several free, secure alternatives. I was already running Neatware with as little online interaction as possible, but I would never pay these crooks to mine my financial records!So, what I thought would be a lifetime (or at least long-term) $100 receipt scanner lasted about 2 years. I will never buy another Neat product for as long as I live!1-Year Update: Had to drop it to 4 stars, because it is great, but it could be improved in many ways.Now, the hardware is very simple. It's an open scanning cylinder in which the paper feeds straight through. Because many (most?) receipts come from a "roll" of paper, and are sometimes folded or crinkled, they very often tend to exit the scanner and then loop back around to the feeder--causing a looping scan or a jam. Barring that, receipts are often difficult to load. This front-loading scanner is supposed to have a grab/preload function, but it only works about half the time.Most problems, however, are with the software. First off, the OCR software is not great. Receipts are often askew or printed poorly, and this accounts for some (but not all) of the problem. There may only be one field that is incorrect on any given receipt (e.g. vendor, date, tax, total), but I am quite surprised on the unusual occasion that every field on a receipt is correct and the receipt is immediately ready to file. Then, when you type in the correct info and go to another field, the corrections are not saved until you open another receipt or folder. Problem is, I often correct the data and immediately drag the receipt into a folder--losing the corrections. To keep from losing corrections, I have to click on another receipt, wait for it to load, then click back on the corrected receipt, then drag it to a folder. This is a tedious waste of time.On the other hand, Neat is the only company that has these simple fields--which are just what I need. This is still much easier than creating *and* filling appropriate fields in any other program.Second, and this may or may not be a problem for most folks, but we have several credit cards in our large family. Every time I scan a receipt, Neat seems to want to categorize the payment method as simply MC, Visa, Credit, or Debit. I have created separate labels for, e.g., Visa ####, but Neat seems unable to learn this system--even though the numbers are printed on every receipt.Third, I started hitting a lot of bugs in the software after almost a year of use. I looked up some tips on the web, and they worked for awhile, but Neat then started crashing every time I loaded it. I eventually contacted customer support, who requested a log, and who gave me a 100% permanent fix.Since most shortfalls are in the software, it seems Neat could improve them if it really wanted to. Problem is, with a hardware-based payment system, there is little to no motivation to improve the software. I think all Neat really needs is some good old-fashioned competition. There are plenty of great scanners out there, and there is some software that *can* manage receipts (e.g. Evernote), but no one else is really shooting specifically for the receipt-scanner market. There are some companies now focusing on the smartphone-receipt-photo market, but I prefer the clean system of an actual scanner for my tax returns.Original Review: So I ordered the Fujitsu ScanSnap because of its great reviews. It was a great little scanner, with a great range of functionality. Only problem is, I needed a scanner for one very specific task--receipts.I have an awe-inspiring Brother scanner/copier/laser printer. The resolution suits my needs, but what I really needed (badly) was a simple, reliable, and accurate hardware-software package for receipts. It's so simple that it may seem corny, but Neat really does the job.I have a large family, and I've been wanting to scan all my receipts so I could claim our actual sales taxes. Every time I want to scan a receipt, I just open the software, load the receipt, and hit scan. The OCR is very good, and it has a certain amount of learning so it can recognize the vendor and format (tax, etc.).The scanner could be improved. For one thing, the software shows up in Windows 8 and anti-virus programs as like 30 different programs and registry entries. No big deal, it's just sloppy. More importantly, if the computer has hibernated since you last used Neat, you will have to unplug and replug the scanner to get it to work. I do it at the scanner, and I now know to do it while the software is loading. So again, no big deal. I also have not yet had to deal with a major software update and the reported losses of data, backward compatibility, or other problems. But 6 months into the year and several hundred receipts into it, everything is peachy!

Like others, I got tired of keeping hard copies of things. My husband restores old cars and we keep billing sheets with backup receipts in case he wants to sell one of the cars after it's completed and wants to show the work that went into it. This has turned into a paperwork hassle and using my printer (networked but at the other end of the house from my laptop in the kitchen) to scan is also a hassle. So I've been looking at this unit and finally decided to buy it. I'm still doing the basics - setting up files and playing; with it but I can see that this has a lot of potential. I bought the portable unit which is handy as I don't work at a desk; use my kitchen counter and don't really need a hopper for large numbers of items to be scanned at once. So far it operates smoothly and seems to do everything I want and I keep coming up with new uses for it. Fortunately I have no problems with lopsided scanning like another customer found. I'm still wrestling with the idea of whether to buy into their cloud or export copies to my computer file and upload them to my existing free Google cloud as backup. I think that for me that will work but if I had a LOT of scanning to be done on a daily basis, the Neat cloud is probably a better idea. I am editing this because it's two days later and I've found more uses for this handy little item. Used to keep copies of possible recipes in folders. Not anymore. They're scanned now by category. How cool is that!!!! I also occasionally attend cooking classes where they give us handouts. They're all scanned, too. So this has turned into a filing cabinet of various things -- the car receipts, tax receipts and cooking paperwork. So for me, this has turned into a very useful product.

good price

I like the product, I don't like things arriving more than a week over the promised date.

Product was as advertised. The only real issue I had was with the shipping. I ordered it from Amazon.ca and yet it came through the states and I had to pay duty...ugh.