Neat Receipts: Scan and Manage Receipts and Docs
Neat Receipts obviously handles more than business cards.
I've already tried the scanner on a big stack of business cards, so I figured I'd play around with the receipt functions (See Buried in Business Cards--And Rescued by Neat Receipts and Neat Receipts: Business Cards and (Almost) Perfect Scans for a quick background.)
Most of the receipts I end up with each month are from credit card transactions and I have a sophisticated system for dealing with them. First I enter the data in Intuit's QuickBooks; then I paper-clip the stack, put it in a drawer, and wait for the credit card bill. After reconciling the bill, I save the receipts that are for legit business expenses (and probably not-so-legit), using the same paper clip. Then I stash the stack in a portable storage device, an envelope marked "2008 CC Expenses."
To say that Neat Receipts makes handling receipts lots easier is an understatement. Scan them--portrait, landscape, or upside down, it doesn't matter--and the scanner's software optically recognizes the vendor's name, date, type of credit card, expense category, and payment amount--it even breaks out the tax.
Scan and automatically categorize your receipts.
Assign a vendor an IRS tax category--in my case, lots of Schedule C stuff--and Neat Receipts organizes the receipts in subsequent scans.
Neat Receipts remembers the assigned tax category.
Once I've scanned the receipts, I push the data right into QuickBooks. When I need to send expense receipts to my pesky PC World office manager, the program turns them into PDF files. (Neat Receipts supports Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money, too.)
There are plenty of ways to export data from Neat Receipts.
My CPA is going to be surprised this year because I plan to use the Neat Receipts to print tax reports gathered from my receipts. The program supports Schedules A through F, Form 1040, and a slew of other forms. [Note to George: You're going to love this!]
More Than Receipts
A buddy of mine, John D., mentioned that he's paper-free and his file cabinets are empty. The one thing John said that really struck me is that for safekeeping, he's scanned in all his business records--tax returns, insurance policies, financial docs--and burned them all onto one DVD. Boy, does that makes sense. And Neat Receipts can do all the scanning.
Neat Receipts: Worth the Money
I was skeptical about Neat Receipts. In this economy, spending $200 is no longer trivial. But I'll tell you what: If you have lots of receipts you want organized, scads of business cards with data you need on your PC, and wish your desk was free of paper, Neat Receipts is perfect for you.
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This was a comment to the 4/29 blog:
Oh my God, I can't stand Microsoft's 2007 word. It has done a super job of turning me off to Microsoft!
These guys practice predatory marketing! It's disgusting. I'm actually asking clients to cut and paste their files into emails to send to me, so I can avoid opening their Word 2007 files.
Microsoft has made it so that if you open one of their docs, you are forced to download their trial version, which freezes the current version you are using. I was locked out of my Word 2003 and Excel files for 3 hours, and had to call and chat w Microsoft's support, before I got my old files running again. I was so angry!
I actually started with 2007 Word on this new laptop I bought 2 months ago. But it was so hard to use, missing many of the old functions, I reinstalled the 2003 versions. But now, I'm dogged by these predatory marketing practices from my client's files written on 2007. Ugh!! MS is succeeding in doing the opposite!
how much does neat receipts pay you to write these "articles"? what a total crock.
Haruku,
Your comment is obviously a thumbs-down, but you don't say why. What was your experience with Neat Receipts? What is your profession? Thank you.