Try Neat Desk????

[lifesgr8]

Has anyone ever tried the Neat Desk machine for organizing bills/receipts/paper etc?

And does a scanned paper work/digital copy work the same as the original if I need to reproduce it for some reason?

[Candi]

We have the smaller Neat Receipt. We used it for awhile, but it took so much time to scan each receipt in by hand, and then we would have to look through the electronic file to correct any of the text mistakes, then categorize it, then save it. We got lazy and stopped using it... It was easier and faster for me to look through the receipt, tally the category totals myself, and then just hand enter that into out budget and toss the receipts in a file box. Plus, for some reason we couldn't set it up on our Mac, so I had to do it on my PC, and that just never seemed to happen regularly so I'd end up with stacks that were mountains high and then didn't have the 2-3hrs that it would take to scan them all in, so I gave up.

[MochaWolf]

We use Neat Receipts for my business, Mr. Wolf's purchase card report for his work, and for our personal use. I scan in every receipt that enters our house. It takes some time to scan, but honestly, it is soooo sooooo SOOOOOOO much easier than having all these receipts around, finding the right bunch, and then shuffling through all of them to find what you are looking for. If you get into a rhythm to scanning them and do it regularly, it really doesn't take that long.

And does a scanned paper work/digital copy work the same as the original if I need to reproduce it for some reason?

Depends on what you would need it for.

According to Neat Receipts and the IRS website, the IRS will take a scanned copy as proof. I have no idea if a store will. But I keep regular receipts of anything electronic that I think I might need. But everything else, I scan and throw away. I just have to, otherwise I would drown in paper if I didn't. as a years worth of receipts doesn't fit in a file box for us. LOL.

I love the scan receipts and would get it again.

[lifesgr8]

I watched the demo for the bigger machine and fell in love! I was thinking about my piles of papers everywhere and really think this could do some good! I was thinking recipe mess as well!

BUT !!! did not know it would cost $400. That is a big chunk to swallow for convenience & organization. Also, I have never been able to make an exact budget based on how much we spend. For instance how often I buy a certain product, etc. I was thinking that would really make it easy to see those things. Or how much we eat out.

Has anyone seen this on other websites cheaper or in stores?

[MochaWolf]

Originally Posted by lifesgr8

BUT !!! did not know it would cost $400. That is a big chunk to swallow for convenience & organization. Also, I have never been able to make an exact budget based on how much we spend. For instance how often I buy a certain product, etc. I was thinking that would really make it easy to see those things. Or how much we eat out.

This came in monumentally handy for just this thing. I got sick and tired of going to Costco and not having budgeted enough and being over. So Mr. Wolf and I sat down and figured out how much we would need of each item we get at Costco, if we had nothing left over, and we needed to buy everything that month. I then went back to all of my Costco receipts that I had scanned in and was able to see exactly how much each item cost and then put a max budget together for the month for Costco. It has worked perfectly. I know that I have $xx.xx to spend every month and since I don't actually need to stock up on everything every month, I now have extra that goes into a savings account allocated for Costco spending only. Now I have extra to spend when stuff goes on sale and I Want to stock up.

Having all my Costco receipts right there, really helped.

It has also made taxes for my business much easier.

We got our from Amazon, but that was the smaller version, not the bigger one. I would just start looking to see if it is ever cheaper.

This is the one we have.

Plus, for some reason we couldn't set it up on our Mac, so I had to do it on my PC

They have different ones for Mac and PC. So the reason you couldn't use it on the Mac and could use it on the PC, is you had the PC only one.

[ChelC]

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, there are some apps that will let you take a photo of your receipts, categorize them and enter in totals on the keyboard if you want. I'm unfamiliar with the neat receipt scanner, but that might be an option for some if you.

[Candi]

The NeatReceipts is about $180 from Amazon. We bought ours from Costco, but I don't think they carry them anymore. It did work really well when we were dedicated to regularly scanning receipts, and it is nice to be able to have them electronically and not on paper cluttering up file drawers and desks and boxes, etc.

I think the software for both the NeatReceipts and NeatDesk might be the same. If so, then I don't think there is much that the NeatDesk can do that the NeatReceipts can't (hardware-wise). (The smaller NeatReceipts does full-size paper, business cards, receipts, and everything inbetween size-wise.) NeatDesk may have the "hopper" ability (take multiple pages and auto-feeds them into the scanner, instead of you having to hand-feed each page separately)?

If you don't need the hopper ability, and the software for both is essentially the same (not sure, but guessing it is), then you can probably get by with the NeatReciepts. The important part is the software - otherwise it's really not much different than any regular scanner. The software is set up especially to read receipts and things and recognize store names and totals automatically without you really having to tell it where to find it on the page.

I don't know how well it would do for recipes...maybe I'll have to break out the NeatReceipts and give it a try...

[lifesgr8]

Ok, I broke down and bought the full meal deal neat desk....

I am sitting here scanning receipts....I did not know it required so much entry on my party to catorgize and correct receipts? Is that normal?

I was under the impression that I could scan grocery receipts...download it to an excel file and know how much I spent on batteries, milk , etc?

Am I missing something?

[Candi]

Originally Posted by lifesgr8

Ok, I broke down and bought the full meal deal neat desk....

I am sitting here scanning receipts....I did not know it required so much entry on my party to catorgize and correct receipts? Is that normal?

Yes, at least for my version of the software it is...(I have the software from 2009). It cannot intuitively "read" the receipts - it can scan the text and recognize store names and totals, but that's about it. All the other stuff you have to enter/correct/partition/group by hand.

[lifesgr8]

so how do you put in your receipts? as far as the catergories....

do you break up the grocery receipts in the memo, or do you just seperate them by gas, groceries, eating out, etc? then is that what you put into an excel file to see where your money goes?

Thanks for your input!