Anyone using Neat Receipts

Andrew Hamilton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I think you are confusing the format of a scanned receipt (pdf, jpg, whatever) with the application that uses it. After I scan something (I rarely do), I use the attachment function in Quicken to link the scanned item to a transaction. I have not used the attachment dialog in my Quicken to scan something directly into Quicken. If you have already a scanner, that may be the way to go.

I have a Neat Receipts scanner/product. The software is worthless to me (duplicates what I can do easier without it and the scanner refuses to scan full page receipts not matter how much I try to fix the problem).

With that said, if you have their scanner - Quicken will recognize it. You will need to go into attachments, Scan, select your Neat Receipts scanner and it will attach it as an image file - it will not create a PDF format document.

I think you can find other scanners that would do this without the Neat Receipts software for a cheaper price.

Oilcan

-----Original Message----- From: Han [mailto: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.not] Posted At: Monday, February 16, 2009 3:40 AM Posted To: alt.comp.software.financial.quicken Conversation: Anyone using Neat Receipts Subject: Re: Anyone using Neat Receipts

Andrew Hamilton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I think you are confusing the format of a scanned receipt (pdf, jpg, whatever) with the application that uses it. After I scan something (I rarely do), I use the attachment function in Quicken to link the scanned

item to a transaction. I have not used the attachment dialog in my Quicken to scan something directly into Quicken. If you have already a scanner,

that may be the way to go.

Well, I already have two other scanners, but it never occurred to me to try to scan in with Quicken. My real goal is to avoid hand-entry, in effect to have software that does an "intelligent" OCR on a receipt.

Already have two, including a Corex Cardscan, which does a good job with business-cards.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Andrew Hamilton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Can you please let us know how exactly you fare with your scanner(s) and OCR-ing into Quicken? The last part would be good to know. It is a pain to enter the individual items from a receipt into the split transactions they need to go into.

Thanks in advance! And best of luck!

I'd also love to hear from people about the worth of scanning receipts and such into Quicken. I have never done this; I have thought the time and effort to doing this is vastly outweighed by any benefits. I keep receipts I need in a yearly file I store in the box with my annual financial records each year. I circle the dates on the paper to make it easier to see and organize.

What do people DO with this information in Q? Do you ever really need to retrieve these things in the future, and if so, for what?

I must be missing something.

"Andrew" wrote in news:499aaf06$0$20301$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:

When I want to find when I bought something, or how much it cost when I bought it, I go to my Quicken file, not my badly organized box of receipts. Since I'm likely to be close to my computer that is the fastest way to retrieve the info.

I agree. I keep credit receipts around until the statement shows up, which is usualy beyond any return window. The receipts I need to keep beyond that are few and far between.

I go to Quicken to find the transaction, and get the date. Then I go to the receipt box which has dividers labeled for each month. Having to look through one month of receipts is pretty quick and painless.

-- Jim

I've been scanning my receipts/bills into Quicken for as long as that ability has been available. I love it. No more file folders full of paper. If I want to know if I've made a payment, or what I paid for, I just click on the icon and it's there. I not only use the attached/scanned receipts feature for my personal accounts, I also use it for my homeowners association (I'm the treasurer). No storage problems. Everything I need to know about a tranaction is right there....attached to the payment. My only frustration is scanning in multiple page receipts/bills for one transaction in Quicken. Each page has to be scanned separately, unless it's scanned into some other file (I use PaperPort) and then attached in Quicken as a .pdf ("double duty", but a work-around).

Same here. Hadn't thought about OP's use of OCR software. HAVE thought of SPEAKING info into Qkn, received some negative input from others, initial efforts not too successful due mainly to my unfamiliarity with Dragon Naturally Speaking. When I find time to play around with it more I may go back to Qkn in attempt to avoid typing.

Han - Not trying to be funny, but why do you need to scan receipts and store them in Q for that? I can do that today with my register as it is.

Right! Exactly - but I use yearly instead of monthly; MOST receipts I don't keep.

OK Jan - thanks for the reply -for me as a homeowner (I give you that as a treasurer or whatever for a 3rd party group you might have very different requirements as to your use of Quicken), I would think the time and hassle of scanning bills and receipts FAR FAR outweighs the usefulness for those that I keep in my yearly folder.

Of course, I realize the YMMV - that's why I'm asking if there's some compelling reason (for me) that it is worth it.

Han,

Will do, but not until the weekend or early into next week. I just had a Windows crash on my desktop system, to which everything is attached. I'm using my laptop for my critical stuff like emails, but I really need to restore my main system.

Fortunately, I will not lose any data, because I mounted my desktop system hard disk into an external drive case, and then read the data off that drive into my laptop.

-AH

"Andrew" wrote in news:499b4e7f$0$16842$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:

Exactly. That is what I do, mostly without scanning. I find that another problem is that nowadays, the scans are copied to the attachment folder in the data directory. If you move your files, the links get broken, I think.

Right! Exactly - but I use yearly instead of monthly; MOST receipts I don't keep.

Sorry about that...(my previous post)

The reason I scan receipts is for Insurance (proof of value for a major purchase) and Tax Deduction. Even though Quicken provides a nifty tool, I don't trust this product for the long-term.

The reason for Neat Receipts is to do away with storage of paper receipts. I would expect that Quicken will become a Web Hosted application in the future and I believe this functionality will disappear (I believe it disappeared in the past). Every document I have attached to Quicken has a backup - when I backup Quicken, I make sure that the attachments are backed up - 1) external hard drive, 2) web based backup.

IMHO, all of the web based products do not offer what I need in Personal Financial Management and they tend to dumb down the product/service - this includes Quicken Online, Mint, Yodlee, Wasebe (sp).

Just my thoughts....

Oilcan

-----Orig> "Andrew" wrote in

Han - Not trying to be funny, but why do you need to scan receipts and store them in Q for that? I can do that today with my register as it is.

Likewise. I don't keep any paper any longer than needed.

I'm sorry Han - I thought you were saying you DO scan your receipts to always be able to use them via the method you mentioned.