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The bane of my Kitchen/Den area is that I feel it's a bad idea to throw away receipts instead of checking them against my credit card statements. As a result I end up with bits of paper all over. (I work from my den.)
What I'm looking for is a mini-scanner that can reduce receipts one at a time to digital form (PDF?) so I can toss all but receipts I may need to return merchandise.
I have a full size scanner that works great but it's a PITA for this mini-documents.
Does anybody make a scanner intended for just receipts? Even better if it jacks into my laptop USB and gets power from my laptop, and stores the images on its HDD. It would be nice if it's small enough to take on vacations or work trips.
I haven't found a product like that. Are there any? It has to be inexpensive too ($100?) or otherwise it makes more sense to just use my HP Officejet Pro 276dw (a great scanner + inkjet printer, my work horse).
If I can't find a cheap solution I think I'll just set up 3-4 boxes and rotate them monthly. Toss anything over 3-4 months old.
I'm liking the 4 shoe box solution the more I think on it:
1.) January, May, September
2.) February, June, October
3.) March, July, November
4.) April, August, December
and
5.) Better keep these ones long time or scan them
Even at Michaels the boxes could be bought for under $20 total.
I have found Walmart.com to be a good option for purchasing plastic storage bins of all sizes and types. I just bought a set of 10 plastic shoebox-sized bins for about $14.00.
WRT scanning the receipts, does your printer have a scanner? You could just scan them there and store them in a file (or as many files as you want) on your computer. That 's what I do when I have something I want to keep but not in its paper form.
My printer has a scanner and it works great. It's just a PITA to crop receipts. I was hoping for something, small, dumb, and automated to just dump receipts into a folder on my HDD.
The box solution is becoming increasingly attractive. Yeah, Walmart, Michaels, Bed Bath, any dollar store, lots of places to get boxes particularly if you can stick them out of sight and don't care if they're ugly. You can just keep out this month's box and hide the rest out of sight.
I do a lot of real estate transactions and scan all that stuff to HDD. My printer/scanner has paid for itself 10x over!
What about sorting the receipts into logical categories (using boxes, small bins, files in an upright file folder rack, etc.) right when you get home with them, then when convenient, laying them out in groups so your existing scanner can generate full-page sized files of the groups? A lot fewer files to store and they will already be sorted.
Can't really comprehend why this is such an overwhelming problem. How many receipts do you have to deal with on a weekly basis? IMHO you are looking for an excuse to buy an electronic gadget.
What about sorting the receipts into logical categories (using boxes, small bins, files in an upright file folder rack, etc.) right when you get home with them, then when convenient, laying them out in groups so your existing scanner can generate full-page sized files of the groups? A lot fewer files to store and they will already be sorted.
Can't really comprehend why this is such an overwhelming problem. How many receipts do you have to deal with on a weekly basis? IMHO you are looking for an excuse to buy an electronic gadget.
Everybody has their quirks and I'm no different. My kitchen counter is just littered with old receipts. I'm great in many areas of life but this is just not one of mine. I admit I'm an abject failure in how I manage receipts.
Organizing them is just way too much work for my preference. The more I think the more I like the multi-box system. I almost never need any of these receipts. I'm just paranoid to toss them all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by moved
There are now apps for your phone that will scan receipts for you.
Thanks! That's a good idea! Maybe store them in my iCloud.
There are now apps for your phone that will scan receipts for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lovehound
My printer has a scanner and it works great. It's just a PITA to crop receipts.
This is the problem - scanning is easy, actually processing the images into something useful and storing them other than as completely unsorted, minimally tagged files is a fairly big PITA.
The only good solution I know of is the Neat system, which is way on the pricey side. The hardware is meh and commodity, but it's the software that makes the task fast, easy and resulting in an actual useful database of receipts, statements, etc. AFAIK, there are no good competitors, apps or other replacements for that software, which is why the package runs $3-400.
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