It also costs $50 less than the PC version so you should at least hit up the Neat Receipts website to have a closer look at the benefits. Those include drag-and-drop functionality, Image Flow (a version of Cover Flow), Smart Collections and more. But, while January 2009 will see everything fitted into place with the Mac version, there are some new, Mac-specific features to be found as well. However, the company notes that, for the time being, Mac owners are lacking some of the features found with the PC version of the Neat Receipts software.
Given that the Mac version of Neat Receipts was developed in Cocoa (Apple's native object-oriented application programming environment for the Mac OS X), the software sports a Mac-specific UI. Even better for the lucky sons-of-guns is that they can download the Mac-compatible software for free, as current Neat Receipts customers. The Mac version is now available for purchase, sporting platform-specific features too, for $179.95 ($50 less than the PC version).Īs the makers themselves put it, "Neat Receipts is committed to helping you stay organized without the paper mess." Windows users are already enjoying the functionality of this organizing solution consisting of both hardware and software from the same company. Everyone fails to meet their payment deadlines and this why you too may rid yourself of some stress by using this scanner/software combo. And maybe by keeping all those wayward receipts in order, it will even help you clean up come tax time.Neat Receipts helps you get rid of receipts and documents by scanning them and organizing them on your computer. The scanner is well worth considering for anyone who hopes to reduce clutter. You can also create customizable folders for your scanned documents, arranged, say, by client, project, business trip and so on. You can verify and fix mistakes in the inbox, before filing receipts and such in a separate electronic filing cabinet. Still, on balance, NeatDesk did a decent job of ferreting out data from scanned images and placing everything in the right fields inside the software. The software also failed to parse any details from a Holiday Inn hotel bill I scanned in. And store receipts are challenging because of the low-quality printers often used to produce them. Scanning business cards is a particular challenge because of funky designs, colors and logos. Though the technology has improved through the years, OCR mistakes are still common. You can also scan two sides of a document and scan in color or black-and-white.Īs with other scanners, NeatDesk uses optical character-recognition (OCR) technology that's been around for eons. You can move misclassified items from one bin to another. Files land in one of three bins in a central inbox: receipts, business cards and documents. The software also auto-detects the type of paper inserted.
The software is a $30 upgrade if you have an older version. But it runs the same NeatWorks software as the NeatDesk. The hardware is slower, and you have to scan documents one at a time. Incidentally, the NeatReceipts scanner remains in the lineup for $200. It's smart enough to separate the sales tax on a cash register receipt. It then extracts names, phone numbers, dollar amounts and other key info off cards and receipts and places amounts in appropriate data fields. It automatically crops and rotates scanned images so they appear right side up. Or by removing a paper-input tray, you can load and scan up to 50 letter-size documents.Īfter you feed through an item, the digital filing cabinet software kicks into action. You can simultaneously load up to 10 of each type. The latest machine is designed with three dedicated slots for loading items you want to scan - one for feeding in business cards, one for receipts and one for standard-size documents.
Neat provides a series of handy video tutorials on the Web to walk you through the product's capabilities. My initial setup failed when I did not do that.įor the most part, everything went fine from there, though I did have to call tech support to figure out why I was having a problem sharing data with Quicken. The on/off switch is in the rear.īit of advice: Heed the warning about closing all other programs before installing Neat's software.
Actually, there are just two physical buttons on the front of the machine, either for a regular scan or to create a searchable Adobe PDF file from a scanned document. Any scanner can convert paper into electronic images: The NeatDesk scanner makes it a breeze at the press of a single button.