Once in a while a piece of technology comes along that blows your mind. For me, a gadget which takes the drain out of a task I dread and makes it simple, easy, and gets me through it fast will score 5 stars in my book, and there is no task I dread more than doing my taxes every year.
That’s why the Neat Receipt mobile scanner is my new best friend, and it’s one of the few I’ve immediately texted about to friends and family for two reasons – one, they know the sad story of my mountain of receipts and my yearly struggle to tame them, and two, I had the joy of telling them I’m actually finished with my taxes a month before the deadline and I’m also caught up on sorting my receipts for next year. Thank you so much Neat Receipt mobile scanner.
Here are the features for the Neat Receipt mobile scanner:
- Uses parsing technology to recognize and activate info from your receipts and lets you edit and add your personal notes, plus puts it straight into reports for you to submit to your accountant.
- The Neat Receipts software gives you a digital filing cabinet that sorts everything for you.
- The scanner is lightweight and easy to toss in a bag to take with you.
- Saves digital copies of all your receipts and can store them in the Neat Cloud. This is handy if you worry about losing tax information in a fire or computer crash.
- Exports all data in PDF, Excel, Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax.
- Lets you scan large paper files, receipts, and business cards.
- USB powered so no external power source
- Works with the Neat Receipts app so you can scan, sort, and file on the go.
Tames the wild receipt pile
Let me take a moment to tell you how my taxes work. As a small business owner, I hire an accountant every year to submit my taxes. To make her happy, my receipts have to be organized into monthly piles and sorted for things like food, gas, and office costs, then entered into a spreadsheet. My husband also has a business, and his receipt pile is much, much larger than mine. Sorting receipts for taxes is at least a 5-hour job (or longer) at my house, not to mention how long it takes to enter them into the computer.
Although I’ve always made a January resolution to sort them on a monthly basis, they quickly spiral out of control when I get too busy to take the time. So I do what anyone else would do – I stuff them all in a box and basically dread tax time when I’m going to have to dig them all out.
Do you know how nice it is to kiss that dread and stress goodbye? The Neat Receipt mobile scanner quickly and efficiently takes away most of the drudgery involved in sorting your receipts. You simply plug the scanner into your computer, download the software, and start scanning receipts. The scanner itself is powered by USB, so there’s no extra charger and it always has power when you need it.
Neatworks 4.0 software is a receipt-sorting machine
The idea of a mobile scanner for receipts is great on its own, but it’s the software that really takes Neat Receipts and makes it amazing. Once you’ve loaded the Neatworks 4.0 software on your Mac or PC you’ll see your Neat Filing Cabinet as well as your Neat Inbox. You can sort your receipts according to the files they already have or create your own folders. I created several including Food, Gas, and Travel.
Place a receipt in the scanner, hit the scan button, and watch your receipt appear on the screen. For the most part, the Neatworks 4.0 software will automatically recognize the amount, taxes, date of purchase, and the name on the receipt. I noticed it worked perfectly for receipts printed with dark ink, but those that have faded required a quick once over and a manual input of a name or checking on the amount.
The benefits? It took seconds to scan each receipt, and was much simpler than scanning an entire receipt myself, looking for the dates and amounts, and entering it on a spreadsheet. Plus, you get a lot of information on the receipt that’s saved in a digital file. If I want to look back at a receipt a year from now I don’t have to dig through piles of paper to find it. I just look for it in my Neat Filing Cabinet and there it is. The other bonus is that paper receipts fade over time. If you’re ever audited and all of the ink on your receipts have faded? Ouch.
Neatworks also compiles all of the data and exports it into expense reports, spreadsheet format, Quick Books, PDF, and Turbo Tax. Just scan, sort into folders, and send it off to your accountant or file your taxes.
Scan receipts the second you get them
The Neat Receipts mobile scanner is great on its own, but when you pair it with the Neat app? That’s when the magic really happens.
Imagine you’re at a gas station and you have a receipt you want to scan. Just take out your phone, open the app, hit ‘Scan’ and take a picture of your receipt. You can add info if needed, and your receipts are saved on your phone until you open your computer and Neatworks syncs with the app. All receipts taken from the app will go straight into your Neatworks inbox and then you just drag to the right folders.
It’s awesome. That’s all I can really say. My car is now free of receipts and I’m completely up to date on sorting this year.
Keep your receipts safe in the Neat Cloud
If you run a business, you know receipts translate into money saved on your taxes every year. That’s why keeping track of them and keeping them safe is so important.
When you download the Neatworks software, you’ll be prompted to set up a Neat Cloud account. It lets you store your receipts in your own personal cloud account, which is handy in case your computer crashes or you’ve lost your files for whatever reason.
The Neat Receipt mobile scanner and Neatworks 4.0 software both work together to give you a fast, accurate accounting of all your receipts. It’s the perfect device for anyone with a small business, someone who wants to tame the household budget and see where all of the money is going, or someone who wants digital copies of all receipts to hold onto for tax time.
If you pay your accountant to sort your receipts, you’ll love how much money it saves you too. Check out the Neat Receipts mobile scanner and you’ll see how easy it is to tame your receipt pile.
