NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional 2.5 Mobile Scanner and Software

I did all kinds of research online for a compact portable scanner to help me with document reduction. I finally decided to go with the Neatreciepts scanner after considerable research across all kinds of sites including watching the downloadable Martha Stewart review from their web site. My overall impression is that its a great concept but the way the product delivers is less than perfect. The Scanner: The one thing I will say about this product is that its compact. Its very small, much smaller than other desktop models Ive seen and it draws all of its power from the USB cable making it truely convienient. However, my big problem was with getting it to grab and scan the document. When you feed a sheet into the scanner, it prefeeds the document a slight amount to prepare for the scan. However, once you push the scan button (either on the scanner or in the software) it rarely pulled the sheet through without me needing to give it a push. I tested this with an 8.5 X 11 document and it only grabbed the sheet correctly 20% of the time. The Software: This is where I was most dissapointed. On their website the software was billed as a being able to categorize and database reciepts, documents, tax forms, business cards, etc. In reality this tool was built to categorize reciepts effectively and do other documents as an afterthought. This is most evident in the softwares single-minded focus on trying to categorize everything you scan as a reciept. I scanned in my paycheck and it categorized ny employer as a vendor and my salary as an expense. I had the same problem with scanning in documents. The categorization had to conform to the types of categories used for reciepts. Not good. You can turn off the OCR and manually categorize your information, but you still need to classify all documents as some kind of reciept. I saw this problem on the Martha Stewart clip where her recipe cards were classified as reciepts where the vendor was the name of the recipe - I should have realized then how big the problem is. Okay aside from the categorization issue the biggest problem was that many of the documents I scanned were returning errors when they were scanned into the system. This supposedly was with their most recent version of the software. The verdict: If youre looking for a scanner to scan only reciepts then this may be the product for you. Otherwise Id suggest you keep looking.

Truthfully, this little scanner and associated software works better than I expected. The scanned images are quite good with good data compresson to conserve space. OCR is reasonable. On the downside, it doesnt total the $s for multiple invoices in the same receipt box. Also, the filing system is only 2 levels deep, folders and receipts, making it harder to manage the same files for multiple years. I manage this for a particular folder, like utilities, by prefacing each of the receipt boxes with the year. So I have a 2006 Verizon receipt box and a 2007 Verizon receipt box. Also the OCR speed is fairly slow on my system. Some receipts can take more than a minute to scan and read.

As a road warrior, managing my travel expenses has always been a time-consuming chore. And the occasional lost receipt as well as non-billable expenses incurred while traveling (which are nevertheless tax-deductible)have probably cost me hundreds of dollars each year. I wondered whether this device would really be more effective than a regular photocopier/scanner and the answer has been a resounding YES. The software is very intuitive and it is now a snap to process all my receipts and develop my monthly expense reports. The software is very well designed and allows you to split receipts, drag and drop from one expense report to another and indicate whether an expense is personal or billable (which means I am now capturing ALL my travel expenses.) My only criticism is that there isnt a way to just manually enter expenses for tips. I work around that by creating a hand-written receipt for tips for each trip. Hopefully theyll address this in a future software update. I am recommending this to all the other consultants in my company -- after all, if you save one potentailly billable hour of time, it has more than paid for itself!

The scanner works great but the process is slow. We just got a scanner at work and its easier to scan documents in it and just store the images in folders like a file cabinet. The file system is not easy to navigate and there is no drop and drag ability. For small receitps like from the gas station its easier to scan but then the items are stored in the scanners own format and its not that easy to get them out or export them. If had it to do again would not purchase.

I was so impressed by the demo I saw at the airport kiosk that I could not wait to get back home to buy one of these gadgets. I ordered it from Amazon, and it arrived in record time. I set it up, loaded the software, then tried unsuccessfully to scan receipts and business cards. The paper got stuck, jammed, the computer froze up and the entire process stalled. I tried many times to get it to work. Reinstalled the software, set everything up just the way the instructions said - no luck. I even did a clean reinstall of my operating system, just in case I had a computer error. I am no computer novice, but this gadget just did not work. Amazon was gracious enough to accept a return and to refund my money. I am very grateful to them, and deeply disappointed in the Neatreceipt. What a time saver ot would be - if it only worked. Perhaps my machine was just a dud - and I hope that is true. But I just did not want to take another chance.

The NEAT scanner itself is cool. Its compact and scans great images. Also the company has great support. The software; however, is horrible unless you are just scanning receipts. Unfortunally, the scanner will not work with other software such as Paperport. If your intent is to scan receipts, then great. If you are going to do general scanning, then there are many many better choices. The Brothers DSmobile 700D is less expensive, will duplex and when combined with Paperport 14, is an awesome product.

Although I cant give this product a perfect five-star rating, it still is worth the investment. I am impressed with the overall accuracy of the OCR capibility and the flexibility of the filing system. The major drawback for me is the lack of full integration with the newer versions of Quicken, which is my main financial management software. It requires several extra steps to transfer all the scanned info and not all the fields that I need in Quicken are available in the scan batch. However the ease of use and the fact that receipt, bsn card and other documents can be stored with a compact device on-the-run compensate for most of the awkwardness.

Getting rid of paper receipts by scanning seemed like a sure win. The price of the scanner was fair - under $200, which would have been reasonable if it performed as advertised. I have other scanners (Fujitsui and Brother) which all scan at a reasonable clip, but the neatreceipts is SLOW, very slow and of marginal quality. This device realistically takes 3-5 minutes PER receipt, often receipts need to be re-scanned, and the detection was sporadic. So youd spend 15 min scanning three receipts from a Saturday morning - you could write down the details in an old-fashioned notebook or in an Excel spreadsheet in a few seconds! My first 3 receipts were essentialy unreadable (thought Dollar Store was Dominos & had wrong total, drycleaning receipt couldnt read at all & a clothing store receipt didnt read at all) the software couldnt identify total, name of vendor, etc., the forth receipt read crystal clear & read all of the information perfectly (albeit slowly). Re-scanning & re-typing in the totals, vendor, etc. I wondered why I wasted $ on this device - for its performance, I would have been much better off using a standard scanner, then typing in the info on an excel worksheet. The one receipt that did scan was cool, but a 75% failure rate is unacceptable. Im going to try & return and wait for the next generation on this great but poorly executed idea.

Oh my god, I should stop reading the amazon or magazine reviews or should not buy products with 5 ***** reviews !!.. When I installed the Software this scanner came with, I spent whole night recovering the my PC as it crashed my outlook and I ended up with lot, lot of lost emails and headache. It did NOT scan the Business cards 100%. I would say, it can scan only 75% of card info. most of the time and one big disappointment, that It does not scan lender bills or any bills , so its use is limited. For the price of $175, I was expecting more mature product but... I think this product needs more quality control testing and more wider approach in their business area. I strongly think this tiny scanner at $175 is too expensive and a waste of money and if you dont like it on day one, you will never use it. I am Returning it as I wont use it anymore for sure .

I purchased Neat Receipts after reading mostly positive reviews here and elsewhere but have been disappointed. At least 75% of receipts scanned are not read completely or improperly, and I end up manually typing everything into the program. Many businesses now use the carbonless receipts and the customer copy is a light yellow with faint imprinting. Neat Receipts will not recognize these types of receipts - I realize they are difficult but are also a large percentage of what I have to work with. Right now it is gathering dust on the shelf as receipts go into a shoe box, just like before. Can you say EBay?