NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional 2.5 Mobile Scanner and Software

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.

OK, I read all the reviews on this product and still purchased one. Here is my scoop: This product fills a great little niche for those of us with home businesses that need some help keeping track of our expenses and contacts. But dont expect the world from this product. First, it hasnt been out that long, so yes, there is definate room for improvement. The scans sometimes dont work, and yes, the software does hangup sometimes. But considering what this product does for me, I can live with that. Also, the real beauty of this is the software it comes with that has some great reporting functions. You will be able to hand your tax preparer all your expenses in a tidy report. The reports alone will save me a ton of time. And I love the business card scanning. Im one of those who just came back from a week long conference with a ton of cards I normally would have just pitched after awhile, even though it will definately be an asset to my business to be able to contact these people. I was able to scan them in and export them easily into Outlook in a short amount of time. SWEET! Now, to address some other peoples concerns I saw in other reviews: First, I have no idea what they meant about having to reboot the system 3 times. Mine didnt need to reboot at all, although it did inform me that a reboot may be needed in a couple of spots. And the software was a breeze to install. I have also seen no affect on the performance of my machine, and I run a TON of software and hardware. This may be because I have an up to date system with plenty of memory. Second, the software does hangup sometimes and lose all your data since your last save if you scan too many times in a row. Just save your data by doing a backup every few scans - it only takes a few seconds. Also, you will be prompted during the setup to be part of a test group that can provide feedback on the product - join it. This is a relatively new product that is a real timesaver - help the company fix the bugs in the product instead of just complaining about them. Third, make sure you perform all the upgrades it prompts you for, before you actually start scanning anything. This alone will save you a ton of headaches. And dont forget to do the calibration. While were on the subject, the program will start a little tutorial program after you install it - take a few minutes to go through it and you will save yourself a lot of headaches. Fourth, the accuracy of the scans is completely related to how good your original is. I scanned business cards with dark type on either a dark or light background and got 100% accuracy. The accuracy rate dropped to about 90% if the card or receipt had light print or any damage to it. Did I have to do some typing - yes, but not a lot. And hey, each field it fills in is one I dont have to type myself. Fifth, yes - you do have to give the receipt or card a little push most times to get it to start the scan. HELLO - this is a sheetfed scanner! If you can show me another sheetfed scanner where this doesnt happen, Id be very surprised. The software easily uses any scanner on your system (I have 3) so just use another scanner if a particular reciept or business card gives you trouble. I would not recommend buying this as the sole scanner for your system - sheetfed scanners do have limited abilities. In short folks, this is a great little product, but it isnt perfect yet. I am computer savvy and able to deal with the little hiccups it throws my way without any trouble. If you are one of those people challenged using scanners or computers in general, then this product is not for you. But if you have no trouble in these areas, then this baby can save you a ton of time and you can then throw away those shoeboxes of receipts and business cards you have.

I have used NeatReceipts for several years and this little scanner really does a great job. Doesnt take up much room and after you are thru using it, just unplug it and put it in a drawer for next time. I save my receipts for a couple of weeks and then scan them all at one time. This really helps when tax time comes as many people find out that the receipts you get from the stores are thermal printed and the information on the receipts disappear/fade after awhile and if you cant read them, thats a problem. This scanner along with the NeatReceipts software can save a lot of headaches when compiling your receipts for the year.

My disappointment with this product is two-fold: (1) The number of scanning and classification errors it had in my testing were too high. (2) It does not add anything to somebody using Money or Quicken. Ill address the second point first: My main interest in this product was to have my receipt automatically categorized and then have that information transferred into my Money file. However, I found that that the categories it supports are very limited. Secondly the import into Money was very cumbersome: you had to first select the records you wanted to import, save it to a file, then open that file in Money and import the records. Note that these have to be done one account at a time since Money expects that the records you are importing all belong to the same account. The biggest blow was that the importing process did not retain the category selected in NeatReceipts, so the whole exercise was just an elaborate way to get an entry into Money. If your institution supports downloading, that is a much more easier and accurate way to get the records into your Money or Quicken file. You can then categorize them manually (of course both Money and Quicken do a good job auto-categorizing expenses with regular payees). As to the first point (scanning errors), I found that it was unable to pick out the account number in some cases, the date in another case and even the amount in a couple of cases. One of my receipts was for a refund with the - symbol clearly present in front of the amount. It not only categorized that as an debit instead of a credit, it even got the amount totally wrong. On the positive side, it should be useful to somebody who does not use a product such as Money or Quicken - having a digitized, searchable copy of your receipts can be very useful. You will have to correct some errors in the scanning/optical recognition, but using this product will be better than not doing it at all.

This was a older modle of the NetReceipts and I hand to call and get a download before it would work. I find it hard to use.I guess you could say I am not very happy with it...

The only fly in the ointment is the fact that this device only really works with Windows XP, and not Mac or Linux, and not very great (as of last month) with Windows Vista. Scans and helps you organize store receipts and business cards, very important items for anyone who likes to really keep track of their or their business finances.

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.

Hello, I am running this on vista. I am very pleased overall with the product. I am a bit disappointed in the way the receipts are organized. Other than that, very pleased with the product. You can have multiple categories to scan receipts into. I own 4 businesses. I set up all 4 businesses and personal folders and scan all my receipts in. Also I set up folders and scan in important documents. Overall very good product.

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.

I read most of the reviews before I purchased this scanner, I agree that the software is a bit slow, and that it isnt perfect on some of the lettering styles and reciept formats. However that being said, I love it. It has done most of the reciepts I have put through with much more accuracy than I was expecting, the variables for modifing lists in the programmng are more than adequate for the needs of our small business and I dont have to handle the reciepts more than once.