NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional 2.5 Mobile Scanner and Software | 
| Brand: The Neat Company
List Price: $209.95
Buy New: $99.95
You Save: $110.00 (52%)
New (5) Used (4) from $59.00
Rating:  181 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 5 x 8 x 14
MPN: 899061P
Model: 899061P
UPC: 899061000049
EAN: 0899061000049
ASIN: B000BBCKOC
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Easiest way to manage expenses, prepare for taxes, create expense reports and scan business cards--accepted by the IRS | | • | Scans permanent digital copies of all your financial papers | | • | keep track of all types of documents and pull them up as needed with the new Document Organizer feature | | • | Works with QuickBooks, Quicken, MS Money, Excel, PDF, Act!, and Peachtree | | • | Includes NeatReceipts software and a lightweight, color, portable scanner; USB interface |
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Product Description
The NeatReceipts lightweight portable scanner is the perfect tool for the on-the-go professional. Sleek and durable, it looks as good on your desktop as it does in your briefcase.
Amazon.com Product Description
Please note: A 3.0 software upgrade for the NeatReceipts Scanalizer will be released on October 15, 2007. You may purchase the software upgrade at the NeatReceipts website: Neatreceipts.com/Upgrade NeatReceipts Version 2.5 Professional is the easiest way for individuals and small businesses to manage expenses, prepare for taxes, create expense reports, and scan business cards. But it not all just for business--you can also use Neat Receipts for scrapbooking, archiving family recipes, and other family activities. NeatReceipts Version 2.5 Professional edition also includes a new Document Organizer feature in addition to Receipts, Business Card, and Tax Organizers features. 
Use NeatReceipts 2.5 to manage expenses, prepare for taxes, create expense reports, and scan business cards. View example. | 
Organize expenses by IRS form and category. View example. | 
Sync contact information into Outlook, Plaxo or vCard. View example. | 
Scan receipts and save in digital spreadsheet format. View example. | 
Scan documents, recipes, and more and then convert them to PDF. View example. | How NeatRecipts can Make Your Life Easier
Make permanent digital copies of all your financial papers
NeatReceipts 2.5 comes with a high resolution portable scanner. All you have to do is scan your receipts, invoices, and other financial documents through this scanner, and our software will save permanent copies that you can depend on for years to come. Eliminate financial data entry, simplifies expense tracking
Using patent-pending NeatScan technology, NeatReceipts 2.5 extracts all important information from each receipt including date, amount, vendor and payment type. It then organizes all this expense information into a searchable expense database. Speed up tax preparation
NeatReceipts allows you to leave digital comments on receipts and mark them for tax purposes. During tax season, retrieve all the marked receipts with ease and review those comments for easy preparation. NeatReceipts stores each receipt in a secure digital format that is accepted by the IRS. Integrate with QuickBooks, Quicken, Money, Act!, Peachtree
Export to QuickBooks, MS Money, Quicken and most other financial software. By automating data entry and making it easy to export to other software, NeatReceipts makes sure you never have to type information into your financial software again! Scan business cards
NeatReceipts captures key contact information from business cards and syncs with your Outlook address book. You can also create V-cards to upload to your PDA. Automatically create expense reports
Automatically creates expense reports from scanned receipts and attaches images of the original receipts for simple verification. Users can email these reports from within the software or export them into PDF, DOC, XLS or HTML formats. If you are looking for expense reporting software with in-built approval, analysis and administration capabilities, please consider NeatReceipts Enterprise. How NeatReciepts Works NeatScan Technology Using advanced Optical Character Recognition, NeatScan technology (patent pending) extracts key information from your receipts, such as date, amount, payment method, expense category and vendor. If you scan in business cards, NeatScan automatically pulls out information like name, company, address, phone numbers, email address etc. NeatScan actually learns to associate an expense category (such as meals or lodging) to a particular vendor (brands such as Starbucks or Hilton) so you don't have to type in the information each time. This ensures that your financial records are filed consistently and with minimal effort. Each user of NeatReceipts Professional 2.5 receives the NeatReceipts scanner--a lightweight, portable, durable color scanner. Our software was designed with this scanner in mind and offers the following unmatched functionality: - Auto-sizes any scanned receipt or document.
- Auto-crops and auto-rotates any scanned receipt or document.
- Scan widthwise or lengthwise -- the image will appear upright in image viewer.
- Powered by USB port, so no plug needed (it's truly portable!).
- Scans quickly and easily without opening and closing scanner lid (flatbed).
- Small, portable and lightweight. Perfect for the office, the home and the road!
What New with NeatRecipts 2.5 NeatReceipts Professional 2.5 offer many new features like recognition of credit cards by last 4 digits, simplified and enhanced Advanced Fast Find for your folder and receipts, and added printing options that let you print one to four images per page and choice of paper size. Just like its previous version, NeatReceipts Professional 2.5 includes a business card reader at no additional charge. Simply scan your business cards and sync your contact information automatically with your Outlook address book, or create a V-Card for your palm pilot. Version 2.5 has the added convenience of Plaxo integration, so you can just go online, click "sync with Plaxo" and have your contact information updated. New in business card features in version 2.5 include an improved interface and parsing, both black & white and color scanning, one-click e-mail to and browse-to options, and completed action item check box column. Also, for the first time, NeatReceipts Scanalizer Professional Version 2.5 also includes a document organizer so you can keep track of all types of documents and access them up as needed. Document Organizer features include: - Black & White and Color Scanning
- Document copier
- Copy Document command
- Ability to combine documents together
- Ability to separate multi-page documents
What's in the Box
Scanner, carrying case, stand
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| Customer Reviews: Read 176 more reviews...
 Here are some additional tips for Neatreceipts owners May 21, 2006
Leonid Knyshov (Fremont, CA USA)
80 out of 81 found this review helpful
My only concern is that the included scanner could be quicker. Other than that, the product is quite good. I don't particularly care for its contact management features, but others might.
A little bit of background about me: I am a software developer for contact management add-ons for Outlook. As Neatreceipts uses MSDE for its backend database, I can actually tap into that database directly and integrate it better with my application.
I primarily use it to scan business cards. I get a lot of business cards and it is critical to get them into my Outlook as quickly as possible. Neatreceipts actually is remarkably accurate at recognizing the text on most business cards.
Neatreceipts also has features to automatically recognize text on colored background and how to combat the very light ink syndrome. In short, the fancier the card, the more painful it is to scan in. :-)
Prior to choosing this product, I considered other products as well. I wanted a portable scanner that could also scan in documents in addition to cards. This scanner does the job superbly. Additionally, Neatreceipts software will work with your other scanners, which is handy if you already have a high speed scanner.
I very strongly recommend this product to those who are tired of manually entering business cards.
I promised some tips.
Tip #1
It may be tempting to use the "Meeting Point" field to actually record that place of meeting. If you are like me and want that information to transfer to Outlook as a category, you'll be surprised that the field that is actually mapped to Outlook Categories is "Contact Type" and not "Meeting Point". In other words, record your place of meeting as a category choice in the "Contact Type" field to automatically export that record with a specific category.
I find that to be far more useful.
Tip #2
If you are scanning in documents that are not receipts, simply turn off the Scanalizing feature. This should significantly speed up the process. To do that, go to Tools -> Personalize, and then click on Rules. Then turn off the "Neatscan" checkbox.
Tip #3
While scanning business cards, just hit the scan button for the next card. As long as you are not looking at the "back" side of the card, the product will automatically assume that you are scanning in a new card.
Tip #4
Scanning business cards is faster if you feed them length-wise. The software will automatically rotate the image regardless of how you originally feed the cards. That means you don't have to spend time aligning the cards.
Tip #5
Every time you hit that "Scan" button on the scanner, the software will create a new record. You'll want to go through the records and delete duplicate records. You will do that by right-clicking on the right-most portion of the record's row and choosing Delete.
Tip #6
Be sure to backup the database frequently. Your records are automatically stored in a standard SQL database, so it is critical that this database is backed up.
Terrific timesaver December 7, 2005
dolcevita (PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL USA)
72 out of 76 found this review helpful
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 isn't 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 they'll 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!
 Forget it if you want to use with Quicken December 5, 2006
R. A. Livingston (Wayne, PA USA)
64 out of 67 found this review helpful
Despite the ballyhooed compatibility with Quicken (which is why I bought this product), the export format is a now out-of-date *.QIF file which was phased out by Intuit sometime during the Quicken 2005 era. The only use of *.QIF files in Quicken 2006 or 2007 is for a cash account import, so scanning in receipts from credit card or debit card transactions is a "no go" unless you make a dummy cash account in Quicken, then recategorize each entry after import. After my query to NeatReceipts tech support about this pseudo-compatibility with Quicken, the only answer I got was a reminder that if it was less than 30 days from my purchase I could get my money back for the Scanalyzer.
I strenuously take issue with the "review" posted by the customer support representative from NeatReceipts; the employee gave a 5-star review while posting information about a software patch. This creates a bogus inflation of the Amazon.com product rating by a company representative.
To round out my review, the scanner does function well. Importing business cards is relatively easy as long as the format of the business card is traditional. The software update adding color to the scans was welcome.
In summary, don't fall prey to the claims of Quicken compatability at this point. If you're looking to document your expenses for a business trip this is probably not a bad option, unless you have to reenter the data at some point. Although I haven't tried it yet, Quicken 2007 is purported to interface with a scanner to attach receipt images to each entry. Maybe they'll get it right--NeatReceipts hasn't yet. . .
 Serves a niche purpose, but don't expect the world December 26, 2006
D. Alpert (Mira Loma, Ca USA)
36 out of 36 found this review helpful
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 don't expect the world from this product. First, it hasn't been out that long, so yes, there is definate room for improvement. The scans sometimes don't 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. I'm 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 people's concerns I saw in other reviews:
First, I have no idea what they meant about having to reboot the system 3 times. Mine didn't 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 don't forget to do the calibration. While we're 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 don't 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 doesn't happen, I'd 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 isn't 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.
Great concept - clunky execution June 1, 2006
M. Ryan (Seattle, WA USA)
31 out of 34 found this review helpful
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 it's compact. Its very small, much smaller than other desktop models I've 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 software's 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 you're looking for a scanner to scan only reciepts then this may be the product for you. Otherwise I'd suggest you keep looking.
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