NeatReceipts Scanalizer 2.5

The NeatReceipts' Scanalizer 2.5 does much more than what its name implies. It both scans and organizes your receipts, business cards, and any other document, making it easy for you to track your spending, fill out expense reports, prepare taxes, and organize your contacts.

 

The 10.8 x 1.6 x 1.3-inch navy-and-silver Scanalizer sits nicely on a desk, or you can mount it to the wall with the included hardware or place it in its desktop stand, which we found awkward and unsteady. The 10.6-ounce Scanalizer sits vertically in the stand with the USB cable sticking out of the top; one accidental tug made the whole thing tip over. But once we ditched the stand and placed the Scanalizer flat on our desk, we were impressed by its performance.

 

After loading the included NeatReceipts software, we scanned a Whole Foods receipt. The NeatReceipts' Optical Character Recognition (OCR) captured the vendor, date of purchase, payment type, and dollar amount. The only thing the Scanalizer didn't read was the sales tax, which we added in manually. Next, we scanned a business card, and again NeatReceipts' ability to recognize the various fields of information impressed us. It automatically filled in the name, title, company, address, telephone number, and fax number of our contact. The NeatReceipts software recognized about 70 percent of the information from receipts, no matter how crumpled or faded, and business cards.

 

Also included in the NeatReceipts software are a tax report generator, a storage area for documents, and an option to export your scanned papers to programs such as Excel, Quicken, QuickBooks, Microsoft Money and PDF documents. Unlike the Scanalizer 2.0, the 2.5 version uses 24-bit color scanning and boasts a 20 percent increase in scanning speed and a 15 percent increase in business-card scanning accuracy. If you own the 2.0 version, don't fret that you bought it too soon; NeatReceipts will upgrade you to the 2.5 version for free.

 

Is it time to throw away your receipt-filled shoeboxes? Possibly. According to the company, scanned receipts are good enough for the IRS, so you don't need to hold on to the originals, and we think that the quality of these scans is good enough to serve its purpose. The NeatReceipts Scanalizer 2.5 triumphs as the best storage system for all your important documents.