While we were at CES 2013, we were lucky enough to have a nice talk with the fine folks from Neat, the company that makes the receipt scanners you see advertised on television. While we were chatting, I happened to mention my amazing drawer-o-receipts. The Neat rep said, “Neat would be perfect to help you with that!” And she then proceeded to go into her spiel about how Neat could help me bring at least one drawer’s worth of order to the chaos that which is my life.
I replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I need to buy one of those some day!” Her only reply was, “Wait right here!” and she zipped back behind her booth. Moments later she emerged with a smile, and a white and orange box.
“Here,” she said handing me the box, “this will do the trick for you, use it in good health.” The box contained the Neat Receipts for Mac Mobile Scanner.
My only thought was… “Challenge accepted!”
So, here’s what I’m going to do: As someone who has never used a receipt scanner, or any electronic means at all to keep my business receipts straight, I am going to attempt to get my life in order using the Neat Receipts scanner.
For the next month, I will scan every receipt currently in my rat’s nest of a receipt drawer, and upon returning home from making any business related purchase, I will immediately scan the receipts for that day’s business expenditures.
At the end of the month, I will sit down and tell you fine folks whether or not the Neat Receipt scanner was able to get the tragedy that is my business receipts filing system in some semblance of order.
I will not be writing a review about the Neat, as my co-editor Glenn has already done a fine job of that back in August of 2011. (Read that review here, great job Glenn!) My article a month from now will simply be a modern retelling of man vs. machine vs. receipts. WHO YA GOT?!?!
If anyone wants to play along at home, or you just want to get your business receipts pile in order, the Neat Scanner is available at Amazon.com.
To those of you who are about scan and get organized, we salute you!