Neat Receipts Mobile Scanner and Digital Filing System - Mac

Pros: Great Software

Cons: Poor scanner performance

Other Thoughts: If only the Fujitsu 1300 and this scanner software could be combined.The Fujitsu scans both sides on a single pass,the neat receipts dosen't.The Fujitsu allows you to stack receipts and documents,not the Neat Reciepts.The Neat Reciepts software is eons better , so much so that it trumps purchasing the other one.

Pros: Uses smaller USB connector
Drivers work flawlessly with other TWAIN enabled programs
Seems sturdy and well designed.

Cons: Little slower to scan

Other Thoughts: Having used another brand prior to this one and having to return it there is a huge difference in quality and making sure things work right. I found the difference to be black and white when evaluating travel scanners.

Pros: The scanner and s/w do a good job of straightening out crooked scans, OCR works well and is trivial to correct when it's off. Form factor is very convenient, although I mostly just use it on the couch while scanning in paperwork from my file folder. 112 documents scanned so far, with maybe 10% of them being 2-5 pages long. Report generation is very handy, as is the interface for switching from color to b&w and back. Automatic cropping of non-document area works consistently well and saves time. The more I use it, the happier I am with it. I also like the cardboard folder that holds the cleaning cloth, calibration cards, and basic info for easy portability. Documents are automatically rotated right-side up (easy to override), a nice touch.

Cons: Some tasks are unnecessarily awkward, but not enough for me to drop a star. Combining individually scanned pages into a single document has to be done through top-level menu, not option-click context menu or keyboard shortcut. I still don't know if I can rearrange the pages within a multi-page document, but I assume it's possible somehow. Help content is lean, addressing the barest information needed to accomplish tasks, but then it does actually exist, so that's not all bad.

The USB cable is kind of short, so I'm constantly worried I'll forget it's attached and drop it on the floor when I move my laptop. The software could be a little smarter about auto-assigning categories (or other fields) to documents/receipts based on the vendor name, but autocompletion addresses that well.

Other Thoughts: Technically, this scanner ought to be usable with Windows, but I haven't tried that yet. Files are stored as PDFs with generated names (probably checksums), with organization kept in separate files. I'm looking forward to transferring my collection to a NAS for more storage.

I'd love a feature that publishes HTML pages that link to all the docs so everything is accessible to someone without the NEAT desktop s/w. Also, would be nice to use arbitrary tags on docs so I could group things a little more dynamically.

I do plan to see if I can start storing downloaded PDFs for all the paper instruction manuals we have floating around. Importing the PDFs looks trivial, I'm just not sure I want to use the query side to pull things out. It's definitely doable though, which is awesome.

Pros: Well built scanner. Light and portable. Image quality seems fine.

Cons: Could not recognize business cards correctly. Calibrated several times, reset defaults, no luck. Over and over it failed to OCR basic info from the card. It never recognized a single card correctly, often mis-reading 75-90% of the information. Had to go back to my old scanner.

Pros: Decent Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Quality construction on scanner
Small form factor
USB Powered
Aesthetically pleasing

Cons: Program crashed ~ 5 times under very heavy loading (Initial scanning run of around 500 documents) on my late-2005 G5 PPC. Not acceptable on a Mac.

Software feels like it was coded for Windows and then ported to the Mac. It doesn't flow well, and becomes unresponsive at times if you try to multi-task (e.g., filling out fields on a previous document while scanning another document while doing OCR on a prior document).

I bought the Mac version b/c I knew this kind of software requires a lot of processing power; currently disappointed with the Mac version, as it feels more like I'm working within Windows XP when using...

Other Thoughts: I am using a relatively older model Mac (non intel processor). Maybe intel Mac owners have had a more positive overall user experience???

Saves all .pdfs in a proprietary database format, which is indexed by Spotlight on the Mac but cannot be browsed within OS X. I don't like this b/c if you're using a file synchronization program on the Mac (e.g., ChronoSynch) to back up the database, when you append a single PDF to the database, the entire database has to be backed up again, and not just the file that's been added. (b/c the database is a single file and not a bunch of individual pdfs). Not cool Neat. Not cool... Interestingly, when copied over to a windows machine, the database file is recognized as a folder, which can be browsed (you can see all the individual PDFs).

Why can't it just put all my documents in the documents collection, and all my receipts in the receipts collection (etc).

Pros: Compact, no need for external power supply, and easily transportable. Makes it easy for lazy people like me, who hate to track bills/statements, to scan everything and organize it in one step. I have finally been able to start clearing up all my clutter. I find that if I can use the computer without too much hassle, I am more likely to complete chores that I dislike. Images are incredibly sharp and clear.

Cons: Scanning using anything but the "quick scan" option is slow. That's the reason it got 4 stars instead of 5.

Pros: I was recommended this NeatReceipt scanner by a friend who is running her own business. She loves it so much, so I want to give it a try. They finally release this Mac version, which is nice.
I'm a freelancer so I must keep track of all my receipts, and this product is a time saver for me. The software will recognize about 80% of my receipts right after I scanned and keep it organized in the database. It feels like having a personal accountant. And according to their website, all the scanned receipts are IRS-accepted.
The product is small, compact, easy to carry for travelling. and it has a mac-looking design, nice glossy white color just like a white macbook. It also come with a scratch-free bag and a cleaning product, nice addition.
I think the product is worthy for a freelancer like me. It simplify my life.

Cons: The software crashed twice on my while scanning the receipts. But overall, its still awesome.