Evernote and Receipts

[jrr9969 1]

Good Afternoon,

I am contemplating making a new scanner purchase (either the Neat Desktop or the Fujitsu X500). My question is about the software. Like most of you when you started we have a ton of paper and most of it is receipts. I am looking for a solution to scan the receipts and have the ability to categorize them according to which credit card was used, when the purchase was made, and the amount of the purchase. I am assuming I can do this using tags. My question is when it comes time to reconcile my credit card statement with my scanned receipts is there an easy way to do that without having to review each receipt. From what I can see I can do this with the Neat software. I know it seems like a lot to ask but I need to get from under this mountain of paper.

 

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!!!

[Sentinel 195]

Hi jrr9969.  Welcome to the Forum.

 

In comparison:  

 

Neat Receipt Software/Neat Desktop:

Automatically categorizes receipts, extracts information, calculates totals, reconciles, etc.

 

Evernote/Any Scanner:

Place scanned receipts into Notes, manually place tags to Notes where your receipts will be stored, you devise the category library, manually extract the dollar amounts from receipts to place in some other calculation software for totals, reconciling, etc.

 

My conclusion with the little knowledge I have of your particular needs:  Neat Receipts/Neat Desktop is going to provide you with the automated calculations and reconciling you want.  You will on occasion need to manually type some corrections as you do your scanning, however, that will be much less trouble than using Evernote for these purposes.  Neat Receipts software is very good and designed for what you apparently need it for.  I use it as well. 

 

Evernote is not capable of doing any numerical extractions and calculations. It is simply a scanned document repository with a decent search engine.  I hope this helps.

[CalS 5,280]

Agree with Sentinel, it will require more effort than it is probably worth in EN to get to the level of detail you want.  If it comes with Neat I would go there.

 

FWIW, I batch scan my receipts into EN and tag them Receipt and F20yy (year).  I then use search to find things (last 4 digits of the card, merchant, sometimes the item, etc.)  Different use case for sure, I wanted everything in one place and was willing to give up the level of detail that you seek.

[JohnDM 122]

.FWIW, I batch scan my receipts into EN and tag them Receipt and F20yy (year).  I then use search to find things (last 4 digits of the card, merchant, sometimes the item, etc.)

 

So stupid question, csihilling.   When you say you batch scan, are you talking about Jpg, each page on its own note?  What does the "F" stand for in your F20yy?

 

Do you just keep your receipts in a local non synched notebook?  Or leave them in the main Notebook? . . .. Okay, more than one stupid question . ..

 

 

.  . ..  I am looking for a solution to scan the receipts and have the ability to categorize them according to which credit card was used, when the purchase was made .. . .[etc.]

.

 

 

Hey jr, . . ..  yeah I have been using Evernote for 3 years scanning receipts and  . . . well . . .  Evernote is not the tool you are hoping for on that. . . . . much as I tried  . . .much as I had hoped to get it to work for me. It's just way too time consuming.  The way I handle it now is I scan my credit card statements PDF but have just been scanning major or important purchase, utility company bills -- the big stuff  -- the rest -- small cash receipts or the receipts that will be refelcted on the credit card statement are  just been going back into the grocery sack, or trash. . .. . (shhhh don't tell the IRS)  It is WAY too time consuming.    I am *seriously* thinking of doing something in the line of what csihilling is doing . . . . He is awesome!!!!!!!!!

 

Sentinel offers some interesting ideas, and might work for you if you need that high of a detail beyond Credit card Statements -- like detail accounting on each receipt. My days of tagging and renaming a $3.00 coffee receipt at the gas station are over for me . ..

 

[CalS 5,280]

 

.FWIW, I batch scan my receipts into EN and tag them Receipt and F20yy (year).  I then use search to find things (last 4 digits of the card, merchant, sometimes the item, etc.)

 

So stupid question, csihilling.   When you say you batch scan, are you talking about Jpg, each page on its own note?  What does the "F" stand for in your F20yy?

 

Do you just keep your receipts in a local non synched notebook?  Or leave them in the main Notebook? . . .. Okay, more than one stupid question . ..

 

 

No stupid questions in my universe, in order:

1. Using a ScanSnap I scan multiple receipts at the same time, creating a separate OCRd PDF per receipt.  I import them into my Scans folder and batch tag them as above and then batch move them.
2. F stands for Fiscal, as in Fiscal Year.
3. Started keeping them in my main notebook but as the number grew I moved them to their own synced notebook to cut down on false positives.  A sacrifice for me since I am not a heavy notebook user, I have 8 total (two of which are INBOX and Scans temporaries)
4. See 3.

Not a lot of effort and I haven't had any issues finding anything to date.  Either the tag Receipt or the notebook hones in for an EN search.  I could get rid of the Receipt tag I suppose, but my thinking is that the Receipt notebook is a convenience while the Receipt tag is what the note is.

[CalS 5,280]

The way I handle it now is I scan my credit card statements PDF but have just been scanning major or important purchase, utility company bills -- the big stuff  

 

 

 

JohnDM,

 

Relative to the rest of the big stuff, think about your green footprint and consider downloading those statements and stop having them mailed to you.  Tends to be a smaller file as well.  Not to mention less manual labor.

[JohnDM 122]

JohnDM,

 

Relative to the rest of the big stuff, think about your green footprint and consider downloading those statements and stop having them mailed to you.  Tends to be a smaller file as well.  Not to mention less manual labor.

 

 

Right I totally agree, my problem is I get totally busy and email alerts get  buried in my inbox, then I forget about them  . . .  then I miss a payment.  . . . .then I kick myself  . . . .then I . . .. (lets just say I am not a fan of  S&M and pain).

 

So I was using the snail mail as a tactile reminder to pay the damned thing and get it off my desk. I pay it as soon as it comes in. So, right I know I am not using my email inbox the right way, but with over 10,000 letters in my inbox, I am not going to start sorting. -- Anything important gets forwarded to Evernote and it gets tagged there.

 

So what I have been doing lately is EVERY time I get an email alert that a new bill statement is due I immediately forward it to Evernote. I COULD automate that forward process with ITTT or Gmail filters but then I am back to the loosing the note in the rubbish  so I sort of like that I immediately forward it to Evernote manually, it goes pretty fast. I pick it up in evernote when I am back at my desk in my office and ready to pay some bills. 

 

But to make a long story short I am slowly weening myself off of the paper bills.

 

Keep the suggestions coming, csihilling -- here and other thread, you are awesome!!!

[JohnDM 122]

Ok BurgersNFries is another one of my favorite people on here -- she is just awesome

 

I have a love/hate relationship with NeatReceipts/NeatWorks/Neat/Whatever-their-name-is-today, which I've used for about eight years now.  The love/hate relationship is b/c when it works, it's great.  But when it doesn't, it's a major PITA to get working again.  The problems are always with the software either installing an upgrade or (more recently) something was wonky with my database & even uninstalling, reverting to the previous version & restoring from a backup still didn't fix it.  But I finally got it up & running on a different computer & now I'm a happy camper...until the next time.  Anyway, I use it strictly for thermal receipts & like it b/c I don't have to tag anything, their OCR is pretty good & it's pretty easy to find a receipt by either vendor, date or amount.  I used to put all receipts in there, but now only the thermal types.  The larger receipts or ones a service tech gives you (IE A/C repair guy), stuff like that, I now put in Evernote.  Plus, digital receipts always go in Evernote, simply b/c it's easier than printing the receipt to PDF & then importing into NeatReceipts.  I'm not exactly sure why I segretate it this way.  But certainly, I'm really not all that concerned with having all my Safeway, Walgreens, gasoline & Walmart receipts in Evernote b/c I rarely will need to pull them.  OTOH, the invoice/receipt the A/C repair guy has me sign & then leaves a copy with me, well, I'm going to want to have that in Evernote in case I need to pull it later if/when we're having A/C problems again.  BTW, I don't use the NeatReceipts cloud...just a local database that I backup often.

 

this came from this thread  https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/64125-receipts/

 

So I have been thinking on what she said here a LOT -- what records do I really need to pull at some time in the future and is it really necessary to keep the receipt for the coke I bought at the magazine shop in the airport from 4 years ago.

 

What are your guys thinking about using Evernote as a dump for Fiscal year receipts (like csihilling)  but then exporting those minor receipts at the end of the accounting year to cut down on the false positives on searches?

[gazumped 11,652]

Who said "There are no 'false positives',  just badly-defined searches?...."  Oh yeah - that was me.  I find it much easier to just dump everything into Evernote and not worry about whether or not to scan - yes it's a hassle sometimes,  but I have a good scanner and an easy naming convention so things go in smoothly.  And when I search it tends to be an iterative process - look for all the <letters> from <the bank> - sort in date order;  if the latest letter(s) aren't what I need,  search within the results for <keyword>.  No need to archive anything,  though I will delete or archive stuff that I know I don't need any more just to be tidy.  Receipts and stuff a findable by dates,  plus "receipt" and "<yyyymmdd>" are part of the note title.  If I get too many hits I can exclude some dates...

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I really only keep:

Receipts for items with a warranty

Receipts for items I may have a need to return

Receipts for items for which I may be reimbursed (generally these are expenses accrued while traveling)

Bills for which payment is due at a future date and which are not automatically deducted (I don't think I have anything like this anymore though!)

Bills for a product or service for which I have paid but have not received such as anything ordered online or pre-ordered.

If it isn't one of these things, it goes in the bin.