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[drew gandy]

I went to Ikea the other day to return some stuff.  The skinny paper receipts had been stored away somewhere... not sure where.  I did my due diligence looking through the receipt bin I keep in the van but the necessary receipts weren't there.  This deficiency is a by-product of my scattered life the past few months.  I'm expecting it to get better.  After a few minutes they did grant me a store credit as a courtesy since I didn't have a receipt.  I emailed the head office (or the head english speaking office?) suggesting that I would love to have my receipts emailed to me, perhaps using their Family Card system to keep track of things.  They said they don't have the resources to do this.  Like they aren't keeping track of my purchases already...

Anyway, I want to call on the collective tech geek problem solving(and creating) engine of the LAB for something that I've been wishing for for years.  I want:
To be able to scan my receipts as I get them, automatically upload the images to the cloud where I can retrieve when needed and also have these receipts OCR'd and the entire text be added as searchable terms so finding a particular receipt is easy as pie. 
I imagine a small box (powered by my 12v car) that pulls the receipt through and then uses my cell phone to upload it to the invisible data world in the sky.  It would probably be more convenient to just use the camera on my phone rather than a separate box but I suspect that OCR isn't good enough yet to handle the distorted images that a standalone camera produces.  I have tried doing this and then uploading to the google drive, where images are automatically OCR'd, but the results have been significantly less than hoped for.  Even receipt scans on a flatbed scanner have not fared well with the google.

My web searching reveals that Neatreceipts seems to have the market cornered for receipt scanning but the reviews are so mixed... and I don't think they make the box I'm looking for.  But the software might be good.  Has anybody worked on this topic already?  Again, I'm not necessarily looking to export data directly into accounting software but I do want indexability and the ability to retrieve the actual images of the receipts when necessary.   

update:  I just watched the video for NeatCloud + NeatMobile.  It looks like exactly what I want.  I'm just a bit suspicious that it's not all that.  I guess I'll give a try. 

[Steve Alves]

If you have an iPhone take a look at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jotnot-scanner-pro-scan-multipage/id307868751?mt=8

I use this with dropbox to scan and save anything important. Just scan and it will send it to your dropbox account where you can have separate folders organized however you like.

[Bob Leonard]

My job requires receipts for anything over $25. I have no problem stuffing them into my pocket and scanning them when I get home each day using my multipurpose color printer scanner. Just an FYI the pinter is seldom used to print with because cartiriges cost too much, but the FAX, copy and scan option work well. Pinting is done with an HP Laserjet.

[Riley Casey]

What I use for almost everything https://evernote.com/ .  Not receipt scanning specifically but image filling among other things.  Very handy for sharing show docs with other people on the same project.

 

...
Anyway, I want to call on the collective tech geek problem solving(and creating) engine of the LAB for something that I've been wishing for for years.  I want:
To be able to scan my receipts as I get them, automatically upload the images to the cloud where I can retrieve when needed and also have these receipts OCR'd and the entire text be added as searchable terms so finding a particular receipt is easy as pie. 
...

[drew gandy]

What I use for almost everything https://evernote.com/ .  Not receipt scanning specifically but image filling among other things.  Very handy for sharing show docs with other people on the same project.

Evernote is, I think, my solution.  It has a very interesting OCR concept that is entirely for indexing purposes.  It basically makes a list of all the different words it thinks could possibly be in your image and uses them all for keywords.  So far my testing is proving it to be outrageously good.   The mobile app with widget on Android makes it very convenient to snap a photo of something important on the spot and then move on to the next thing knowing that I can easily find that photo later on.  At least that's how it's supposed to work.   

Thanks for the input, everyone.  I'll try to post back in a little while with my thoughts after some more time with it. 

btw, Bob, you are a better man than I.  I wonder if it's connected to the fact that you actually go home each day.  A schedule would be awesome!

[kristianjohnsen]

Drew.

I'm so disappointed to hear this!  Here in Scandinavia (Ikea is Swedish and has a big market position also in Norway where I live) one can return any unopened product at any time (even after the product is discontinued) until the end of time (which is probably when Ikea will be out of business).

Someimes you can also return opened products (still with no receipt), and all the warehouses has a little "cheap corner" where you can dig for "finds".

Like you said, it's not like they aren't tracking your purchases, already if you have one of their "membership" cards.  And to add to that:  Where the fuck do they think you got all those products with a little Ikea logo on every little piece, including all the paper boxes, etc, etc?

Good luck, and best regards.

Kristian

[Ned Ward]

I've used Expensify on my iPhone for work to keep a running tab on expenses while traveling, and it does let you attach an image of the receipt to each expense, which then can be accessed from their site (free) or from your phone and exported as a pdf. OS is available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, or WebOS (Palm). Free to download and use.

[ProSoundWeb Community]