Looking to finally go paperless. I've got 14 years of financial documents (bank statements, credit card bills, etc) that are taking up space. I never use them but don't want to get rid of them.

From here on out I'd like to get a good scanner that will let me bring them in as PDFs for use in Quicken or DevonThink. Not sure how I'm going to organize them yet.

So far I have looked at:

1) Neat Receipts - simplex document scanner, no page feed, $200
2) Neat Desk - duplex scanner, page feed, $400
3) Fujitsu ScanSnap 1300 - duplex scanner, page feed, $250

I see the NeatCo stuff all over the place, from CostCo to airports. Personally they seem overpriced and I don't want to use their software. Fujitsu gets pretty good reviews, but still that's $250 for a simple page-feed scanner.

So what does TWW do to keep their papers and financial documents organized?

8/21/2011 8:38:44 PM

I've been doing this exact thing for awhile now.

Quote :

"So what does TWW do to keep their papers and financial documents organized?"

I use the multi-function printers/copiers at work off the clock. They all have automated document feeders on top for their scanner units, and can do ~20-30 scans/minute, full-duplex and in color if necessary. Best part? They're free to use. If you have access to them I highly recommend taking advantage of them.

You say you've got 14-years' worth of documents so I'd imagine it would take awhile scanning one page at a time -- this is where the ADF comes in handy. Take a stack of old tax returns, credit card statements, etc, put them in the machine, and click "Go". A few minutes later you've scanned in a few hundred pages of stuff.

For smaller/odd-sized receipts and papers, I scan them the slow way (meaning I manually put them on the scanning glass), but the larger scanning surface on the machines at work (just slightly larger than 11"x17") means I can scan a bunch of receipts at once and crop them down to size, if necessary.

My normal scanning mode: B&W, 600dpi. This does a great job, is very readable, and produces files that are usually small. If color is necessary I'll use it.



A few things to consider:

1: If you use the machines at work, make sure no one else can access to your scans. If they are sent to a shared drive that all employees can access, put a password on the files you've scanned. Also, most of today's larger multi-function machines automatically put a copy of everything scanned on their local hard drive unless they're specifically set to not do that. Obviously you don't want this to happen so ask around before you scan. Luckily the machines I use don't keep anything on their local drives and they e-mail scans to the user instead of putting them on a shared company drive.

2: Encryption: get some encryption software (I use TrueCrypt), make an encrypted volume, and throw all your important personal documents onto there so no one else can access them. This also allows for data redundancy in case of emergency or loss/theft. You can keep a copy on your USB thumb drive, laptop, work desktop, and external drive, without fear of anyone stealing your personal information.

3: Get Adobe Acrobat full or equivalent. The ability to quickly scan in 20 different documents as one big file and then parse them out individually will save you tons of time.

4: Come up with a good naming convention that will easily allow you to know what a file is just from the filename. 14 years of documents will be unwieldy otherwise. Spending some time now will save you time later when you need to find that one receipt the IRS needs, or you need to show proof of <XYZ>.

5: When using the automated document feeder, all documents scanned at the same time will need to be roughly the same size or else it might have an issue. If you set it to "multiple paper sizes" it can usually figure out an 8.5x11 from an 11x17 (as long as they're oriented with the height the same) but it might have problems with hodge-podge of odd-sized documents. If you have some funky paper size, the scanner might think the paper is 8.5x5.5 (or other smaller size) and cut off part of your scan. Always check your scans after scanning. ADFs also don't deal well with staples/paper-clips/etc. If papers are 'stuck' on each other, the ADF might draw 2-3 pages in at once...so again, check your scans after scanning to make sure everything went through.

6: Consider scanning in all your other personal documents as well -- birth certificate, marriage certificate, wallet contents, concealed-carry permit, vehicle titles, insurance documents, medical records, etc. Just make sure they're encrypted...


A good list I found of things to consider scanning:
http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/files/WB001.pdf

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 11:31 PM. Reason : ]

8/21/2011 11:25:33 PM

If you do decide to buy one, I love the Fujitsu ScanSnap series. Fast, duplexing, reliable. We have a bunch of them deployed at work. What's not to like? Sure, it can be slightly irritating that they are only a sheetfed scanner when you have something for which a flatbed would come in handy, but they're exceptional at what they do.

8/22/2011 1:04:07 AM

Quote :

"20-30 scans/minute"

:drool:

8/22/2011 1:12:30 AM

I have the S1500. Look at it if you're considering the S1300; the scanning speed difference alone is worth the price increase.

8/22/2011 7:11:42 AM

^^ Just looked it up -- the machines where I currently work can scan up to 50ppm for Letter. The machines where I used to work could do up to 30ppm.

I'm sure that is at 200dpi; putting it at 600dpi slows it down a little, but not much.

8/22/2011 10:09:35 AM

Good info thanks everyone. Where I used to work we had the mega scanner copier machines that could scan an insane amount of pages super quick. The whole machine was at least 25 feet long or more. I never quite found the compartment where it would fellate you while you wait for your print/copy/scan job to finish

However I never scanned personal documents because I'm sure all that stuff is archived and saved somewhere (especially since documents were sent directly through the network to your computer). Sarbanes-Oxley anyone?

I think I've decided to go with the ScanSnap, probably the 1300. I can't justify spending $400 to get the higher end one even if it does scan faster. Plus I like how the 1300 is powered by the USB port and is a little more portable.

Not sure how I'll store or name them. I definitely want to run some sort of OCR on it, which DevonThink does if I decide to use some sort of software to manage the documents. I

8/22/2011 9:52:32 PM