Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Peripherals, Software
NEAT Receipts for Mac Advance Release
Hey, slacker! You know who you are - the person who waited until 11:59 PM on April 15th to file your tax return. You've decided to get organized so you can file on April 14th next year. Windows users have had a leg up in the expense organizing world with a best-selling scanner/software combo called NEAT Receipts. Now Mac users are getting the love too.Consisting of a sleek little scanner and some proprietary software, NEAT Receipts for Mac Advance Release is a complete solution for capturing all of life's little expenses automatically. You scan a receipt, and OCR software captures the vendor, price, sales tax, and other data into a library along with an image of the receipt.
NEAT Receipts for Mac Advance Release doesn't have all of the features of the PC version yet, but it will when the final version is released in January, 2009. For the time being, you can buy the scanner and software for $179.95 (a full $50 less than the PC version) and upgrade to the full Mac version for free when it ships.
Thanks to Rachel for the tip!
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ed said 7:51AM on 5-19-2008
Looks like this is not available to addresses outside the USA yet (according to their shipping policy). Can anyone confirm this?
Reply
Noogoot said 7:52AM on 5-19-2008
Any news on a UK version?
Reply
Quills said 7:53AM on 5-19-2008
Don't suppose this is sold in the UK anywhere, or if anyone knows about it's support for UK location?
Reply
Tony said 9:15AM on 5-19-2008
It's a bit pointless in the UK - 95% of people in the UK never need to fill in tax returns, and of those that do unless you're a company you won't need anything like that kind of detail - scanning receipts? All I ever needed to do when I did self assessment was tell them my annual income & it takes 5 minutes to fill in the form (which can be done online anyway).
If you're VAT registered you'll need this information - but that implies you're a company selling at least £64,000 of goods a year. If you're doing that kind of trading you'll have an accountant anyway (which is always recommended - a good accountant will save more in tax rebates than you spend on the accountant themselves).
The US seems to be a special case - from what I understand everyone has to fill in complex tax forms every year, regardless of whether they're a simple worker or a company director. Having to keep copies of all their receipts is a new one though - didn't know it was that bad over there.
Quills said 11:11AM on 5-19-2008
Maybe so, but I have difficulty tracking my spending, yet keep a ton of receipts. Checking their forums, they don't even support GBP yet in the scanning - just the basic functionality of tracking spending in a more meaningful way would be great. I'm awful at writing down expenditures on the go, but receipts I can remember to keep and process at the end of the week.
John C said 8:38AM on 5-19-2008
I would STRONGLY advice anyone to not get this product if they were planning on using it on a macbook air. I purchased the iris scan and it works fine with my imac but not with the air. The driver wont work. This looks like the same scanner for the most part and probably the same driver. I used remote disk and then the 99 dollar usb disk drive but the air wont accept the driver. The iris scan software loads and works fine.
Reply
Mark Gollin said 2:27PM on 5-19-2008
Hi, I'm one of the NEAT Receipts for Mac developers. Just wanted to clear up a couple of points raised in the comments:
1) We work fine on the Macbook Air. Our scanner is a brand new redesign, based on the previous NEAT Receipts scanner used for Windows. The driver is also exclusive to us.
2) We ARE a Mac-centric solution. I've been a Mac owner and developer dating back to the Mac Plus. NEAT Receipts for Mac was designed from the ground up as Cocoa application, influenced far more in it's UI by iLife than by NEAT Receipts for Windows. In fact, the only code we share is our patented image processing and OCR analysis code. We even have a bunch of cool Mac-only features: PDF native storage, Print To NEAT Receipts, Drag/drop field editing, and more.
umijin said 9:16AM on 5-19-2008
Or just get a mac centric solution, Receipt Wallet for like $40. Works with any Twain scanner. And the developers are very responsive to bugs and feature requests.
Reply
imageone said 5:04PM on 5-19-2008
I totally agree. Receipt Wallet is a great app. You can use your current scanner, or buy a portable. You can also use your built-in iSight cam. Receipt Wallet is $40, and the developer posts regular updates. You should also include this app as a competitor.
http://www.receiptwallet.com/
Scott Phillips said 9:37AM on 5-19-2008
Neat Receipts is horrible. Had it for the PC, and it was such a piece of crap that i worked on about 1 out of 10 receipts. Don't buy this unless you want to throw away a couple of hundred bucks.
Reply
john said 9:56AM on 5-19-2008
I recommend the Adobe AIR based product Ora Time and Expense (http://www.johnwu.com/ora). It uses the isight built-in many Macs for scanning receipts
Reply
Steven Sande said 10:14AM on 5-19-2008
John -
That's a great-looking time and expense app. I like the cross-platform capability that you get from it being an AIR app. I will be writing a review of NEAT Receipts soon and will put ORA Time and Expenses in as a competitor.
TUAWSteve
climbingcolorado said 12:02PM on 5-19-2008
Couldn't disagree more - using the NEAT as I blog and I love it. Had it for 2-3 weeks now, hooked to my 2.4GHz 20" iMac and - aside from the beta software, it works excellent. I use it mostly for scanning bills and other documents the moment they come in the house, then it's off to the shredder for them. My home is finally paperless, and it's because of the software. Love it.
Reply
Kane said 3:03PM on 5-19-2008
How fast is this? Both for really long receipts you get from the big box stores, and for multiple page items like itemized phone bills and the like?
Is it useable? Or should I be looking at a Fujitsu ScanSnap?
I like the look of the software, but I dont want to be slowed down a lot by a slow scanner. Anyone have experience/advice?
Reply
Jason said 8:10PM on 5-28-2008
I mean, scanner just sucks in general. searched receipt scanners in googled and some othe rpeople with do it for you.
www.shoeboxed.com
-jasonk
Sojourner said 5:13PM on 11-06-2008
FINALLY.
I have always wanted to purchase NEAT (as well as business plan pro) but refused to do so while they weren't native to OSX. While I do boot into Windows from time to time, that is exclusively to play games. I won't do it just to scan in receipts :)
Reply
Jeffery Kelley said 12:46PM on 7-20-2008
Receipt wallet works with the Neat Receipt scanner. Just tried it.
Reply
Joshua Martin said 3:39AM on 8-10-2008
Neat receipts absolutely sucks balls- not good for a damn- the scanner is very slow and often jams, requiring several clicks of the mouse before it lets you start over. Also, it's software is very bloaty and slow.
Reply