Product Feedback & Suggestions

Neat Scan tool bar in not showing up in my add ins

Meg T — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:48:03 GMT

I am not seeing the neat scan tool bar in my add ins in Outlook. Does anyone have any advice on how I can find it?

Feature Request: Allow user to format expense report

sheracj — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:55:42 GMT

It would be great if I could choose what fields are included in the expense report. Right now, the form includes fields I do not need, which creates an issue where it does NOT include the fields I do need. I need the "notes" field to be included in my expense reports- as it works now the notes are crowded out and either included only partially or not at all. Yet, the expense report includes all kinds of data fields that I don't need and leave blank. If I could choose what fields to show in the expense report, I wouldn't have this problem.

And I don't know if it's a bug or what - but it's odd that the notes field is sometimes included, sometimes cut off mid sentence (and my notes are by no means long) and other times the note field is not included at all.

thanks

Bug: Neatworks quick scan hangs on hibernate

magnus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:12:36 GMT

If hibernating the computer with Neatworks quick scan running and scanner connected, quick scan hangs if the scanner is not available when the comptuer returns from hibernation. Reconnecting the scanner wakes the application back to life.

Instead of turning unresponsive, the application should simply detect that the scanner is gone.

Regards,

Magnus

Feature Request: Expense Report Formatting

RobbSalzmann — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:31:18 GMT

I would like the ability to have a little more control over report formatting, such as changing the header contents, and adjusting the line spacing. I would also like the ability to have a little more control over Receipt Captions, such as association with other columns in the row the receipt corresponds to and abililty to add custom text (like an item number from another expense report using the same receipts).

The reason for this last request is that often as a subcontractor, we are asked to provide expense reports to more than one entity. Different entities sometimes have different reporting requirements - or, more often, its nice to help the person tallying the receipts by providing details under them.

e.g. Instead of "Receipt #2" I'd like the caption to read "Line 2 Hertz 11/12/09 $328.26 ExpID#001288" - where the first four are columns in NeatWorks, and the last is a custom entry (perhaps a custom column in the report), that corresponds to another expense report.

Feature Request: Option To Default Receipts in Color

RobbSalzmann — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:14:32 GMT

I would like to be able to set an option that would allow me to save receipts in color in the receipts folder by default.

Thanks for a great product btw!

Feature req: Maximize on double click of image in image preview

magnus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:15:15 GMT

When viewing document images in the Receipts/Business Cards/Documents views, doubleclicking the image should switch the view to full screen.

Clicking once should skip to the next image in the set (if any)

Regards,

Magnus

Bug: Neatworks quick scan hangs on hibernate

magnus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:12:36 GMT

Instead of turning unresponsive, the application should simply detect that the scanner is gone.

Regards,

Magnus

Feature req: Folder names longer than 25 characters

magnus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:10:17 GMT

25 characters is not always enough for meaningful folder names

Regads,

Magnus

Feature req: Merging/combining filed items

magnus — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:08:12 GMT

It would be Neat if one could merge/combine filed documents.

I now have a 30 page scan, scanned with the single side option. Then it turns out that one of the pages had handwritten notes on the back side and should have been scanned in duplex.

Without the requrested functionality all 30 pages must be scanned again, all in duplex.

Regards,

Magnus

Feature Req: Customizeable Reports & Column Ordering

RobbSalzmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:03:26 GMT

I would like to be able to create ad-hoc reports

select the columns
order the columns
header
footer
...

I would like to be able to change/move the column headings (and associated columns) similar to moving the file size column (for instance) in windows explorer. E.g. I would like to place the 'date' column first in some of the receipt folders.

Currently using: NeatWorks Verson 4 SP3 (4.6.2_152)

Feature Req: Ability to set folder defaults

RobbSalzmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:59:32 GMT

I would like the ability to set defaults, perhaps via a folder 'profile' where certain things are set by default:

reimbursable
keep color/convert to B&W
...

Currently using: NeatWorks Verson 4 SP3 (4.6.2_152)

Feature Req: Scan directly to folder

RobbSalzmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:54:09 GMT

I would like the ability to scan directly to the folder I'm currently viewing:

if I'm in my current receipts folder and scan another receipt, I'd like it to come directly to the folder and be added to the other receipts.

Currently using: NeatWorks Verson 4 SP3 (4.6.2_152)

BUG: Unable to Drag Drop In Inbox

RobbSalzmann — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:49:19 GMT

I am unable to drag and drop scanned items between the folder categories in the Inbox.

E.g. cannot drag a scanned item from "Document" to "Receipts"

Support was unable to resolve

NeatWorks Verson 4 SP3 (4.6.2_152)

Windows XP sp2 on Dell Latitude E6500

Worst. Packaging. Ever.

germ — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:07:26 GMT

I just want to tell you how horrible the packaging of the NeatReceipt scanner is. It's the worst of those plastic-sealed packages that are almost impossible to open without cutting yourself. I wonder how many people were injured in opening it.

Shame on you, Neatco.

Could plugging in the USB cable automatically open NeatWorks?

hoeveler — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:56:07 GMT

Much the same way that iPhoto opens if you plug in a digital camera, is there a way for the system to identify that the scanner is plugged in and open the NeatWorks app automatically?

-Andrew

Why I'm returning NeatDesk for Mac and suggested improvements

grahamfletcher — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:12:12 GMT

I wrote a fairly lengthy explanation in my return-request email as to why I was returning NeatDesk, but I don't think the recipient at The Neat Company cared very much, so I'm posting a copy of my response here:

I was initially very excited about NeatDesk, as I expected that it would be very useful in scanning large batches of paper and running OCR on everything that wasn't hand-written to assist in searching through the hundreds of pages of information that I have for each of my classes. I started out by importing several PDF files from my desktop just to see how things worked. After about 20 minutes, the program had already crashed twice, and I had found several bugs and other issues that I thought should be addressed. I started writing these things down with the intent of providing The Neat Company with a detailed list of issues that I thought should be addressed.

At this point, I was beginning to feel somewhat disenchanted, my hope wasn't lost until I began using the scanner. Again, I was able to give the benefit of the doubt regarding the problems I was experiencing with the document-feeder, but after viewing the quality of the scanned images, I decided that this product would have to be returned. I assumed it had to be due to a calibration error (even though I had followed the instructions and scanned the included slip of paper before scanning anything else) so I tried recalibrating the scanner, again with the included slip of paper and then again later with a blank sheet of paper. Without fail, the scans were full of streaky-looking artifacts that were very distracting and even impairing to the documents' readability.

If you would like to see for yourself, I have posted several examples of NeatDesk scans along with corresponding scans from my Samsung all-in-one. You can view the images on there own in a new tab or window to see them at full resolution, or click on the link to PDF of all of the images.

Example 1:

The first page came from the Samsung. The second and third pages came from the NeatDesk scanner. Notice the elongation of the second page: this was the result of my first scan attempt. I don't know why this happened; the document passed through the feeder just fine and was the only sheet being scanned at the time. The third page is the result of rescanning the document.

Example 2:

Again, the first page is from the Samsung and the second page is from the NeatDesk scanner.

As I mentioned before, there were several issues that I encountered in the first 90 minutes (after which I gave up) of using NeatWorks that I found to be somewhat disappointing. I'll try to describe them for you as best I can in hopes that it may assist you should you try to address them. Note that since all of these issues pertain to all item types, I shall cite examples that use a "document" type for consistency.

Potential bugs:

•     Double click to open a document in its own window. Click "Document", located in the orange bar at the top of the inspector view. Now click on "All Fields > Create or Modify Fields..." Nothing happens.

•     Select multiple items (contacts, documents or receipts) and attempt to change the items' type by clicking "{item type}" in the colored bar of the inspector view. Only the first of the selected items is modified. This is inconsistent with the behavior of the items' fields which, when modified applies to every selected item. Instead, one must click "Edit > Item Type > {item type}" to change the type of all of the selected items.

•     After importing a PDF document, I wanted to run OCR on all of its pages. However, clicking "Edit > Reanalyze" did nothing. I tried this multiple times on several documents of varying lengths. The only solution was to double click to open the document in its own window, then click "Reanalyze" on every single page of the document. (In the off chance that it would make a difference, I tried setting the scanning option to "Full" OCR before clicking "Reanalyze", but this didn't change anything.)

Lacking functionality/content:

•     My main reason for purchasing NeatDesk was to help me get organized. Ironically, I found that this was far more difficult to do with NeatDesk than it was even in Finder. At least in Finder I can create folders and subfolders to maintain a hierarchical structure that allows me to quickly locate items that are related to one another. The closest thing I found to this in NeatWorks was the "smart collection", which brings me to my next point.

•     The smart collections were far from what I was led to believe they were. I was expecting the same functionality provided by "smart folders" in Finder, "smart playlists" in iTunes, "smart mailboxes" in Mail, "smart groups" in Address Book and Xcode, "smart albums" in iPhoto and Aperture, "smart collections" (funnily enough) in Papers, etc. Instead, I found that the smart collections had very little flexibility and did not allow you to customize your search criteria. Instead, one must search by text in the document or by values for a specific field.

•     There should be a field type that allows for multiple values. I needed this almost immediately when I was importing a paper with more than one author. Following this same idea, you might implement a "Keywords" field like what is found in Aperture.

•     There should be an easy way to manage the fields that are displayed by default in the inspector. Many of the fields were of no use to me, and to fill in the fields that were relevant, I had to click "Document > All Fields > {field}". This became very inconvenient very quickly.

•     I didn't have complete dates for some of my documents, but I did know the years in which they were created. When I tried in input only the year in the date field, NeatWorks automatically filled in the current month and date, too. This was actually very annoying, as there was no way to stop it except by going to "Preferences" and changing "Date Format" to "%Y". However, this affects all dates. So, I tried creating my own field. First, I tried creating a date field with a format string of "%Y" (you'd think it would work like it worked from "Preferences") but it kept truncating the dates to two digits, even if I put something like "%4Y". Next, I tried making an integer field, instead. However, there was no way to make the automatic comma disappear, so the years looked like "2,009". I soon gave up on that one.

•     When I first started up the program, I expected to be able to either drag or use a file chooser to select an entire directory in which my pre-existing PDFs are stored, at which point NeatWorks would propagate through the file hierarchy searching for file-types it understands and adding them to either the "Inbox" or some particular collection. This is just like in iTunes when you click "File > Add to Library..."

Information:

•     There is no where near enough information on the website to give someone a good idea of what they're purchasing (refer to my "smart collections" point, above). There should be more screenshots, a detailed user manual available, and if you really want to be helpful, a trial version of the software (maybe you could just take out the ability to save documents/libraries in the trial version; it would still be helpful).

•     Where is the documentation for custom formatting? I couldn't find this (and several other things) in the help files (which is where I expected it).

Things you might consider:

•     When I select text in a document and drag it into one of the inspector fields, I expect that field to be populated by the text I selected, not the entire line in which the text was located.

•     It's difficult to read "Contact" against the dark-red stripe at the top of the inspector view. Perhaps you could use a lighter color or make the text white.

I still think that NeatDesk has a lot of potential and could be a great way to help people migrate from the mountains of paper lying around their homes and offices to a digital archive using a smart, intuitive program like what NeatDesk strives for. I hope that you will seriously consider the things I have mentioned and if things improve, perhaps I will give NeatDesk another try. Thanks.

Neatworks for Mac Enhancements

atlantauser — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:48:00 GMT

I have been using Neatworks for Windows for several months inside my Fusion VM for XP on my Mac. I decided I wanted a more seamless integration into my Mac so I decided to purchase the Mac version. I've got to say I'm fairly disappointed in the experience thus far, below are my reasons and requests:

1) Why pay for Mac version without a trade-in program or at least a TRIAL Version?!??!?

2) OCR performance on the Mac version seems to be significantly different and of less quality than the OCR on the windows version using the same NeatReceipts scanner.

3) It's not obvious why when I scan to my Inbox it can't figure out the different between a business card and a document. I can't seem to set it manually either!??!

4) The Review+File feature on the windows version is very nice in how it automatically helps you move from one new scanned item to the next. Why isn't there something like this on the Mac version??? The Inspector would be the perfect place for it!

5) When in the Inspector:

- Why can I not keep a default to Auto-Resize the image?

- Why does it not auto-crop all the black space around the image?

- Why can I not get rid of those boxes around the OCR guessed text in favor of selecting my own and then drag/drop to the field appropriate?

- Why can I not adjust the contrast/brightness of the image to help the OCR figure out the values better?

6) When a zipcode is detected, it would be favorable to do a sanity check on if the OCR city/state value matches a DB lookup of real zipcodes and their real city/state values.

7) Being able to associate common values (phone, address, url, fax, etc) with a company name would be a nice addition to do sanity checks against the OCR values for correctness.

Suggestion - License software for two computers

forsyth — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:43:19 GMT

I bought NeatReceipts for the Mac to use at home with my main computer, as well as on the road with my portable computer. Alas, the software license only permits installation on one computer. This is unacceptable for a device that is designed to be portable! It should be usable on both a home and a portable computer.

Associate a Mileage field?

vhuang — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:10:50 GMT

It would be handy if one could associate a mileage with a receipt and keep a reimbursement constant somewhere in the preferences.

So if my employer reimburses me 0.45 cents/mile and I drive 20 miles to a company dinner, I can associate 20 miles with the receipt for the dinner and the report will also reflect 20 miles and $9.00 of mileage reimbursement.

IMPORT Receipts received as PDF files

westofsa — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:49:49 GMT

I have recently purchased Neat Receipts, and so far find it pretty useful, but I receive many of my receipts sent to me as PDF files via email or I download them.. seems to be the way to go with all the initiatives towards going green.

What I cannot find is a way to import the PDF file into Neat receipts. Only thing that seems possible is to print and then scan.. which does not sound like such a neat idea.

Is there really no way to import a PDF file into a receipts folder without first printing it. ?!?

How soon will this be fixed, or would I be better off returning the product before the 30 days is up ?

I have version 3.0.1 which seems to be the latest, but also seems to be pretty old for software.

ETA to fix ?

A few observations from a new customer

magnus — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:58:47 GMT

Hi.

I just setup my new scanner and the 4.7.7 release of the software and started scanning a pile of receipts/invoices. Here are a few observations/wishes:

Review + File Receipt
Doubleclicking in the preview pane should toggle zoom (fit pane width?)
There should also be an option in the preferences: Preview: Zoom to fit height | zoom to fit width

Scanning/OCR
The OCR routine should support more data separators dd/mm/yyyy works, dd.mm.yyyy does not seem to work
Credit cards that end with ###-# instead of #### should be supported

Scanner
A document helper with an A4-sized slot for the desk scanner for european invoices should be available

Inbox
Support for larger thumbnails, it may be difficult to see what the item is about, especially if the software does not recognize the vendor
Sort by vendor, date, width, height
Multiple inboxes?
- if scanning different batches at once to get rid of the paper then reviewing later
- this would also help avoiding the "max 300 items can be displayed"-issue
The "max 300 items can be displayed" is ridiculous. I certainly see the memory issue of displaying that many pictures, but there should be a "view next 300" or something. I now have 452 items in my inbox so I have to go through at least 153 of them to Review a new scan!?
Right click an/many item(s) -> reprocess. This would add vendor name, etc, if new data was added to the repository since the last time the image(s) was/were processed
Free text search to find items
If you review+file an item, the view scrolls up to the top when you File Now -> Close. The view should stay where it was when you entered the review+file dialog.

Receipts/Business cards/Documents
Right click an item -> edit. This would bring up the same dialog as the one you get in Inbox. It's more intuitive that way (well to me it is ;-)

Integration

There should be com+ interfaces so data and metadata can be shared with other applications

Image adjuster

Should support zooming

Magnus

Blanking Field

Oracle — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:36:23 GMT

When entering information into fields that populate automatically, if one tries to remove information in an auto-populated field the field goes away but you are not taken to the next field you must use your mouse to go into the next field. I suggest the ability to tab into the next field when performing this type of edit.

Neat Works: Allow more than one currency in receipts

Banuschka — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:07:33 GMT

I am traveling a lot in the USA and Europe, with hotel, car and other receipts in Dollars as well as in Euros.

I love the receipt feature. However, the scanner software is not able to scan receipts issued in more than one currency. For example, on the Mac, it either reads every receipt in Dollars, if I choose US Dollar as my standard Currency in System Preference International. Or every receipt is in Euros if I choose Euro as my standard currency. Unfortunately that makes my American hotel bills even more expensive at the current conversion rate:-)

It would be great if the software can scan receipts issued in different currencies. This could be done by adding a flag or attribute indicating that the receipt being scanned is not in the default language's currency. The user could add the current conversion rate in another attribute.

And a checkmark box could be added to the Preferences panel, that allows the user to indicate that he would like to archive receipts in more than one currency.

There was a problem connecting to Microsoft Excel

magnus — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:16:13 GMT

Hi.

When entering Tools -> Personalize, if the Export Maps tab is activated the only navigation path from there on is closing the dialog box.

When trying to activate one of the other tabs, the application shows an error message, "There was an error connecting to Microsoft Excel. Please make sure that you have a working copy of Excel installed on this computer."

Running NeatWorks 4.7.7_57 on Windows 7 Enterprise x64.

By the way - I do have a working copy of Excel installed...

Regards,

Magnus

Very Dissappointed With Neat Receipts Scanner

redge — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:55:24 GMT

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I have 5 scanners in my house...all ranging from 10 years old to 20 days old. This new NeatReceips scanner is the ONLY one that is NOT recognized by common Java scripting from major banks and some Windows programs. For example, the USAA banking HomeDeposit Java procedure (that serves THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS nation-wide) refused to recognize the scanner. However, I add any of the other 4 ancient flatbeds and they get recognized right away...no problem.

Please update you drivers! Its worth it to spend the money to keep your customer base happy with the product!!

I would return it immediately, but for the fact I wrote on the software CDs with a pen (need some way to keep from losing the keys that are carelessly printed on the paper throw-away sleeves of the CDs rather than some other more intuitive location).

I wasted $200.00. Sorry... not impressed.