The amount of paperwork I am in contact with on a daily basis continues to rise and is infuriating. I just don't like the idea of having to put it somewhere when I can put it on the computer and have it taking up no physical space. When I need to find papers it's a pain and I'd rather go digital with a scanner than implement a paper filing system which needs to be replaced yearly when the new tax year starts.

The financial benefit to me is that I can organize everything for bills/taxes - I can name the files, then search for it - instead of flipping through a stack of papers, I can type in "joe blow check payment" and see everything that I've named that, and once I scan it in it can go into the shred pile. It will then be backed up to Amazon S3 and the papers taken to a free shredding event or I'll do it at home if I'm bored.

With that said, how have you done this? The NeatDesktop seems like a good solution. At $380 it's pricey but I think I'll get more than $380 of benefit from it. The reviews were OK, I think it'll be OK for my needs though.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

I use neatreceipts (neatworks), and I more or less love it. I primarially right now use it for all my receipts (3 full time jobs)..I couldn't survive without it. I also use it to scan in "special" personal documents..things like my mortgage papers..etc..And for all of my software cd keys..now i'll never lose them!

The OCR ability and electronic tags and descriptions are great and it's easy to search for exactly what you are looking for. Overall, the interface is however a little klunky, but i can live with it.

I have not yet worked up to digitizing all of my other documents..I've been meaning to, but i never have enough time. The little scanner is great because it's so small and is powered by usb only. I've talked 3 other people into buying it and all of them also love it.

..however, me being an obsesive-compulsive pack-rat..i still do NOT throw away the original receipts and documents. I toss them all into a big box for the year....just in case...

I think there are two parts to it- (1) Scanning (2) Organizing scanned documents.

I think you can use any scanner to do the scanning part. I use a $40 refurb Brother MFC5460 for scanning. It gets the job done. It can scan legal and letter paper and has a automatic document feeder. The scanning software is capable of making pdf files. You can also use Cutepdf to create pdf files, pdfsam to split, merge and reorder pdf files. Both these tools are free to use. Unfortunately, my scanner can not scan both sides of a paper, so I have to reverse the paper stack if I want both sides scanned. Even after that I have to merge and reorder the pages to get a good digital copy of the statement.

The trick is to minimize the scanning. So, I have signed up for online statements for just about everything (except one utility and one bank statement- might need it as proof for Drv Lics etc). Most financial institutions keep statements online for over a year (esp if you signed up for online statements). I visit my financial institutions once every 3 to 6 months and download all the statements. I have a separate folder for each institution. Statements for current year are saved as ABC_Bank_MMYYYY.pdf (where MM is month and YYYY is year). At the end of the calendar year, I merge all the monthly pdf statements into a single file as ABC_Bank_YYYY.pdf. this limits the number of files on my computer.

I also backup all my documents via a free Mozy account (2GB limit). This way, not only do I have a backup but also I can have access to my documents remotely as long as I have web access.

Just my $0.02.

I feel more comfortable with the idea of it being somewhere else, if my house burns down/flooded/drives are stolen I have the data elsewhere.

The next step to this project is TrueCrypt to protect the scanned documents.

OP, I moved to a digital system about 18 months ago and I love it. I have a newer Photosmart printer that has an ADF with a duplex scanner - it was worth every penny of what I got it for on Craigslist (a steal).

I keep small receipts until CC statements come in, then shred them. More important receipts get scanned to PDF files and filed until the warranty is up. Electonic statments get downloaded directly. Most paper and bills get scanned and shredded the day they arrive. I organize via folders by topic and company. I can put my hands on a document SO much quicker this way. Everything gets stored on my network storage which is a RAID 1 config - nothing gets stored on my laptop (less chance of physical loss).

I would say find a scanner with ADF. Duplex is a VERY nice feature as well and worth paying a little extra for IMHO.

Digitizing is one of the best moves I've ever made. Highly recommended. Next steps for me are investigating off-site storage (maybe Mozy?) for backup/access and encryption as well ...

the hardest part is organizing the data is some sort of manner that you can retreive it later. i don't think putting everything in my documents folder by folder and file name and backing up online is the best way. you just end up with something like Bank Statements\Bank\2009\01-12.pdf's, etc. I don't think it's descriptive enough, especially when you add in word documents and spreadsheets. i've been playing with google desktop search, but I don't like that it doesn't index network drives by default. windows desktop search is even worse, however.

I've been scanning documents for 3 years now and a folder structure as squeezer99 indicates above. It works for me. Sometimes I look for something in the wrong place (e.g. there's an Insurance folder and a "Real Estate" folder)

I had never thought of using OCR for a true full text search. I would think it is a bit too slow. Those documents that I get from the business partner as a PDF already, frequently they are text PDFs (not just JPEGs) and they are already searchable.

I create an encrypted backup every month and ftp it to a remote site. (of course, I use 'scp' not 'ftp').

-Peter

I've always wanted to setup a USB stick scanner that feeds right into a cheap Staples shredder so that I can do two things at once.

BTW, if you are planning on doing this, don't forget about the tons of "warranty and manuals" that come with every little appliance. This currently eats up an entire drawer of a filing cabinet in my garage as I don't have the patience to scan in an entire book.

Squeezer99 said:you just end up with something like Bank StatementsBank2009�1-12.pdf's, etc. I don't think it's descriptive enough, especially when you add in word documents and spreadsheets.
I do:
/Banking/Savings/My Bank Name/2009-11-09 - My Bank Name - Statement.pdf
/Credit Cards/American Express Blue/2009-11-09 - American Express Blue - Statement.pdf

and then for less frequent things something like:
/Insurance/2009-11-09 - Geico - Remove Car Request.pdf

This way each file individually has a descriptive name and you can copy/attach them without a need to rename. Also, they sort in chronological order.

I download what can be downloaded and scan what cannot be and what arrives or I send out on paper. I keep a spreadsheet where I keep track of eStatement downloads and once in a few weeks I go and download statements from all accounts.

i've been playing with google desktop search, but I don't like that it doesn't index network drives by default. windows desktop search is even worse, however.

Yep, I'm still not satisfied with searching myself. I used to use copernic Desktop Search but they stopped indexing network drives in latest "free" version as well. I'm considering using a local drive under Windows 7 and just syncing to network share.

For offsite backups there are many options (especially since the size of these documents isn't large). Dropbox and CrashPlan support Linux so I can run them on my server directly.

I have a Canon MX850 printer/scanner and it works reasonably well. You definitely want both a sheet feeder. Flatbed also helps for small items such as receipts or postcard-size bills. I can also put a document into it and press a "scan to computer" button and all .PDFs will accumulate in a folder on my desktop - then I go to my computer and rename/sort through them all in one shot.

lampy2k4 said:...words... Wow, bro... you have a disease.

Is there a possibility you are overestimating the value of these documents? I used to scan everything, but have since stopped... I check for errors every month and call it good. The effort was just not worth it, unless you are aroused by file structure and needless organization.

All correspondence and I keep in a box for a few years so I can find anything I need... After 3-6 years I just burn it.

The only thing I scan now are legal documents, titles and other things I find important and/or deal with a lot of money.