Business cards and receipts are the two things nobody has ever enjoyed typing in, and the two things that pile up fastest. The argument here is simple: stop typing them, photograph them.
Photograph it and it reads the vendor, the date, the amount and the GST straight off the paper. Then it works out which expense account it belongs in — a fuel receipt lands in Vehicle Expenses without you saying so.
Paid By records whose money it was, so a receipt you paid personally credits your Shareholder Loan rather than the company bank account.
Receipts collect in a batch, and nothing reaches your General Ledger until you open the batch, check the accounts and post it. The full walkthrough is in Scan a Receipt Into Your Books.
Same idea. The name, company, title, phone, email and address come off the card, and you decide whether the person becomes a Lead, a Prospect, a Client or a Contact.
Every one arrives tagged Business Card Scan, which means you can pull up an entire event's worth months later as one filtered list. The walkthrough is Scan a Business Card.
A van with the company name, phone and email down the side is a business card that happens to be four metres long. So is a sign on a fence, a sticker on a toolbox, or the back of an invoice somebody handed you. If the details are printed and you can photograph them, you can scan them.
The reason the drawer fills up is not that the job is hard. It is that typing them in is miserable, so it never quite happens — and then the expense is not claimed, or the lead is never followed up. The cost is not the ten minutes of typing. It is the receipt you never claimed and the customer you never called.
No. Receipts land in a batch and wait. You review the batch and post it, which is when the Journal Entry is written. Nothing reaches your ledger unseen.
Change it. Every field it fills in stays editable, and the batch is exactly the place to check them before anything is posted.
Usually. Flatten the paper and get the total in shot — faded thermal paper reads far better in daylight than under a lamp.
Both scanners are built for a phone, and that is where they are quickest. You can also upload a photo or a PDF you already have from a desktop.
See Where the Hour Goes — the same argument, applied to the rest of the admin.
Everybody has the drawer. Or the shoebox. Or the glovebox. Business cards from a job you finished in March. Receipts you meant to sort out at the weekend. It is not that the job is hard. It is that typing them in is miserable, so it never quite happens.
So do not type them in. Photograph them. Hold your phone over a receipt and it reads the vendor, the date, the amount and the GST off it. And then the part that surprises people. It works out which expense account it belongs in. A fuel receipt lands in Vehicle Expenses. You did not tell it that.
A business card is the same. Name, company, title, phone, email, address, all filled in. You just decide whether they are a Lead, a Prospect, a Client or a Contact. And it does not have to be a card. A van with the company name and number down the side is a business card that happens to be four metres long. Photograph that.
Everything lands in a batch, and nothing reaches your books until you have looked at it and posted it. All of it done for you. None of it done without you. The drawer is not a filing system. Your phone already is.
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