Mail-to-Scan services seem to be quite popular these days. They all try to address the problem that you want to digitize your paper documents in order to reduce waste, increase search convenience, and create long-term archives. I reviewed Pixily in another post and today, I would like to talk about another service called Shoeboxed.
Scan and share your receipts
I learned about Shoeboxed on TechCrunch. In Shoeboxed’s own words:
Shoeboxed is a free web site where you can store and organize all your receipts. Digital receipts are extremely useful, but scanning all that paper can be very time-consuming. To save you time, we can scan your receipts for you through our Receipt Mail-In program.
To see it in action, you can check out their quick demo.
First Impression
One of the more tedious things when running a business is keeping accurate records of petty cash transactions. Receipts of large amounts are usually accounted for by the accountant or some accounting software, but cash transactions are more difficult to track. In addition, these receipts must be kept for tax auditing purposes, up to seven years.
Shoeboxed seemed like a very interesting and useful application to use for dealing with these situations. I perused their website to see what other things they offered. Overall, my first impression was positive and I actually wanted to try out the service!
Pricing
I first took a look at their pricing to see how much it would cost me. Similar to Pixily, their free account is mostly online-based. You can scan and upload your own receipt online without cost. In essence, a free account gives you a basic online storage location with some additional bells and whistles to export, share, and itemize your receipts.
For a more functional service, you will need to pay. The basic plan starts at $10/month and limits the number of receipts per envelope to 50. To have your receipts returned back to you after scanning, you will need to upgrade to either the $20/month classic plan or $60/month express plan. The higher-end plans also give you more receipts per envelope (>500).
I find the price to be reasonable and the pricing structure to be similar to Pixily’s.
Other Goodies
Some other benefits that comes with your account includes:
- Unlimited free space
- Export to Quicken, Excel, PDF expense report, CSV
- Itemized tracking from receipts
- Spending charts and analytics
- An email address for online shopping
With the price and features, I am almost ready to sign up for my own account. But what’s stopping me?
Think Twice Before Signing Up
My goals for using Shoeboxed really comes down to three things:
- Security. My financial receipts are very important to me. In fact, if I lose them, big trouble looms over my head if I ever get audited. My receipts must be secure.
- Convenience. Scanning my receipts into digital format really is about convenience. I want to archive them forever (or at least up to seven years) and be able to find them and retrieve them whenever I need to.
- Time Saving. Ultimately having someone scan my receipts and allowing me to easily retrieve them saves me time. Saving me time = saving me money.
Shoeboxed seem to match these criteria, but as I looked deeper, I began to doubt.
“As soon as possible”
Perhaps I’m paranoid or even insecure, but a few issues about Shoeboxed’s service got me thinking.
Their Express Plan has a guaranteed processing time of 1 business day. The other plans simply said “as soon as possible.” I’m not exactly comfortable with that phrase. It vaguely brings up memories of my dates back in the college days when the other person says, “I’ll call you later.” How late is later? How soon is soon? Is one week too soon? Sure, I can always upgrade to the express plan. But then again, an additional $40/month just for this option is a bit overreaching. I’m not asking for, nor do I need to have, my receipts scanned in one or two days. Three to five days are actually ok for me, but at least let me know the time frame.
False Convenience
Shoeboxed is supposed to give me greater convenience right? That’s what it looked like when I watched the demo. You see all the receipts neatly categorized with pretty graphs showing me what I’ve spent. But wait. How did the system know what categories the receipts were in and how much they were? Do they automagically extract this information when they scan or do they manually enter this information for you? Both options don’t really sound very viable.
After watching further into the demo, I realized that I had to enter all this information myself. So this service is supposed to save me time and offer me convenience. Yet, I am imagining hours of work categorizing and itemizing the receipts. It’d have been easier, faster, and safer if I had just entered all this information into my Quicken or Excel spreadsheet without having to scan the receipt at all. The thought of having to tag information to the mail was a real motivation killer.
I could just forget about tagging and use the service as an online storage for my receipts. But if that were the case, then most of the other features they offer me would be of no use. No pretty charts, no itemized tracking, no exports. The price would not justify the use if that were the case.
Image Matters
As I mentioned before, my receipts are important to me. In fact, the thought of mailing them actually scares me a little. There are horrifying statistics about how much mail is lost every year. I only need my mail lost once for it to ruin my life. Ok, that may be a bit dramatic, but it does show how serious I am about my receipts. For businesses, this is also a big concern. But understandably, if I am going to use this service, this is something that I do have to compromise on.
Assuming that I am fine with this, my next concern is seeing their photos on Flickr. I’m all for businesses showing me some personal touch or giving themselves a friendly face… except when it comes to my finances. Not to be harsh, but would you put $100,000 of your money at a bank where you see employees partying and having a great time in Vegas? We all know this happens in the background, but it’s not really necessary to show me this side. Image matters, especially when it comes to money. I feel extremely uneasy and am not exactly sure whether these people can really take good care of my receipts.
This criticism sounds a little unfair. After all, in the Web 2.0 age, isn’t it all about corporate transparency and being social? Yes, I would tend to agree except… when it comes to my finances. Mint, a Web 2.0 company that manages your finances, doesn’t do this. Mint’s website is professional and projects a sense of security. I am inclined to say that I feel more comfortable giving out my personal data to Mint than to Shoeboxed.
My Decision
Although I feel that Shoeboxed is a great service, I just can’t shake off the image they project about how they represent themselves. My money and finance are very important to me, and because of that, I decided not to sign up.
However, if you simply want to digitize your receipts and have the time to tag them, then I would tell you to give Shoeboxed a chance. If these receipts are for business or are important to you, then I’d suggest looking elsewhere. Pixily does document scanning and seems more professional. I’d probably go with them in this particular case.
As always, do your research before making your choice.
September 8, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Hi, this is Dan Englander over here at Shoeboxed. Thanks for your thoughtful post. We appreciate your feedback!
There are a couple of things, though, I’d like to respond to if you’ll allow me to.
With regard to the “as soon as possible” bit. This week, we are updating our website with new pricing information and plan details. Our normal processing time is 1-2 business days though, just to clarify!
For categorization, all receipts that you send to us will be entered into your account with the Store Name, Date, and Total prepopulated, so they will be sortable and easy to find. You can add in other categories as you see fit, and we’ll have an autocategorization feature probably by the end of next week. Be sure to check that out when we put it up; it’s pretty useful.
With regard to security: As long as you keep your password safe, Shoeboxed protects your data so it can only be viewed and accessed by you. Shoeboxed uses 256-bit secure socket layer encryption, the same security that major bank websites use. Additionally, Shoeboxed does not store the personally identifiable information that would be required for someone to steal your identity. Our privacy and security practices are certified by TRUSTe, a leading nonprofit security organization. We do not store credit card numbers, bank account numbers, or social security numbers. Unlike other finance websites online, we never even see any of your financial information other than the receipts you put in your account. Aditionally, our website is tested daily by McAfee for known vulnerabilities, so Shoeboxed’s code is always up to date.
If you are still not comfortable with what we’re up to at Shoeboxed, feel free to give us a call and talk about it. Real people answer the phones here between 9 a.m. and 12 a.m. EST, and we’ll be happy to discuss providing a solution that works for you. Our number is (888) 369-4269.
Again, thanks for your post; we appreciate the feedback!
Dan Englander
Shoeboxed.com
October 24, 2008 at 10:27 am
[...] layout with consistent pricing. I wish that they could have done this in the first place but my first impression is already tainted. For first-time users who are checking out their service, I believe you will have a better [...]