Accounting software that lets you scan in invoices. [Archive]

denwood

19th June 2009, 21:09

Is there an accounting package out there that lets the user scan invoices onto the hard drive? Or any software to achieve this? I want to keep my hard copy invoices at a remote location but to do this I will need to have access to scanned copies of them on a network. I will be scanning up to 300 invoices at any one time so if anyone could recommend a fast scanner, it would be much appreciated.

I could just scan invoices into directories calling the subdirectories by the companie's name but this seems a little clumsey so there must be some dedicated software for this. Can anyone help?

Geoff T

20th June 2009, 08:00

I know it's out there... I had a look at something from a firm a couple of years ago...think they were called "Version One"....

never used it so can't comment on cost or anything, but there are options out there...

Have you got an IT contact you can ask?

regards
Geoff

David Griffiths

20th June 2009, 10:29

How do you produce the invoices in the first place? If they are produced within an accouting system you can usually go back and inspect them from within that system.

You can also print the invoices to pdf files, and print the paper versions, if required, from those. That cuts out the need to scan them.

That would leave you with the question of how to file them. You could simply file them in directories, as you suggest, or invest in a proper document management system, which could deal with all of your company paperwork, not just invoices. There are quite a few of these on the market, and some have fairly high price tags, but others are much more reasonable. We use Docusoft (http://www.docusoft.net/AboutDocuSoft.asp), from BusinessWorkWare, and this can be tailored to your exact requirements.

We migrated to this via a DIY method of scanning everything and filing in the directory tree, but the search facilities of a proper document management system have justified the modest cost several times over. There's also workflow management built in, so that once files documents can be allocated to your user's inbox. It works for us with scanned documents and pdf printed documents, but it can store anything - word files, spreadsheets, graphics files.

Our contact there is Derek French. They do online demonstrations so that you can get a feel for the product.

denwood

20th June 2009, 11:44

Geof T: I have a network guy but I could ask but I didn't think it would be his thing. I will ask anyway.

David: I only generate about 30 to 40 sales invoices a month but we receive hundreds of purchase invoices a month. I have contacted docusoft and from their website, it looks as though they do what I want. I could process more than just invoices as well, I can scan in correspondence letters and emails as well.

I have also found this thread called 'paperless office', which is basically what I'm talking about.

The thing with just scanning documents into a directory tree is that they could be deleted and overwritten like any file can. This docusoft software prevents this from happening.

DuaneJackson

20th June 2009, 12:23

KashFlow (http://www.kashflow.co.uk) will have the ability to let you upload and store scanned copies of your invoices within a week or so.

GRDCredit

20th June 2009, 13:16

Wow. Now that is service. The OP asks a question and you straight away set your programmers on to resolving it! :)

DuaneJackson

20th June 2009, 14:13

Wow. Now that is service. :)
I guess you're not an existing KashFlow user? They're used to it : )

Geoff T

20th June 2009, 17:07

Wow. Now that is service. The OP asks a question and you straight away set your programmers on to resolving it! :)

I guess you're not an existing KashFlow user? They're used to it : )

KASHFLOW wins by TKO!!!

and double word score for cool reply!:D

Watermill Accounting

20th June 2009, 17:11

I think it would be worth checking e-conomic they have a facility to scan and attach invoices with respective transactions.

Geoff T

20th June 2009, 17:41

I guess you're not an existing KashFlow user? They're used to it : )

PS- just done some background - nice PR work re "hatchet job"! Are you no concerned about the "smoke and fire" issue?

PPS - was interested in your article on growth and profile too...can't you just tell the media to "do one"?!?

regards
Geoff

DuaneJackson

20th June 2009, 19:09

PS- just done some background - nice PR work re "hatchet job"! Are you no concerned about the "smoke and fire" issue?

Sorry, not sure what you mean. Don't lots of smoke-related PR : )

can't you just tell the media to "do one"?!?

Why would I want to do that? The media are my friend. I often get called a media whore : ) But if KashFlow is getting regular mentions in the national press you can call me whatever you like!

garyk

22nd June 2009, 09:19

It is not normally the domain of the smaller accounting systems that do this. Someone mentioned version one and yes they have a product called DbCapture which will do this, in fact it is slightly smarter in that once it 'learns' the layout of invoices it will not only scan them but turn them into purchase invoices and enter them onto the system. It works with Sage 500/1000 although I am not sure if it works with the smaller Sage packages.

Gary

denwood

22nd June 2009, 20:10

DBcapture certainly looks good from what I can see on their website. The obvious advantage of dbcapture is that it can recognise data on the scanned invoice like company name and amounts. I would have to see this to believe it. We also do a lot of hand writing on invoices and it makes me wonder how much of this would interfere with DBcaptures invoice recognition.

I use sage line 50 and this is the first I have heard of sage 500 or sage 1000. I have been told that docusoft operates with sage line 50 where as DBcapture doesn't.

denwood

23rd June 2009, 10:48

I have just had a price from version one for their dbcapture. It's not cheap for a small business like me. At £15,000, I will have to think on.

DuaneJackson

23rd June 2009, 12:11

I have just had a price from version one for their dbcapture. It's not cheap for a small business like me. At £15,000, I will have to think on.

Once KashFlow has the ability to upload and store scanned copies of receipts will it do the job for you? Or do you need something omre intensive with OCR, etc?

denwood

23rd June 2009, 13:42

wizzard

23rd June 2009, 14:47

DuaneJackson

23rd June 2009, 15:39

I have never heard of Kashflow before and I am dubious about online accounting. I am suspicious that everyone that uses online accounting will be submitting all their personal account information to an organisation which will know everything about all their clients. Also, if Kashflow starts taking scanned invoices in, they will know what their clients pay for their goods. I don't feel at all comfortable with this.

I have also been told verbally that sage 500 costs £40k minimum.

By all means do a bit of Googling. There's lot of info out there about the company. We're well established in the industry and in term sof credentials:

Chaired by Lord Young (former Cable & Wireless chairman, former Sec. of State for Trade and industry)
Partnered with PayPal
Accounting app of choice for two of the biggest accountancy franchises.
Received praise from Bill Gates and Alistair Darling (perhaps we should keep quite about the latter!)

I'm not sure why we'd be interested in what you pay your suppliers.

But quite often if it's just a matter of not being comfortable with it then all the facts in the world wont change your mind, as per my blog post here (http://blog.kashflow.com/2009/06/08/pc-vs-saas/).

denwood

23rd June 2009, 18:06

I'm not sure why we'd be interested in what you pay your suppliers.

But quite often if it's just a matter of not being comfortable with it then all the facts in the world wont change your mind, as per my blog post here (http://blog.kashflow.com/2009/06/08/pc-vs-saas/).
I have read your blog and I agree that your secure servers are far more secure than having information stored on a computer at home or even at work in most cases.

What I'm talking about is privacy. If someone uses online accounts all their company information is accessible by the online account's owners/managers. I wouldn't trust my account information with the people you mention.

wizzard

23rd June 2009, 21:26

I have read your blog and I agree that your secure servers are far more secure than having information stored on a computer at home or even at work in most cases.

What I'm talking about is privacy. If someone uses online accounts all their company information is accessible by the online account's owners/managers. I wouldn't trust my account information with the people you mention.

I would have thought there would be safeguards in place so no-one else would see your accounts but yourself.

DuaneJackson

23rd June 2009, 21:32

I would have thought there would be safeguards in place so no-one else would see your accounts but yourself.

The raw data is in a database which I do have access to, as does one of my staff. It'd be hard work to form the raw data into any sort of accounts without the login details for the account (which are encrypted and we can't do anything with). Besides, we both have too much other things to be doing to want to spend time trying to piece together someones accounts data

denwood

24th June 2009, 08:18

David Griffiths

24th June 2009, 08:31

Docusoft: Looks very good and I'm in the process of buying it. I have been told for a one user license it costs about £70 year. The only big cost is the initial training and commissioning which is about £1400. I have got to buy a scanner for about £500. I hope it is as good as it looks.

That might be £70 a month. You might want to check that. We pay a monthly cost (billed quarterly) for 8 machines, but I think that it's worth every penny. Our paper filing system, covering all accounts, tax, working papers and correspondence over about 15 years is confined to two four drawer cabinets, and those are half empty!

The initial cost is much lower than systems like Invu and Singleview. The Singelview rep was very evasive on price (bad enough in itself) but wouldn't deny that it was over £5k up front - and that was a few years back.

Hector.Mercury

24th June 2009, 10:43

I had a similar issue. The problem will always be how you match the document with the record in whatever system you are using. The other problem of course is scanning in and naming each resulting file.
300 is a lot of scanning. The third issue is of course keeping up to date records about events and issues "attached" to each document.

I would guess that you have a business with more than one employee. If this is this the case then the problem points to using something that is hosted (in the cloud/on the net etc.). The good news here is that the back ups will probably done for you. The downside is sucks bandwidth on the uploads and you will eventually pay a premium for the storage you use.

Duane is on the right track (although the don't trust recommendations on this forum thing is a bit of downer for newbies like you and me....I almost decided to not use this forum as a result of seeing his signature/footer ;-(). Document uploading is a good idea and KashFlow is pretty cool.

We just started up in the UK but we have offices in Melbourne Aus. & Thailand. I had been looking at solutions like Xero, Kashflow, Bionic and Winweb. The web thing was an obvious choice for a multi country/office thing. I have to say the scanning was not my top issue, but I came here for some answers and I'm always happy to help.

Anyway, eventually I looked at NetSuite as it certainly had all the features I needed, I was not impressed by the reps or the very high price. Eventually I came across salesorder.com. The only complaint I have so far is that they were difficult to find on the web, but they do have a document upload facility and you can attach as many documents as you need to a single record. Works fine for me.

Hope this helps

Hector

denwood

24th June 2009, 11:30

David : Derek told me that there are two ways of paying for docusoft.

The first option is a yearly fee of about £70 per computer and an initial one off licence charge of about £345 per computer. There is also the cost of training and commissioning which is £995.

The second option is to pay monthly. The cost is £40 per computer per month + £10 extra for each additional computer on top of that. Eg, Three computers = £60(40+10+10) per month. There is still the initial training and commissioning fee of £995.

This is my understanding of what he told me and he is sending me a proformer invoice to clarify it.

David Griffiths

24th June 2009, 11:53

No problem - I don't think that there was a choice when we signed up a few years back.

It will be interesting to see how you get on with it - for us the installation on multiple machines so that everybody here has access to the data has been invaluable, but we're using it for all of our data, not just invoices.

denwood

24th June 2009, 13:05

we're using it for all of our data, not just invoices.I plan to use it for all my data as well. I am buying two licenses. One for me and one for the staff with limited access.

Derek recommended this scanner, Fujitsu fi-6130C. It's over £500 but it's supposed to be really good. I'm yet to be convinced that it scans in thin delivery notes but I guess I won't find out until I buy it.

Alpha

24th June 2009, 13:10

Derek recommended this scanner, Fujitsu fi-6130C. It's over £500 but it's supposed to be really good. I'm yet to be convinced that it scans in thin delivery notes but I guess I won't find out until I buy it.

That scanner is well worth the investment. I have the older version (fi-5120C) which I have had for around 4 years now, and it scans almost anything. I have even managed to get it to scan the small driving licences (Not recommended though:))

It has sensors that detect duplicate paper feeds, scans double sided...can't speak highly enough of it:D

I actually need to purchase another couple now for the staff.

denwood

26th June 2009, 10:52

I've just installed and commissioned my new fi-6130 scanner. You lot were right. It's really good. It's fast, compact and it doesn't seem to get jammed either. I'm over the moon with it. Thanks.

Manj Grewal

26th June 2009, 10:53

Geoff Smith Assoicates Ltd. have several solutions that can cater for your requirements far more cost effectively than many of the other companies on the market today.

All solutions are designed to be user friendly and modular so that you can upscale if need arises.

denwood

26th June 2009, 13:45

I could do with a cover sheet for my new scanner to keep the dust out. I work in a dusty enviroment. Fujitsu don't supply them. I'm using a box at the moment. Any suggestions please.

Manj Grewal

26th June 2009, 14:00

It just so happens that I have a cover sheet available for the scanner, and a dust mask for yourself.

The simplest option would be to outsource your scanning, as the costs are very cheap and most companies offer a collection and delivery service anyway.

denwood

9th August 2009, 16:32

I have been using docusoft now for a bit and I love it. Everyone should have it. It is part of my routine now. After I have posted a batch of invoices onto Sage line 50 I scan them straight into docusoft. It takes a bit longer to scan them in than just filing the hard copies into a folder but the advantages far outweigh this. It is easier to find invoice, i.e., you don't have to go trawling through folders looking for a particular invoice. At present we are scanning in all our old invoices. This is going to take a long time but it will release valuable space that the folders take up now.

Some of the feature are even better than sage line 50, e.g., looking up a company name by just typing in a few letters of the name instead of trying to rememeber the company code as in Sage.

It's not just invoices it stores either. Correspondence from accountants and inland revenue etc.. can all be stored and found easily.

It is a brilliant piece of software and it has obviously been designed by people who understand what features are needed unlike Sage which I think has been designed by people who have little accounting experience.

I think the scope and potential of Docusoft is immense and I really hope that it becomes the market leader as it deserves, IMHO.