# 1) instantaneously capture all of my information into 1 basket, including:
— three e-mail in-boxes
— voice mail from two phones
— mail, notes, paper
– business cards, receipts
– dictated notes
— online research, webpages

# 2) quickly and efficiently process my information
– eliminate
–visualize
–automate
– delegate
– file for action
–file for reference

#3) instantaneously retrieve my information from a secure, reliable, cloud-based storage system

After dedicating weeks researching product reviews and comparisons, I considered scanning and directing all my information into Drop Office and Evernote. I anticipated using Memonic for clipping; SpringPad for sorting and acting on everything non-business; and Mind Manager for its mind-mapping and visualizing capabilities. I’ve also seriously considered DevonThink Pro-Office for its promise. The feedback and reviews for all of the above referenced products tell a very different story. Bugs; crashes; losing information; slowing down the Internet connection speeds and apps; failing to install; failing to run; failing to sync; failing to export; artificial intelligence not working; etc.

I am seeking feedback from informed persons with experience with DevonThink and the other above-reference products that will give me insights helpful in narrowing my decision making process. I don’t want 5 levels of time- or product- based archiving. I do want to have as close to a “paperless office” as possible. Any suggestions?

The big advantage of DevonTHINK is the automatic categorization. It will put things in the proper folder almost automatically.

GOALS
Create a paperless filing cabinet. I don’t want to manage every file on my computer. I want, you know, a filing cabinet.

Find documents! – by file name, date, “tags” , folder arrangement, text w/in documents.

Be able to access the computer files years later.
Save time.
Contol the piles of receipts. organize, categorize, add them up.

Hardware Setup
I’m not going to say this software / scanner is better than that, etc. This is just the setup I ended up with. However I will say I am unabashedly a Macintosh coolaide drinker since 1987.

iMac running 0S 10.5 (called leopard)
ScanSnap S510M
Yep – http://www.ironicsoftware.com/
ReceiptWallet – http://www.receiptwallet.com/
ScanHelper – http://www.receiptwallet.com/kb/entry/10/

My workflow
I scan receipts separate from all other documents. Receipts go into receipt wallet, all others are managed in Yep.

Using ScanHelper I select the application I want the scans to be directed to. ALL scanned documents are saved to the same “in box” folder on my hard drive (as set in Scansnap’s preferences), and ScanHelp “gives it to” the application I’ve selected.

Scan in receipts, hand feed one at a time. ReceiptWallet automatically launches if necessary and the receipt PDFs are queued up for processing in ReceptWallet. I don’t have to stop scanning for each one. ReceiptWallet tries to recognize things like total in the receipt and fills in data fields. It’s rare that I never have to do anything but click OK. But it’s quick in any case because when I type “walmart” it automatically fills in payment type and cagetory based on my other walmart receipts.

After receipts, I select Yep from a dropdown on the Mac’s menu bar (scanhelper) and start scanning docs one at a time. Again, I scan all docs in first. From the Yep screen I select the docs one at a time and enter file name, date, tags, and optionally drop it in a folder.

Key Points that make life easier
ScanSnap 500 series scanners scan both sides of the page simultaneously; and it’s *fast*. It’s smart enough to automatically discard blank pages and straighten croocked documents

I am not spending time physically organizing/moving the files in folders in finder (aka windows explorer in Windows). We’ll see what happens when that scanner in box folder gets 10,000 docs in it!

EVERYTHING is in pdf format. I’ve been around long enough to know what it’s like to try to open old documents. Even microsoft word quits supporting it’s old formats at some point.

I’ve settled on one combination of scanner settings that works for me 99% of the time. I do not want to mess with scanner settings every time I scan.

PDF format is native/integral to MAC OS X. This means I can take ANY document on my mac, and if I can print it I can save it as a PDF document. Adobe Acrobat not required. Further I can “print as PDF to… ” yep, receiptWallet, adobe reader, etc. This will get already-existing docs into my file cabinet system.

The application “preview” which comes with all macs understands PDFs. I can merge PDF docs, crop, delete pages, and even search and highlight text if the PDF was OCRed.

Mac OS X can search for text inside a document. (I believe windows Vista does this too) If the scanned PDFs have been OCRed, we can search for that text.

The file name & file date i enter in YEP changes the actual file name & date of the file. I.E. they’re not database fields that are accessable only when I’m in Yep. This means I can be searching for documents from the MAC OS. I’m not 100% dependent on a single piece of software to deal with my documents.

YEP will find all PDF documents anywhere on my hard drive, automatically. I can tell Yep to not look in certain folders, like the receiptWallet folder. That way I don’t have “duplicate” documents in Yep and ReceiptWallet.

A word about ScanSnap
ScanSnap 500 series comes with Adobe Acrobat and some OCR software – both PC and Mac versions. However I bought a referbished one. I saved around $150 but the referbished ScanSnap does not come with this software! Fortunately we Mac users don’t need Acrobat to get files into PDF. But I do need to get some OCR software.

Please let me know if you would like to try our service out.

Thanks,

- John