Despite knowing a lot about financial planning, and being a former financial advisor, I don’t always do the right thing for myself. Just like being a great dietitian doesn’t necessarily mean that you always eat the celery instead of the nachos.
Receipt Apps Reviews
However, nothing turns someone into a believer quite like a pain point. Over the last month or two, I’ve gone diving into my files and boxes of receipts to find things that I remember spending money on, just not the details.
For example, my car’s brakes are messed up. Didn’t I just have the brakes done last fall? Nope, that was something to do with the differential, but according to this receipt, the dentist already charged me for that mouth guard thing. Oh, wait. No. That’s the wife’s retainer thing.
It’s a good thing I’m polite on the phone or I would have started off some angry phone calls only to be shut down by providers I like, and want to not be upset with me.
(Funny story: I once called the credit card company about a rather large charge that I didn’t make. The very nice customer service lady couldn’t find the charge I was talking about. I finally had to read the reference number off to her for the charge. What was it?
“Sir, that isn’t a charge, that’s the payment you made to us.” — Doh!
Long story, made short: I’d like to be able to scan my receipts and then be able to look back through them.
Best Receipt Scanning App
I’m bumping into a couple of problems while trying to find the best receipt scanning app.
First, many of this kind of app offer a free version of the app. In some cases, the free version has many of the important features disabled. In other cases, the free version comes with a short amount of time in which to use it. Either way, what seems like the perfect app, may not be, either because I can’t really use it, or I end up with an expense I’m not willing to pay.
Second, many of the track your receipt scans type of apps are designed for tracking business expenses and filing expense reports, or for doing your business taxes. I don’t need that. I just need to keep a copy of my receipts. Basically, just a digital filing cabinet. (Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree, and should be looking for an image storing app with some sort of tags and notes and stuff.)
Third, while I want to use the camera to take a picture of the receipts, I don’t want the resulting images to end up in with my regular pictures that I take and sync to the cloud and my digital photos frames and stuff. I want these scans separate.
Fourth, I keep bumping into terminology problems. For example, I get free “receipts” with an app called Foreceipt, but a limited number of “scans.” Since I just want to get pictures of my receipts, I thought I was talking about the former. Turns out that taking a picture of a receipt counts as a scan.
Fifth, I’m not sure if I want the app to try and read the receipt itself or not. Ideally, I’d put in a little information like, “CRV rear brakes,” and then take a picture of the receipt. Then, I could search on “CRV” or “brakes” or “August 2018” and then pull up the picture. I could read it then, I don’t need the full text of the receipt translated.
In the end, I’ll hopefully find something and come back with it. For now, my search through the app store for receipt tracker continues…. Maybe if I wasn’t so specific and looked for a records keeper app….