With tax season rapidly approaching, the prospect of digging through receipts for business expenses and tax deductions is looming large. Shoeboxed, a site that helps manage your purchases by scanning your receipts and posting them to the web, is looking to make the process a little easier.
We last covered the site back in November 2007, when it experimented with a social shopping feature that the company abandoned after about a week. Now it’s concentrating on helping users mange their receipts online. To get started, users mail in their receipts which Shoeboxed then scans and enters into its web-based software (the company can handle multiple receipts at once, with an estimated wait time of 2-3 days to get a boxful online). The site also recently began accepting business cards. The service runs around $10/month, with more expensive plans for heavy users (over 50 receipts a month).
Once the receipts are online, users can easily assign them into different catagories (for example, labeling which ones are company expenditures). Mint does something similar, but it only lists your transactions based on their location, and you can’t see an itemized list of what you’ve purchased. Of course, Shoeboxed is only useful if you’re diligent about sending in your receipts – if you’re the kind of person who loses them frequently, it won’t do you much good.
The company has forged a deal with TaxACT, a popular online tax filing company that will be promoting Shoeboxed as an effective way to minimize sifting through paperwork. It also just announced a partnership with ScanDigital, a company that converts media like photos slides to digital formats (the two companies will cross-promote eachothers’ services).
http://kepler.s...er=200809410214
I actually canceled my business, and because of that I can’t get my bank statements online, nor can I get my paypal transactions without going through some huge laborious process.
I don’t think Shoeboxed is going to wrestle with Wamu and paypal for me. But it would be nice if they did.
BTW, for other people reading through, DO NOT start your business until your product is thoroughly tested and your funding comes through and you have the check in hand. BAD idea.
My new product is still about 4-5 month off from RTM and I won’t start the business back up until those 2 criteria are met. Otherwise you’re throwing money out of the window. Never organize under beta or alpha stages. One to grow on.
I hate this. I am hiring a professional like I should and giving them the damn receipts.
To be specific, you will have a very hard time getting statements from institutions after canceling or dissolving. It’s a huge pain. Get the funding then organize and not the other way around.
I’ve started scanning all my receipts into Gmail using an inexpensive home scanner. I can type descriptions in the subject and/or body, tag them, search them instantly, etc. A typical scanned receipt only consumes about 80k of space, so there’s no concern about running out of storage space. And, of course, receipts for everything I buy online are already stored there. Best of all, it’s free and I don’t have any serious concerns that the company I am doing business with will suddenly disappear.
Your point is well taken Craig. This service definitely has some merit to it, and for the lazy people it will make great sense to approach it this way, as there is nothing quite as daunting as plowing through piles of receipts and trying to balance everything. Some of us are more organised though, and going the DIY route makes more sense, especially if one is dilligent and does this on a daily basis.
I used to scan all my stuff myself but it takes more time than you think… And then there’s all the uploading etc. I’ve been using Shoeboxed for about 6 months and it’s been great. Very happy with it…
I just saw that Shoeboxed is offering a discount for all TechCrunch readers…
That’s mighty swell of you guys.
I’d like to use this web billboard space to tell TC readers that though I am not writing this as a forward looking statement, and this is only my personal opinion:
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http://finance....aa834bc777c7951
If you’ve ever owned Sun hardware you know that they are the only manufacturer that produces military grade Linux and Unix systems, in big heavy weather resistant cases. They meet even the toughest specifications. Sun got a bad wrap, and you should give them a 2nd look. Sun’s contracts are *not* being snapped up by Red Hat, CentOS support and other Linux vendors. Sun has the enterprise and military specs including LOM system debugger and the others do not.
learn about what makes Sun Netra and other boxes special and unique to EDP contractors before you buy into the mindless rabble of ignoramuses.
Timely business. TurboTax ads are on TV and Shoeboxed doesn’t sell shoes.
I get my taxes done for free
This is very cool but I think it’s too expensive. I pay for a lot of premium services to organize my taxes but I’m not sure I’d pay for this.
They should do a deal with the credit card companies to subsidize receipts charged to their card for the user.
Mail my 1 and only copy of something to what one could perceive to be a fly-by-night operation? Huh uh.
you just scan before you send them out to be scanned. what could be simpler!
good idea
Give Shoeboxed a Try. {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/Gb9J47iJEu_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Give Shoeboxed a Try. ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/NM9VhuslfD”}}}
Also, for a chance at a free trial with Shoeboxed, enter the ScanDigital Get Organized Giveaway. Shoeboxed is part of the grand prize package along with the Container Store and free consultation from Jodie Watson from Real Life. Real Simple.
http://www.scan...m/promotion.php
If I want to use Shoebox and have a scanner at home. Why should I then mail in my receipts?
Btw, what happens to the original receipts once they have been sent scanned at Shoebox? Are they mailed back to the customer?
MJG, I believe Shoeboxed offers a free version of their system if you want to scan the receipts in yourself.
Pixily also does this. They were featured in the WSJ recently:
http://online.w...4895059403.html
I use my Earth Class Mail account to do the exact same thing – I just mail myself my receipts and they get scanned within the guaranteed 24 hr turnaround time. Plus I get all my postal mail at that same address, so I’m basically getting shoeboxed for free since I’m only paying $9.95/month for Earth Class Mail. My desk used to be swamped in receipts and docs and now I don’t have a shred of paper on my desktop anymore, which is soooo nice.
It doesn’t seem to me like their going to randomly disappear. I think its nice to see a company on TC that actually has a business model and is solving an actual honest-to-god real-life problem. Imagine that.
Thanks for all your comments! I just wanted to jump in to make a couple of points.
With other more general mail in services, you don’t get any of the organizational features of Shoeboxed that are designed for receipts and business cards specifically. Our manual and automatic category systems, statistics generator, and many export features are just simply not available with other services. We also give people the option of getting their receipts back, which most of our customers take advantage of. Getting ready for taxes, insurance claims and reimbursements demands the level of organization that is available with Shoeboxed.
Also, with Shoeboxed you’ll know your data is accurate. Our combination of OCR technology and human quality assurance means that you will have all your receipt and business card scans as well as accurate data from the documents. You can search for information on your receipts and you won’t have to rely on semi-accurate consumer-level OCR software to be right, because you’ll know it’s gone through a QA analysis.
Shoeboxed is also a value-leader in the scan-by-mail space. Our prices are cheaper per scan than other mail in services, and our annual plans come with FREE bulk scanning – perfect for getting ready for taxes this year. Also, with DIY solutions, you have to add the cost of a scanner with the time spent scanning your own receipts; all things considered, hardware solutions can be astronomically expensive compared to a service like Shoeboxed Mail-In.
We’re excited about our recent growth as we enter our third year of productive business. View our press page to view stories from WSJ, Washington Post, Inc., SELF Magazine, NBC, Lifehacker, and more. We do indeed have a TechCrunch coupon on our site right now, so you can take advantage now of a discount on our already-low prices.
Dan Englander
Shoeboxed.com
Thanks for commenting — seriously considering the service — would be even better if you offered physical sorting of the returned receipts
Anyway so what’s the TechCrunch coupon code?
Just head to https://start.s...upon=TECHCRUNCH
Awesome — just signed up for a year of Classic.
Also, one thing that could help with physical sorting is to have an envelope ID and have the scanned receipts tagged with what envelope ID they were in. That way we could just file returned receipts.
Great! We’re happy to have you.
All envelopes actually do have an 8-digit envelope ID w/ barcode. You can filter and view receipts from a particular envelope on the site. It’s also great if you are keeping the physical receipts you get back so that you can reference the original if you need it.
Sounds like what I was hoping for (just not sure if it’s searchable opposite of how you described it)
The scenario I’m thinking of is if my wife needs to return something to a store and needs to find the physical receipt (happens all the time). If I could browse for the store and find the proper receipt on the site, I would like to find the envelope it was sent back in.
Does that sound like that should work?
i wonder – is a shoeboxed.com subscription tax deductible, considering it is basically part of tax prep?
What a cool service – espically for those FSA/HSA receipts. I recently look at whether using software or an accountant made more sense in doing taxes ( http://www.savi...y-taxation.html ), and this extra bit of software may tip the scales to the automated route.
You could also check out Neat Receipts which offers desktop software that performs a similar function, except you get to keep all the originals for yourself and there’s no subscription fee.
i had a neat receipts for awhile, but it was so sloooow. i’ll probably give these guys a try since i really do feel like i need my receipts organized, but i’m really pretty lazy. i’d rather pay as i go for a service than buy a scanner and then pay for software upgrades. plus, you know, i’m lazy, and i scanning receipts myself really brings on existential despair pretty quickly.
Man, anything that’ll save me from dealing with all those little pieces of paper that curl up in my own scanner: I’m all for it!
In the future, all receipts will be sent to you electronically and you’ll see them on your mobile device at the point of purchase, perhaps even completing the transaction with it too.
And you’ll ok the charge on your credit card by responding to a separate message from the cc company. All your receipts will be kept for you by a reliable fourth party that will manage access to them for you and back them up forever.
Then you’ll truly be in command of your data and be free of paper. And your wallet will be skinnier too.
I’m going to try it just for the freedom of entering business cards!
For some great scanning solutions, check out http://www.card-reader.com, they have various solutions including a receipt scanning product.