My internet connection has basically been down off and on for two days. I think the service disruption is fixed after I had a 4 hour window to wait through for a tech to show up.

During my down time I thought I try out some features of a program I use to scan and track all my receipts. It's aptly called NeatReceipts Professional. The system costs around $200 and includes a miniature scanner. Just insert your receipt, hit scan, and the software extracts data from the receipt pre-filling many fields. It pulls the vendor name, payment type, receipt amount, etc. It's not always perfect, but it gives you a good start. You can set categories and assign tax lines. And, a copy of the receipt is kept with each record.

The feature I tried out today is for use with business cards. It's basically the same process. Put the card in the scan, start the scan, and let the software go to work. It does a fairly good job at selecting land lines versus cell phones and faxes, picks out addresses, business names, titles, and has an extra space for additional info on the card. Again, a scan of the card is kept with the record and there is a tab to scan the back of the card if it has additional info. This is great for keeping track of all those business cards, and gives you a way to search for and then print out a copy of the card and contact info for someone else.

Here's a copy of my card and contact info printed:

 You can also scan miscellaneous documents to store in the software. It runs tax reports, can export to excel, and I think you can synchronize your contacts with Outlook or Plaxo.

At least my day didn't completely go to waste. I scanned a lot of business cards, so now I can keep the actual business cards in the car to hand out as referrals. I had thought about a bizcard scanner, but I like that this program can handle both receipts and business cards.