Customer Reviews

Paperless [Old Version]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Paperless (formerly Receipt Wallet) is to the Mac what Visioneer/Nuance Paperport was to the PC. I use Paperless with a Fujitsu ScanSnap for Mac. The integration is perfect. Paperless detects the ScanSnap easily. You can Paperless as one of ScanSnap's file destination. Apparently you must buy this directly from the Mariner Software site.

Highlights of Paperless:
> OCR to automatically read your receipts.
> Plenty of categorization options for your documents. I have a separate database for work and home papers. You can categorize as much as you like (insurance, recipes, tax records, etc) and SmartViews and folders are easy to set up.
> Perfect integration with my ScanSnap.
> Good user's manual.

Lowlight:
> When you scan, I believe the scan defaults to the last database opened. It would be good if you could designate which database you want to scan to without having it up and open. Maybe you can and I'm missing something here?

I have been looking for a program that would allow me to scan articles/files I have saved over the years, so I am not storing so much paper.

I had been interested in another program, but would have had to upgrade my system software, and purchase a new scanner. I starting checking into NeatWorks Digital Filing System, but after reading the poor reviews on Amazon.com, I had decided against it. In one of the reviews it suggested Mariner Paperless as an alternative that was working for them. After watching the tutorials on Mariner's web site, and downloading the product and trying the demo, I was hooked! The program has everything I was looking for.

I'm delighted with Paperless. I bought a ScanSnap 300M about a year ago and I was a little surprised at the lack of software included. I bought the only software I could find, "Neat Receipts". It worked pretty good at first, but with 300 documents it has nearly become unusable.

Before purchasing, I evaluated the free trial of Paperless. I imported my existing scans and used Smart Collections to sort things out by Category. I liked having a large view available to select several documents at once and assign a Category. It feels like Apple software, and that's a compliment.

After a couple trial scans, I decided it was well worth the purchase price.

Overall, it's great software that works as expected and I would recommend it to anyone looking for software to go with the ScanSnap 300M.

I bought this software in conjunction with the Fujitsu S1500M scanner after reading reviews on various scanners. I have been very happy with both products and been able to get rid of a lot of stored paper documents. I am using a MacBook Pro with the latest Apple OS (Snow Leopard), which works great with both items. I also use two external hard drives, one for regular Time Machine backups that the Apple OS drives and the other is a drive where I keep a back up of the scanned documents. I plan to burn some documents to to a CD and keep those offsite. We have all lost hard drives at one time or another so having these backups is essential element to the plan.

The library method of storing and retrieving documents electronically works really well. There is a simple elegance to the combination of scanner and Paperless software. The software is very intuitive to use, which is great. No one likes reading long manuals. There are a couple features that I haven't used yet but so far it exceeds my expectations for what I wanted to do.

This is a review of the Feb 2011, version 2.0 release.

There is little I hate more than a software upgrade which screws up a good thing. Microsoft did this with the "Ribbon" in office 2007, Apple did this with the latest version of iPhoto, and now Mariner has done this with Paperless.

First the good:

The OCR seem significantly improved, I have to enter less, and what it does pick out is clearly more accurate. I like the ability to add several customer defined fields, and I like the ability added number of data types, including date and checkbox.

The interface looks more like Finder, and the coverflow works well. I also like the ability to combine multiple libraries, documents, receipts and business cards into one library. Bravo.

Now for the bad:

That nice little user manual that came with the old version, the searcheable, indexe PDF, is gone. In it's place is a piece of carp help system. I hate most help systems because using them is kind of like being a mouse in a maze, able to smell the cheese, but always running into dead ends and having to move backward. There is no linear way to read about how to do things. It is worse than a content free PowerPoint. I couldn't figure out how to configure the details pane of the interface, and the help didn't help, and of course, it insisted on being on-top, which means on my MacBook, I could't toggle between screens.

Typesetting is a 400 year-old art, books provide the best of linear and direct access via a indexes and table of content, and as a searcheable PDF, you have the best of everything. Of course writing a book takes effort, it is a lot harder to create a coherent whole than it is to slap a bunch of random content free text into a help system. For the lack of adequate documentation alone, I would give this just a 2 star rating, but it gets better.

The document list view allows you to select which columns to display. Unfortunately, the pick list disappears after every selection. So, let's see, I had to right click 5 times, each time unchecking a columns I didn't want then the dialog would disapear, meaning 10 clicks, then another 8 to add the fields I wanted.

Ok, this is an annoyance. But then I change the filter, from say, the whole library to documents scanned Today, guess what, all those columns and the 18 mouse clicks (more if you count resizing) were for not. I have to go through the same set of steps each and every time I apply a different filter. Come on, give me a break. If I customize a view, doesn't is seem reasonable that I'd customize all view for all the filters I was going to use. (OK, maybe I want a different set of columns for receipts, documents and contacts, but not for every possible filter).

With version 1.3, when I scanned a receipt, a preview would pop-up on top of the Paperless interface, so I could see the receipt while I was updating the database. Not so this new release, first no preview pops up, and when you manually view the receipt, it gets immedietly covered when I go back to the detail screen to enter information. Maybe this isn't a problem on a 24" 1900 resolution monitor, but on my macBook, it is a real annoyance.

So, OK, I figure I have a solution. I'll just shrink the window so I can see both the receipt and the entry fields at the same time. Oh, but no, you cannot do that. Paperless insists on consuming 80% of the screen space. I cannot shrink the window size to less than three quarter of the screen. Clearly the developers never considered portable users, caring more for the "cool" look of their interface than the usability of it.

So, with all the grief I've had, I decide to go back and install the old version. But I originally bought version 1.1, finishing with v1.3 after two free updates. So I install 1.1, and run the update command, download >10Mg of file, only to have the application tell me "Improperly Signed File."

Apparently I'm screwed. I can't work with the new interface, and I cannot go back to the old one.

-Thomas

Allows you to directly scan documents into a searchable PDF database on your Mac. I've been using it for several months and it works rather seamlessly, especially if you have a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, which is really the best sheet fed scanner for the Mac hands down. Paperless allows you to have multiple databases for different types of items like receipts or documents. You can also create a PDF directly from a web page into Paperless, although this works best if Paperless is already open, I have found. Definitely two thumbs up from my experience.

I tried mariner paperless along side neatdesk for mac. You can read my neatdesk review at that product page.

Paperless does a basic job of getting receipts into your computer with the appropriate data. I was able to use it well enough to get data to import into my expense spreadsheet but there are a lot of things which need improvement. For any other document job, you are better off using Evernote (which is free). Some of the things that paperless needs:

- It needs to support multiple currencies, at least allowing you to turn on a currency field (really for the price it should also allow you to input exchange rates and it should do conversions for you)
- It needs much better reporting. The report is way too basic to use for any sort of real expense report and allows for very little customization. Neatdesk will number the reciepts and print data about the receipts next to them, as well as in an overview table. Paperless does none of those things.
- It needs better control over the exporting so that you can export a table that contains only the information you need. Such an export should have index numbers which can be matched to a report showing the reciept scans which are also numbered accordingly for cross reference
- It needs to allow you to take out any of the fields and add an unlimited amount of new fields.
- It needs better OCR
- It needs something similar to neatworks to drag and drop OCR'd data to the data entry form
- When paging through the reciepts in the form view, it needs full quality scans of the reciepts instead of unreadable thumbnails. You shouldn't have to click on the reciept for a detail window every time you want to add details.

That being said, it doesn't have some of the fatal flaws of neatdesk which caused me to abandon that software. It's usable, but just not particularly good. I hope they turn it into a much better program in the future. It strikes me as more of a $15 piece of software than a $50 piece of software.

I am giving this product only two stars because although it has many good features its flaws outweigh its strengths. I purchased Paperless to use it with my scanner is a ScanSnap S300M. My laptop is a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

PROS
- Smart Collections allow you to file your receipts in different categories as soon as you scan them
- You can scan multiple pages although not multiple small paper receipts, and only using TWAIN scanner not the SnapScan
- Receipts are easy to view

CONS
- The software doesn't come with a manual
- You can't create reports that would also include the images of scanned receipts
- No email reports feature
- No multi-page scanning feature with ScanSnap
- No technical support. Customers must leave a message and and a specialist calls back...or not.
- Set up is not totally intuitive, or plug and play.

I purchased Mariners Paperless and SnapScan S300M after a bed experience with my Neat Receipts for mac...but that's another review. If you are using this software combination, make sure to do the following:

IN PAPERLESS
Go to Paperless > Scanner > Select Use ScanSnap

IN SCANSNAP MANAGER
Go to ScanSnap Manager menu > Deselect Use Quick Menu
Click on Settings... > Select Applications > And from the pull down menu choose Application: Paperless

This is OK, inexpensive software, but there aren't that many options out there for mac users...

Works very well. Purchased the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Mobile Scanner to be used with it. Very happy.

Being a complete and disorganised numpty I bought this software to track my wife's receipts for her business.
We had bags of paper receipts and the tax year was coming to a close. I had to get organized for my own sanity and this proved to be the right thing for it.
I use it with the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 (also a fantastic product) It links perfectly to document everything I care to throw at it.
It is pretty easy to use for a non computer peson such as myself. However I feel I am using only a small percentage of the application.
If there is any criticism and it is only a small one, the could have been some instructions. But that seems the way nowadays...no one wants them or reads them. I did use the online instructions which were quite helpful and I may revisit them.
So yes, I would highly recommend this product and I would buy it again in a heartbeat. Buy it and you won't be disappointed, especially for the price.