NeatWorks Digital Filing System Software for Mac [Old Version]

by The Neat Company

Product Features

• Scan in receipts to create expense reports, keep records of spending and save digital copies for tax purposes
• Scan business cards into your Address Book
• Scan documents to capture text that you can edit. Create searchable PDF's
• Software works with Neat and other scanners
• Organize your documents into separate libraries. Import PDF copies of business cards, receipts and documents stored on your hard drive

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001SJHHZ8
• Item model number: 00582
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 12, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,384 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

NeatWorks Software for Mac enables you to scan receipts, business cards and documents so you can organize, store and secure all your important information using a compatible scanner. The patented technology identifies and extracts the important information¿and automatically organizes it for you. Transform receipts into expense reports, scan business cards into Address Books contacts and create searchable PDF files from any document. Export information to PDF, Excel and Quicken. NeatWorks for Mac was built from the ground-up to look and feel like the OS X applications you use. It features drag-and-drop, multiple views, print to NeatWorks functionality and imports e-receipts. NeatWorks software is compatible with the Neat Mobile Scanner, Fujitsu S300 and S510M, HP Officejet J6480, Canon Pixma MP480, Canon Pixma MX410.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor products for the Mac / No customer support / An alternative..., August 7, 2009

By 

ffass "ffass" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NeatWorks Digital Filing System Software for Mac [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

I've had many problems with the Neat Company. I had purchased their prior version of scanning software and it was abysmal. Crashed on start up. Completely unusable. I contacted the company asking for a refund and I was ignored. Another email from me (polite, simply asking for a refund) was also ingnored. They appear to be continuing releasing broken software from the online reviews here and elsewhere. I RECOMMEND THAT YOU AVOID THIS COMPANY AND ITS PRODUCTS.

An alternative that is now working for me:
-Fujitsu Scansnap S300M scanner (made to work with Macs).
-Mariner Software's Paperless application for the Mac: [...] This software is specifically designed to support the above Fujitsu scanner.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad UI, Bad usability, Memory hog, crashes, altogether awful, March 20, 2010

By 

J. Maxwell "Señor Pantalones" (SF Bay Area, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NeatWorks Digital Filing System Software for Mac [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

I feel bad writing this because I met the NeatCo folks at MacWorld and they were genuinely nice and engaged in the product they're building.

Now that that's out of the way, I paid $350 for their scanner bundled with this software and think it's completely unusable junk. I only use it for OCR now and put everything in Evernote instead.

As I write this, I can't even switch to NeatWorks because it's completely locked up doing OCR on a PDF. My fan is running at maximum speed on the current top-of-the-line MacBook Pro.

It crashes frequently and doesn't save.

It does an awful job of processing yellow receipts, especially those with blue text.

The organizational structure is confining and frustrating, forcing you to choose a "folder" for each scan type, and preventing you from tagging things across multiple smart folders. For example, in useful software like Evernote or Yep, I can tag something *taxes* *2009* *w2* *house*. Nope, not in NeatWorks. Pick one, and that's where it has to stay.

Then try searching for something. Wait 3 minutes. Great, let's look for all documents with the text "2009" in it. There's your search results. Now drag one to a folder and...hey! NeatWorks clears the search and you have to do it all over again.

Try scanning a document. Oh no, it's about 2 degrees tilted and the OCR isn't working right. Want to fix it? Sure. Crack open the file in the Neat library bundle, search for the PDF (or drag it out of the NeatWorks main window on to your desktop). Open it in Preview. Use image adjustment to fix the angle by 2 degrees. Save it. Drag it back in to NeatWorks. Reprocess. Only took 4 minutes! Or neat could just build all the os x coreimage utilities into this app, since they are readily available, and let us do this within the program.

So by now you're frustrated and you want to report a problem. Contact their support. Wait a week. No response. Do it again. Still no response. Maybe the third time you'll get a form letter back that may or may not actually address the issue (like the software's habit of forgetting where the scanner is in the middle of a large document scan and causing you to cancel). Post in the forums? Don't bother, you'll only get other customers sharing their grief.

Anyway, I hope to do two things with this review:
1) dissuade potential customers from making the same mistake
2) Give visibility to this and pressure NeatCo to get their ass in gear and releases stable, quality software

For what it's worth, upon buying my NeatDesk for Mac I recommended it to two people, both of whom have already returned theirs, bought SnapScans, and are using them with Yep/Evernote instead. I'd rather not give up yet and hope to give the next version of this 5 stars. Come on neatco...

### Update 11/19/2011 ###

Gave up and bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for the Macintosh, paired with Evernote. This thing is amazing. It may be uglier than the NeatDesk, but it's better.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Painful to use, March 6, 2010

By 

M. Grant (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NeatWorks Digital Filing System Software for Mac [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

The software is slow and buggy, sometimes taking several minutes to start up. The proprietary format is useless, and the PDF support is primitive and not very helpful. I wish I had purchased a different product.