Existing users, 
 NeatWorks - 2.1.9Receipt & document scanning/cataloging software. |
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| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
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Featured Reviews
It doesn't entirely suck. 
- Version: 2.1.6, 7/18/2009 09:55PM PST
(0 of 1 users found this comment useful)
bwickens
I have a Fujitsu S510M (one of the scanners supported by NeatWorks for Mac.) I've been waiting for v2+ before taking the plunge, needing to scan and work with nearly two years worth of paperwork that was falling out of two vast in-trays on my shelf.
Here's the good:
- it works fine with the S510M and can override the SnapScan driver settings
Here's the not so good:
- Emailing: Unlike almost EVERY other program for the Mac, NeatWorks decides that your only email client can and will be Apple Mail. If you use Entourage, or anything else, you cannot email a PDF from within the program. I contacted technical support and they confirmed that's how the program is hard wired. No matter what your default email client is set to be.
- Scanning weirdness: I scanned over 300 documents today. When I went back through the list of scanned items, I noticed about 7 of them had, inexplicably, scanned in 'negative' (the background was black and the type was white.) I had to go back through my paperwork and find those particular documents, re-scan them and then they scanned correctly in positive. I have no explanation, other than scanning in more that 50 documents at a time seemed to stress out the program, which performs OCR and PDF creation in the background as new scans are being fed in.
- Program Freeze: After scanning about 50-60 documents in a row, the program seems to max out into spinning beach ball territory. Force quitted, then restarted. Fortunately my database wasn't corrupt.
- Everything in a bundle: I hate the way Aperture and Entourage store all your data in one big (sometimes many GBs) file. If you open those files (view package contents) you can find all your individual files, but they usually have long random string names and meta-tagged to the underlying database in the program. Neatworks is the same. One big a** file with everything in it, with vague names.
- Life is not just a collection of receipts, documents and contacts: Unfortunately, these are the only three types of documents the program allows you to assign to something you scan. Well, what about a utility bill? That's an invoice, not a receipt. Or what about a statement? That's a, well, statement not a receipt. You can create 'collections' and 'smart collections' to gather up all your scans according to criteria (but it's a somewhat arcane process). The Neat folks would be well advised to look at how iTunes handles setting up smart collections. Anyway, the program is essentially a database, so why can't users add document 'types' other than the three listed above.
- Amazon receipts are not contacts: You know those little 3 x 5 inch receipts you get in your Amazon box? Invariably, when NeatWorks 'analyzes' those, it thinks they are contacts and creates a new contact with, of course, a bunch of gobbledegook in every field.
Anyway, with a lot of manual touching up, and keeping an eye open for the weird inverted scans, it mostly works and does a reasonably handy job integrating with my S510M and generating PDFs when I need them. I had an old PaperPort back in the OS9 (or was it OS 8?) days before they stiffed the Mac platform. Kudos to Neat for at least recognizing that the Mac market is not ALL that small anymore and actually providing SOMETHING for us to work with.
Here's the good:
- it works fine with the S510M and can override the SnapScan driver settings
Here's the not so good:
- Emailing: Unlike almost EVERY other program for the Mac, NeatWorks decides that your only email client can and will be Apple Mail. If you use Entourage, or anything else, you cannot email a PDF from within the program. I contacted technical support and they confirmed that's how the program is hard wired. No matter what your default email client is set to be.
- Scanning weirdness: I scanned over 300 documents today. When I went back through the list of scanned items, I noticed about 7 of them had, inexplicably, scanned in 'negative' (the background was black and the type was white.) I had to go back through my paperwork and find those particular documents, re-scan them and then they scanned correctly in positive. I have no explanation, other than scanning in more that 50 documents at a time seemed to stress out the program, which performs OCR and PDF creation in the background as new scans are being fed in.
- Program Freeze: After scanning about 50-60 documents in a row, the program seems to max out into spinning beach ball territory. Force quitted, then restarted. Fortunately my database wasn't corrupt.
- Everything in a bundle: I hate the way Aperture and Entourage store all your data in one big (sometimes many GBs) file. If you open those files (view package contents) you can find all your individual files, but they usually have long random string names and meta-tagged to the underlying database in the program. Neatworks is the same. One big a** file with everything in it, with vague names.
- Life is not just a collection of receipts, documents and contacts: Unfortunately, these are the only three types of documents the program allows you to assign to something you scan. Well, what about a utility bill? That's an invoice, not a receipt. Or what about a statement? That's a, well, statement not a receipt. You can create 'collections' and 'smart collections' to gather up all your scans according to criteria (but it's a somewhat arcane process). The Neat folks would be well advised to look at how iTunes handles setting up smart collections. Anyway, the program is essentially a database, so why can't users add document 'types' other than the three listed above.
- Amazon receipts are not contacts: You know those little 3 x 5 inch receipts you get in your Amazon box? Invariably, when NeatWorks 'analyzes' those, it thinks they are contacts and creates a new contact with, of course, a bunch of gobbledegook in every field.
Anyway, with a lot of manual touching up, and keeping an eye open for the weird inverted scans, it mostly works and does a reasonably handy job integrating with my S510M and generating PDFs when I need them. I had an old PaperPort back in the OS9 (or was it OS 8?) days before they stiffed the Mac platform. Kudos to Neat for at least recognizing that the Mac market is not ALL that small anymore and actually providing SOMETHING for us to work with.
Good Software - Version: 2.1.6, 6/23/2009 06:44PM PST
prolaw1
I have had this software since it was beta for Mac. It has improved greatly. I have found that the scanning of receipts is fairly reliable and the info is spotlight searchable.
The process is straightforward. Scan - fill in fields (most are filled in automatically) and you are done.
You can also scan business cards.
I use the portable scanner that comes with the product and have found it easy to carry around in my MBP bag.
Overall, if you want a quick way to scan in stuff while on the go or out of the office, I can recommend. If you want to scan more than 25 pages, get something else that has an auto document feeder.
There have been fairly regular updates too.
The process is straightforward. Scan - fill in fields (most are filled in automatically) and you are done.
You can also scan business cards.
I use the portable scanner that comes with the product and have found it easy to carry around in my MBP bag.
Overall, if you want a quick way to scan in stuff while on the go or out of the office, I can recommend. If you want to scan more than 25 pages, get something else that has an auto document feeder.
There have been fairly regular updates too.
Where have all the drivers gone? Can you tell me.... - Version: 2.1.5, 6/7/2009 12:33PM PST
shefprop
We have the ADF desktop scanner and the portable. After the upgrade, the ADF is no longer recognized and we can not communicate with it. After several attempts with tech support, their only "solution" is to send out a new ADF scanner. I don't think this is going to work since the ADF unit worked fine before the software update. The neat scanner diagnostic still shows a USB connection, as does system profiler, but fails all the driver tests. My guess is that the ADF drivers were "overlooked" in the update. This would be a major oversight only compounded by tech support not being aware of it.
Per support, they are having many problems with the update.
Why did we bother updating? Because the ADF is limits the length of the paper scan which was going to "fixed" with this update.
Per support, they are having many problems with the update.
Why did we bother updating? Because the ADF is limits the length of the paper scan which was going to "fixed" with this update.
What a G-d Awful Piece of Cr*p! - Version: 2.1.2, 4/11/2009 01:56PM PST
(1 of 1 users found this comment useful)
AKMedia
I rarely write reviews as I like to give an application either a chance to shine, or as is the case with the Mac version of NeatWorks (formerly NeatReceipts), a chance to fall on its face, crash and burn.
This program is so disappointing I don't know where to start.
CRASHING: It crashes with almost every use, sometimes 2 or 3 times in an hour.
MEMORY LEAKS: Can't say for sure on this one but experientially when I use this program over time, it slows my very fast Macbook down considerably, usually necessitating a restart.
SPEED: This program is slow to start, slow to perform OCR, slow to quit. It's slow as a snail.
REPORTING CAPABILITIES: The reporting capabilities (it's tax time right now so this is a MAJOR problem) are weak to say the least. Creation of 'Smart Folders' are anything but. Folder creation is non-intuitive and I have not figured out a way to create a Smart Folder with more than one criterion. If you know how, please let me know!
GENERAL USAGE: The application just feels unfinished and is completely buggy. And, compared to the features of it's Windows counterpart, us Mac users are getting the extremely short end of the stick!
My suggestion: Save your money and use Envelopes and an Excel spreadsheet or, and I hate to say this, buy the Windows version.
This program is so disappointing I don't know where to start.
CRASHING: It crashes with almost every use, sometimes 2 or 3 times in an hour.
MEMORY LEAKS: Can't say for sure on this one but experientially when I use this program over time, it slows my very fast Macbook down considerably, usually necessitating a restart.
SPEED: This program is slow to start, slow to perform OCR, slow to quit. It's slow as a snail.
REPORTING CAPABILITIES: The reporting capabilities (it's tax time right now so this is a MAJOR problem) are weak to say the least. Creation of 'Smart Folders' are anything but. Folder creation is non-intuitive and I have not figured out a way to create a Smart Folder with more than one criterion. If you know how, please let me know!
GENERAL USAGE: The application just feels unfinished and is completely buggy. And, compared to the features of it's Windows counterpart, us Mac users are getting the extremely short end of the stick!
My suggestion: Save your money and use Envelopes and an Excel spreadsheet or, and I hate to say this, buy the Windows version.
Just installed & nice so far! - Version: 2.1.1, 3/30/2009 08:17PM PST
kidflibble
I just installed Neatworks the day after this version update was released. I did have a chance to play a little with 2.0.4 while the update was downloading, and it does appear that MANY of the issues have been resolved in this update! Even in just the few minutes I used 2.0.4 it felt buggy and unresponsive, and scanning performance was severely lacking. The program would hang and give me bizarre non-sensical error messages. HOWEVER, following the update the program feels noticeably more responsive, scanning performance seems spot on (I'm using their neat portable scanner), and aside from a small list of nit-picks I'm compiling it seems a solid effort. I'll revisit this review once I've had some more time to play, and I'm sure there will be some more polishing to come from Neatco soon. This product will be amazing in about a year, but it's certainly worth the money now. This application will save my marriage at tax time, guaranteed!
Bought this but requesting a refund...full of problems. - Version: 2.0.4, 3/16/2009 07:16PM PST
ffass
I read some reviews elsewhere and thought NeatWorks would offer a UI improvement over ReceiptWallet. What a mistake. NeatWorks 2.0.4 has some bugs and poorly implemented features. I'm sticking with ReceiptWallet from here on out. Here's what I've discovered after only 1/2 hour of use:
1) The software will erratically loose connection to my Fujitsu S300M scanner for no apparent reason, forcing me to go the "Fujitsu ScanSnap Settings" and then press that "Start ScanSnap Manager" button to get it working again. I never had this problem with my previous receipt program, ReceiptWallet. This is repeatable even after quitting and restarting the program a number of times.
2) The visible text fields to the right of the previewed image varies with each scanned item, forcing me to customize the field selections per item (!!). For instance, I have to manually add the "Category" field to every item scanned. This renders the software completely impractical and unusable.
3) I cannot uncheck any of the "Document Fields" items in that pop up list (to the upper right portion of the window); they'll are grayed-out and checked by default. Obviously I need to customize those visible fields to my own needs.
4) I can't find a way to apply specific parameters to a newly created Smart Folder. I used Smart Folders constantly in ReceiptWallet which, when double-clicked, allows for very specific parameters to be set for each Smart Folder (such as specific text in a specific custom field).
If you're not very fussy maybe this software will work for you, but it has some real faults.
1) The software will erratically loose connection to my Fujitsu S300M scanner for no apparent reason, forcing me to go the "Fujitsu ScanSnap Settings" and then press that "Start ScanSnap Manager" button to get it working again. I never had this problem with my previous receipt program, ReceiptWallet. This is repeatable even after quitting and restarting the program a number of times.
2) The visible text fields to the right of the previewed image varies with each scanned item, forcing me to customize the field selections per item (!!). For instance, I have to manually add the "Category" field to every item scanned. This renders the software completely impractical and unusable.
3) I cannot uncheck any of the "Document Fields" items in that pop up list (to the upper right portion of the window); they'll are grayed-out and checked by default. Obviously I need to customize those visible fields to my own needs.
4) I can't find a way to apply specific parameters to a newly created Smart Folder. I used Smart Folders constantly in ReceiptWallet which, when double-clicked, allows for very specific parameters to be set for each Smart Folder (such as specific text in a specific custom field).
If you're not very fussy maybe this software will work for you, but it has some real faults.
OK, but not quite there yet. - Version: 2.0.4, 2/27/2009 06:17AM PST
calamita
NeatCo has big ambitions for this program, and while it isn't bad yet, it isn't totally ready for prime time in my opinion.
I bought the software to use with my Fujitsu scanner, and it performed fairly well. I didn't have as many of the problems as some detailed in other reviews, but wasn't totally blown away with the program, compared to what I'm currently using.
As a user of ReceiptWallet for my receipts and Yep for my other documents, I can say that Neat is missing Tags, which are a big part of Yep and the ability to split transaction categories, which ReceiptWallet has.
The OCR in Neat is about on par with ReceiptWallet, but Neat's ability to juggle the data into fields if much better. (Yep has no OCR.) However, Nwat's OCR isn't near as good as Neat advertises it to be.
Overall, Neat is a good program, but I'm sticking with my old solutions since I'm used to them and Neat didn't give me enough compelling new features to switch.
I bought the software to use with my Fujitsu scanner, and it performed fairly well. I didn't have as many of the problems as some detailed in other reviews, but wasn't totally blown away with the program, compared to what I'm currently using.
As a user of ReceiptWallet for my receipts and Yep for my other documents, I can say that Neat is missing Tags, which are a big part of Yep and the ability to split transaction categories, which ReceiptWallet has.
The OCR in Neat is about on par with ReceiptWallet, but Neat's ability to juggle the data into fields if much better. (Yep has no OCR.) However, Nwat's OCR isn't near as good as Neat advertises it to be.
Overall, Neat is a good program, but I'm sticking with my old solutions since I'm used to them and Neat didn't give me enough compelling new features to switch.
Not Ready for Prime Time - Not By a Long Shot - Version: 2.0.4, 2/7/2009 11:51PM PST
(2 of 2 users found this comment useful)
chumjock
I installed this app and worked with it for three hours and finally gave up after taking several pages of notes. Most of the features it advertises either don't work, or don't work well enough.
For starters, it couldn't scan simple receipts(using a Fujitsu ScnSnap S510M, a scanner it supports). Most of the time the receipt would be upside down, or sideways.
Nearly all the date scanned from the receipts didn't show up in the info pane, leaving me to drop and drag text for almost all the fields.
When re-analyzing any receipts, the app would hang and force quit was necessary.
The view in inspector can't be modified, requiring one to keep hitting zoom.
I could go on and on. Too bad, because the concept of NeatWorks is brilliant, the execution, horrible.
For starters, it couldn't scan simple receipts(using a Fujitsu ScnSnap S510M, a scanner it supports). Most of the time the receipt would be upside down, or sideways.
Nearly all the date scanned from the receipts didn't show up in the info pane, leaving me to drop and drag text for almost all the fields.
When re-analyzing any receipts, the app would hang and force quit was necessary.
The view in inspector can't be modified, requiring one to keep hitting zoom.
I could go on and on. Too bad, because the concept of NeatWorks is brilliant, the execution, horrible.
Promising, but disappointing - Version: 2.0.4, 2/7/2009 08:57AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
Paul Jackel
This product has great potential, but the release of version 2.x introduced as many problems as it fixed. For example, there are now nearly two as many fields (e.g., "Vendor," "Amount," etc.) when entering receipts as there had been in previous versions of the software. While the documentation clearly states that these fields should be user-modifiable--even to the point of deleting existing fields or creating new ones--they are not. Several weeks ago, Tech Support had acknowledged that this problem existed and promised it would be corrected in the next release. It was not. In fact, I received an email saying that, although the development team deemed this problem worthy of investigation, it would not be fixed at any time in the near future. Even more frustrating is the fact that Tech Support is no longer answering phone calls ("due to the large volume of calls..."). This company and its product have a long way to go before I can begin recommending it to others.
This harks back to the original Mac-only Visioneer PaperPort--back in the 1990s, before the company sold off the software to $camSoft and the hardware to a new company also called Visioneer, and both new owners promptly dropped Mac support and began pumping out mediocre hardware and software that didn't work well together. This is the first comparable thing to come along since, and while it's fairly good, it still isn't quite as elegant as that original PaperPort!