How do you scan documents while traveling?

Bit nervous that MSCs will have an issue with receipts. The hotel has a business office, but they probably don't have a scanner, so I just downloaded Camscanner. I've only signed up for a Five Guys so far, but don't want to get a bad rep or unpaid shops because they don't like receipts scanned from a phone.

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I just take a picture using my cell phone camera and upload it.

tlin - I am confused. I live on the road and everything is uploaded to the reports. When I say uploaded, I mean that I take a picture of everything. Got a brochure - I got a pic. Got a receipt - I got a pic. Got a dirty bathroom with a scorch mark- yep pic. Everything is inputted in as a jpeg. On the rare occurrence, the picture is made into a pdf. I only do pdf when I the jpeg isn't working for the client (blurry or small pic). I do not scan anything in. I upload my picture of the whatever into the form.

Just lost trying to find a fire pit in a concrete jungle wishing it was a wooded glen...

if it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all

Yeah, cell phone photos are fine as long as it's just small receipts. If you have 8 1/2 by 11 pages with lots of small print, it's likely to produce blurry and unreadable shots from your phone. In this case, going to a Fed Ex/Kinkos to use a scanner might not be a bad idea.

There are portable scanners, there are scanner apps for the smartphone, but the digital camera or camera on your cell phone will work most of the time. It depends on what level of detail needs to be read -- as NYCrocks said, large pages of print may need an actual scanner. Check Best Buy or on line for portable scanners if you don't want to have to hunt down a Kinkos in a strange town. Practice using it before you're on the road.

actually, nycrocks, take the picture of the page. Make sure that you have all of the data you need in it (shop ID, date, etc). Go to MSWord and insert picture into a blank document. You can actually make the blank document legal size if needed. Make sure that the picture is inline with the text (its a feature setting that you click). This means that you can move the picture to where you want so that you are highlighting the necessary info. Now go to a corner and (WHILE HOLDING THE SHIFT KEY) click and hold the right mouse and make picture bigger so that the info needed is center stage.(by the by you need to let the mouse go before the you let the shift key go) For example I had a series of shops that had a sheet of paper that had a date on it and I had to write the shop number on it. I grabbed the picture, went into word, blew up the picture and saved it as both a jpeg and a pdf. Doing this has saved me money, time and hassle of finding a Kinkos in small town USA.

Please tell me if I just made sense. It's late over here and I am getting punchy...

Just lost trying to find a fire pit in a concrete jungle wishing it was a wooded glen...

if it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all

I take a very small, very high resolution digital camera everywhere. I can take a full letter size page with that and it is readable. A portable scanner seems redunant to me.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

I use this really great cell phone app that scans PDF. It's called Cam Scanner. I've never had an issue with any rejected receipts from it.

I use my iPad or iPhone for all attachments. I take the photo, crop and enhance the photo, save it and then attach to shop.

============================================================
"We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm."

- Winston Churchill

“Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”

- Paul Brandt

Turboscan app, works great for me.

This is what this forum is or should be all about. Nothing but good solid info helping the OP and no snarky comments. Great info. Congratulations to all. I've taken notes.

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll just need receipts so either a pic on my cell phone or camscanner should work. I'll test it before I accept any more shops. Thanks!

Jake,

Why is it necessary to make snarky comments about snarky comments???

rovergirl529 Wrote:
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> Jake,
>
> Why is it necessary to make snarky comments about
> snarky comments???

I give up.

And some posts/threads are definitely snark-worthy. Luckily, this thread is not one of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”
~ Jimi Hendrix

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” ~ Mark Twain

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” ~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

I always carry my flatbed scanner with me. I scan each receipt
in indivually after a long day of shopping. Takes me only a
few hours. Not too bad.

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There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
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When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody

Hey, techman ~ The 90's called and they want their scanner back!

If I'm on a route, I'll shoot pictures of everything at the end of the day when I get to my hotel. The last one I stayed at though had "warm white" CFL bulbs and I could not color correct them to white to save my life. The color was just so off that it was impossible to get them white. Unfortunately it was too windy outside to do the shooting on the hood of my car.

I let the MSC know and told them if they needed better images to let me know and I would rescan the cards at home. Apparently everything went fine because I never heard back.

.
Have PV-500 & willing to travel.
"Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard." (The Fourth Doctor, The Face of Evil, 1977)

"Somedays you're the pigeon, somedays you're the statue.” J. Andrew Taylor

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." Galileo Galilei

I own the NEAT portable scanner. I could never do a report without it. Look it up at NEAT.com. It is called NEATReceipts. The scanner jpegs automatically, documents, receipts and business cards. It does a lot more, but I don't use it. Just plug it into your lap top. It is 10 1/2" by 2". MSC love it. The receipts automatically adjust to size.

The NEAT is on my "to buy" list when business gets a bit better.

James Bond

I paid $100 for the NEAT scanner. Be sure you look at the portable, not the full size one. Talk about saving time, after using my printer scanner I knew immediately I needed something more efficient. I did purchase this a number of years ago. They do have sales. Go direct to the company, they might make a deal.

I do the pictures in my car as I go in case I lose the receipts. I just lay them flat using the car's passenger seat as a backdrop. If it is dark, I use the flash. If it is too light (with sunlight), I try to park under a tree for shade or the shadow of a large building. Then when I get ready to do the report, I just attach the microUSB cord and transfer them over to my laptop.

Shopping across Indiana but mostly around Indianapolis.

by the way, for those that are not familiar with sarcasm,
I was not being serious in my above post.

I caught it, Techman. You want to buy our tabletop scanner? We haven't used it in years so it's still like new. It works, but I can't remember what it scans and what it doesn't scan.

I was thinking snail mail might be the best way. Is there any of the MSC's that would let me pay for a stamp and an envelope? They are so cheap now. Then maybe I could wait even longer to be paid since they have to receive the receipt.

Shopping across Indiana but mostly around Indianapolis.

There are some MSCs that will let you mail a receipt. In all seriousness, I've never had a problem shooting a picture or scanning. In all fairness though, my pictures are all shot with a Nikon D60 at low resolution.

James, That was my failed attempt at sarcasm. I wasn't as good as Techman.

Shopping across Indiana but mostly around Indianapolis.

I had 8 shops on Saturday for one MSC. Two were Lowes and six were Exxon-Mobil and mailing was an option for the receipts.

I have actually had a few on iccds that REQUIRED mailing the credit card brochures back. I felt silly going to the real post office as I was required to mail the envelope and get a receipt for it. Turns out that they had scales in there that took my Paypal debit card I use to charge expenses to (then it gets refilled when I get paid.) Shops don't pay much but they are good fillers as they are easy.

Shopping across Indiana but mostly around Indianapolis.

techman01 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> by the way, for those that are not familiar with
> sarcasm,
> I was not being serious in my above post.

Well, DUH! And the Art of Sarcasm is not having to explain that you were being sarcastic.

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