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Business

Scan paper to the cloud with this scanner or mobile app

SimpleScan converts documents and business cards today; support for invoices is coming in the future.
Written by Heather Clancy, Contributor

OK, so apparently many of you have challenges keeping your contacts in order, especially getting paper versions managed, because my recent post about services for helping with this task (8 mobile apps for managing business cards) continues to generate a healthy amount of reader traffic.

With that in mind, I wanted to alert you all about a new solution from Document Capture Technologies that is meant for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) hoping to squeeze out paper from their processes -- for either environmental or cost reasons (or, mayhaps, both).

The product, called SimpleScan, relies on a mobile scanner that converts paper (receipts and such) into digital images or a mobile app that turns your smartphone into one. 

Instead of filing the scanned documents or images to your computer, however, you can centralize their storage and send them to many of the cloud storage or document services that are being widely used by smaller companies today to simplify collaboration and document sharing. The ones that are touted as being connection-ready as of this release include Box, Certify, Dropbox, Expensify, Evernote or Google Drive. You can manage across multiple services through the SimpleScan Connect Web service.

Currently, the premium service ($5 per month) covers an number of options, including an unlimited number of scans. It will eventually support imports of up to 30 business cards per month, although this feature isn't currently supported.

Document Capture sells two types of scanners to go along with its service: pricing is $159 for simplex hardware or $199 for duplex hardware that supports double-sided feeds.

The free mobile application for capturing images works on either Android or Apple iOS devices. 

Incidentally, for more on the seemingly perennial paperless office argument, you should check out the arguments in the recent Great Debate about this topic here on ZDNet. 

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