bc <cantor2[at]ix.netcom.com> wrote in
- quote -


I've gotten a lot of good information and ideas, and am
sifting through them all. I've also passed on some of the
ideas presented to some friends who have a tax practice
about 40 miles west of me, who are also thinking of going to
scanning.

Catherine

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- quote -

I use Visoneer's PaperPort scanner. It's a simple sheet-feed
scanner that takes little space on my desk. I happen to use
its old Mac System 9 software instead of the PC version;
just more comfortable with Macs (though I have both and
could scan to my PC if I wished).

--
Thomas E Healy, CPA, PC
1650 38th St., Ste 202W
Boulder, CO 80301
Please send email to: tom[at]tomhealycpa.com, since I block all email at my
newsgroup address.
phone (303) 443-1804
fax (720) 489-3772

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Catherine White <cgrantNoSpam[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:

- quote -

We use the Fujitsu 15c. It's a 15 ppm flatbed color scanner.
We use Adobe Acrobat to scan directly to PDF. Combined cost
about $1500. Others have been supportive of the Fujitsu 1420
(?) which is a small footprint duplex color scanner. Also
runs about 15 ppm. No flatbed. Cost less than $500.

--
Bruce Davidson Cantor, CPA, JD
Admitted in Colorado

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Catherine White <cgrantNoSpam[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:

- quote -

This past season we scanned everything from ~1200 clients as
well as up to 20 years of back records. We used 5 Brother
9700s (~15 ppm), and PaperPort 9.0. The combination has been
very satisfactory and quite inexpensive. The Brothers have
all performed very well.

One thing to watch is that everyone rates scanners on feeder
speed. Faster feeders cost more, naturally. But you can use
more than one scanner. Our office clerks can operate up to 3
scanners each and labor is a big cost in scanning. We have
found that one skilful clerk can scan about 40-50 pages a
minute with our system.

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Catherine White wrote:

- quote -

I don't have a small practice; nor a large practice either;
somewhere in between probably.

It's rare I keep a copy of any client document in file.
Naturally I have to keep W-2, 1099's for efiling clients.
Stray paper fits easily in file folders. Copies of tax
returns are retained on computer within the software scheme,
only maybe printing out page one of 1040, maybe a copy of
schedules c,e, for my info and easy accessing.

Naw, I won't start scanning. Too much of a hassle.

ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA
Mon, 10 Jan 2005

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Catherine White wrote:

- quote -

Well, I do, but perhaps not in the conventional way. I use
my scanner for faxing and for making copies as well as
storing to disk.

For pdf files, I scan into Winfax, then print it to the disk
as a pdf. (There are several programs that will do it - I
use a free one called cutepdf).

- quote -

I use a HP scanner - the machine is excellent but the
software sucks. Well, not sucks, exactly, but can be a pain
until you learn just how to use it after talking to seven or
eight tech support people.

Mine was working better than it does now until I was forced
to "upgrade" the software to the current version. It's now
idiot-proof, meaning that what I want to do with it is how
harder.

Two suggestions that I have, whatever scanner you get:
first, if you will regularly be scanning more than a couple
of pages at a time, get a document feeder. It's not
necessary but, at least for me, it's really a pain without
it.

Second, look for a scanner bed that takes legal sized
documents. Most that I've seen are only 11 inches. I don't
see longer papers often, but some people still use them and
it won't work with the standard sized bed if you need to
scan them.

Stu

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"Catherine White" <cgrantNoSpam[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:

- quote -

We started with HP desktops at each workstation - this was a
mistake. These are OK for small jobs, but are slow and
every time a new page starts the scanner takes over the
workstation and kicks us out of whatever program we were
using. We finally bit the bullet and bought a Fujitsu
4120-C color duplex scanner. This is a small footprint
scanner ONLY. It scans about 25 PPM B&W.

We bought it off a web site for $787.50 INCLUDING shipping
AND a copy of Adobe 6.0 Professional (this was the latest
release when we bought the scanner). This has been one of
the smartest purchases we've made. I highly recommend it.

Gene E. Utterback, EA

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Catherine White <cgrantNoSpam[at]alum.mit.edu> wrote:

- quote -

I'm not in the tax business, but do scan personal and
business documents into PDF files. You can use any scanner
together with a PDF print driver if your scanner software
does produce PDF files by itself.

--
Vic Roberts
Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.

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I'm thinking this year of switching to scanning clients'
original documents to PDF format to save them. I have a
small practice and am not in the market for a big, fancy
(=pricey) scanner. I've read a number of reviews online,
but would like the opinions of others in the tax field.

Do you scan documents to PDF? If so, what scanner and
software do you use? Do you like it -- or would the
system be better used as a doorstop or boat anchor?
(One review I read of an HP system said, "Too heavy for
a doorstop, too light for a boat anchor; fortunately,
the software sucks".)

Thanks!
Catherine

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