A High-Tech Accountant in Your Pocket
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CREDIT: CapturenGo |
Tax time is always tedious if you run your own business, since you have to total up expenses (and the inherent write-off) yourself. When travelling it can be worse since you're stuck with a bunch of paper bits. To help solve some of that problem David Peskin came up with a subscription-based app called CapturenGo.
Using the camera on a Blackberry or iPhone (sorry, no Android version), the app takes the image of a receipt, pulls the relevant information into a format that is IRS-approved, and exports it to an Excel sheet. (Peskin's own background is in financial services).
The data is sent to an online account that can be accessed from a PC, so it doesn't eat the memory in your smartphone. For the free app, the maximum number of receipts is 50 in 30 days. For anyone who makes more than one sale a day, that isn't enough, so for $99 per year you can sign up for an unlimited plan. If that sounds steep, ask yourself how many tax write-offs you missed each month because you couldn't find the receipt and stretch that out over a year.
The app works for organizing business cards as well, and you can't overestimate the value of networking.
Each weekday on TechNewsDaily, That's Useful! finds practical new gadgets, computing hardware, apps and appliances that make sense and simply make life better.
