I spend a fair amount of time entering receipts into Quicken, so we can track our spending and for tax purposes. I also categorize those expenditures.
On some receipts, there might be as many as five or six different categories, and it is time consuming (and inexact–have you ever read a receipt and how know idea what the code stood for) to divide and calculate everything up. For example, if I go to Target and buy milk, a birthday card, laundry detergent, and a shirt for LM, the corresponding categories would be: groceries, gifts given, household, and clothing.
Wouldn’t it be great if I could dock my iPod Touch at a kiosk in the store which would then download the receipt onto the iPod. I could build a library of frequently purchased items and their corresponding categories. When I got home, I could sync the iPod with Quicken, automatically importing the data.
OR…I was just thinking that the whole docking thing would include a lot of start up costs, etc. for the hardware. What if stores provided you with a card, like a gift card, with your receipt electronically on it. With a small device at home, like a credit card processing machine, you could read the card and import it into the computer.
OR…what if the store had a website where each shopper had an account. After logging in, you could download the data from the website.
When you think about it, it seems kinda crazy to be dealing with tiny slips of paper. There should be an option to get the same information that is on a paper receipt in electronic format directly from the source.
