There are roughly 23 million sole proprietorships and 30 million SMBs in the US. On top of that, almost ten percent of all workers in the US are contractors. We are approaching the deadline to file for taxes in the US, and the millions of sole proprietors, SMBs, and contractors don’t have the time to sift through, organize, and enter information from their receipts, invoices, expense reports, and other tax documents into their accounting system. But like most of our problems, we can use technology to provide a solution. In this case, we can look to Epson’s Workforce ES-500WR and 300WR scanners powered by ScanSmart Accounting Software with Receipt Manager (ScanSmart Accounting).
On the hardware side, you get the same fast and reliable scanning that we’ve grown to expect from Epson. We tested the ES-500WR last April, and the device earned KPI’s highly recommended distinction in 2018 and the Outstanding Scan Solution for Accounting in 2019. Analysts were most impressed by the device’s performance in reliability testing, in which 20,000 pages were scanned without a single jam, misfeed, or malfunction. Speed and OCR accuracy test results were also very impressive. Even better, the WorkForce ES-500WR retails for less than $500—which is roughly 20 percent lower than the competitive average—and those prices include the bundled ScanSmart Accounting solution.
But it’s the bundled ScanSmart Accounting that really separates these units from the competition. Afterall, none of Epson’s competitors offers such a solution out of the box. The solution leverages tight integration with popular tax preparation solutions (QuickBooks Desktop and Online, Quicken, and TurboTax) as well as advanced OCR and intelligent indexing capabilities to accelerate and standardize data extraction and file naming procedures.
| Epson’s fast and reliable hardware teams up with smart software to help businesses and workers breeze through tax season. |
ScanSmart Accounting Edition uses OCR and intelligent indexing technology to read documents like invoices or receipts and automatically extracts pertinent accounting information, like the vendor, total, and date. Out of the box, the solution can collect information on 23 index fields, but you can also import existing categories from QuickBooks so you can tailor the solution to your environment. The solution remembers vendors from previous scans and provides users with suggested options to accelerate and ensure an accurate review process. Once data extraction and review is complete, scanned images can be routed to Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, QuickBooks, Quicken, and TurboTax.
The benefits of an Epson WorkForce ES-500WR or WorkForce ES-300WR aren’t just about saving time. It also reduces costly mistakes and ensures a uniform, organized document management structure. That way, when tax season comes around, you don’t have to shift your focus from making money to paying the government.