Receipt and Invoice Scanning

In my capacity as chief technologist for bookkeepers, I checkout the progress on scanning of receipts etc . Five years ago I  had a look and the best then was a system where you had to describe the region of the document where the item you wanted plucked off was located. This was ok if you had hundreds of those receipts and if you have that many constant transactions you would be better off with a direct e-business arrangement. Years ago E-commerce referred to the electronic transmission of financial documents eg sending orders, getting receipts. These days E-commerce means having a web page where you can sell stuff.

This time around the Neat Company is getting closer. They even have a hopper to load different sized paper. This system uses OCR but there are still too many mistakes in the scanned numbers to make any time savings because of manual corrections.  If a bookkeeper can accurately feed through 100 receipts and this software can pick out relevant numbers like Total Cost and GST and place them into a file and there are no mistakes then you will have a winner.

There's also the  Certify Mobile Company where you can take a photo of the receipt and up to 15 items are extracted to a file. They are cagey about how this is done but there is meant to be no human involvement.  I would rather see the results go to my local device rather than be sent to the cloud for a fee.

Maybe in another five years we will have scanners where the DPI will be such that 100 documents will get 100% recognition rates. You can always cut out the middle man which brings us back to E-business or more likely E-receipts.  The E-receipt company will send receipts electronically and you will have your own cloud account where these transactions are stored.  Bookkeepers could save a lot of typing if they had access to that.  Not too far off everyone will have cloud account created when you are born.

Don't believe the Zero company hype about bookkeepers disappearing into the Internet.  Bookkeepers will still have to sort out the mess.

Official Retiree

After 38 years I have resigned my position. It's a strange feeling.  Most mates I know have significantly changed their working lives in some way by now.  Either totally stopped work or down to two days a week or a completely different type of work.  I will still be working for "She who must be obeyed".  Now I'll have my feet up for the next 20 years! Not!

Friday Biker

Got the old mtn bike out of the shed. Flat tires, rust in places and the pump broke after two or three plunges.  I found another old pump which also broke but got that one fixed so that I could actually pump up the tires. The teeth are bit worn on the back cluster but managed to ride it for an hour or so. Check list

• fix the main pump
• replace the cycle computer battery
• the bell ringer has gone as well
• rear cluster issue

The Black Sea

Focus is on the Black sea lately, first Sochi now the Crimea. Those Russians never take no for an answer. Always wanting the warm ports that never freeze over. Since they were beaten off when the Brits teamed up with Napoleon 160 yar ago the Rushkies have been steadily infiltrating to the point where the Crimeans have forgotten who they are.  Mind you there would have been a lot of work provided for the locals in developing those ports. I wouldn't want to cruise the Dardanelles until this blows over.

Fever Pitch

Glandular Fever is a tricky business.  You may not know you have had it until the blood police have found a trace of it from six months ago. In the mean time you are feeling a bit hot, a bit tired, a bit slow but you work through it.  In the back of your mind you might think "I'm getting a bit older I'll put it down to that."  One thing we will have to do now is keep better records so any questions can be answered accurately. And no kisses or spitting in your eye, saliva is the fever's friend.

GeoCaching

I tried my hand at Geocaching. I have resisted this for some time as any self respecting Rogainer and Orienteersman would poopoo this in a flash.  Knowing the co-ordinates and having a device to lead you by the nose to the location would have Nigel Aylott turning in his grave.  There are other differences like having the target object hidden from view. The skill is navigating to the correct hill top but with this you are lead to the hilltop then you have to find which tree it is hidden in or under which rock.  It could be a stepping stone to try Rogaining but finding your own way is more entertaining. Nevertheless it does get you outside. 

HOSPITALity

Hospitals are odd!  You don't want to be there but you go anyway. On this occasion blood is taken at regular intervals, as well as peeing in a bottle not to mention the biopsy chunk out of the back.  No mention of crapping in a beaker so far but I guess they will get around to it.  And all in the quest to discover the source of repeated high temperatures. The scones are good though. I don't think Bali has got anything to do with this problem as our visit there was four months ago, however the first sign of a high temperature was after we got back from there. That place has got issues.