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Ask Slashdot: How To Go Paperless At Home?
THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes "Over the years, I've had numerous scanners equipped with automatic document feeders — and all of them jam or grab multiple pages at a time (thereby missing pages). Like you, I've got years of tax returns and legal documents to scan, but with these kinds of barriers, it would take months to scan everything. Enterprise-grade machines cost 5 figures. How do Slashdotters become paper-free?"
Find someone who'll rent one to you.
Better yet, use the roundfile. 99.999% of all paperwork doesn't need to exist, much less be saved digitally. Even tax documents sunset in just a few years.
All those tax returns, legal paperwork... Can't they just stay on a box or at the basement? It'll require lots of work, and get few benefits. I would understand for new documents; i.e. introducing to a spreadsheet some taxes/things to pay. But why care about the past? Or, at least, why scan? Just type the figures, it'll be more semantic and wouldn't involve machines (except for you and the computer).
How do you expect to be "paperfree" when almost the entire use of your paper has nothing to do with priting anything?
Most of paper is used for toiletpaper or paper towels or paper tissue.
So, how do you use those 3-shells??
What they both said:
Scan as you go.
Toss/shred stuff not really needed.
And sign-up for electronic delivery: most of my tax documents are online in PDF format from the various entities. As well as all my monthly statements, canceled checks, etc.
I really don't understand the whole idea of going paperless. The vast majority of paper we get, we don't really need to keep more than a month or so. Bills, etc, when you get them, you review them for errors, if everything looks good you pay it, at most I keep 2 months worth of back bills around. If you close an account, keep the last statement for a year or two. Taxes, insurance papers, titles & deed, those you need to keep long term, but 7 years worth of returns, insurance contracts, deeds & titles will fit easily in one, maybe two, plastic file boxes that you can get from Staples for $20. A 2 draw filing cabinet and a couple plastic file boxes should handle the filing needs of the average family. Most people just keep too much paper. The reason you want to keep paper around is if there is ever a disagreement it is usable in court. I'm not sure scanned documents can be submitted to court, so I would never just scan then shred my tax returns.
"Have you seen my marbles"
I have Simple Scan on Ubuntu and a networked Brother MFC-7840W. The Brother has a multiple page feeder which doesn't jam much and Simple Scan which supports multiple pages. Couldn't be easier. Just put your document in the feeder, push scan and a few minutes later you have a 10 page PDF of it.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
I'm not sure what kind of document feeders the poster has been buying, but I regularly scan and fax hundreds of pages a week on a very affordable Brother multi-function machine. They cost about $300 and work just fine.
Of course, you could also take those old tax returns and stick them in a box in a closet somewhere on the 1/1,000,000 chance that you may ever need to look at them again.
I don't understand Slashdot's obsession with articles and questions about turning simple, mundane tasks into grossly overcomplicated, expensive technical "problems" in need of grossly overcomplicated, expensive technical "solutions".
I don't respond to AC's.
Install a bidet.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
My reaction is, why would you want to go "paper-free"?
Seriously. Are you allergic to paper or something?
It would be one thing if everybody sent you bills and documents electronically and you never had to deal with paper again, but you're talking about scanning things in with a document feeder. WTF?
Seriously. It is much, much harder to keep records electronically than to throw the pieces of paper into a file cabinet and forget about it. This is well documented.
Maybe for a company that produces huge piles and mounds of documents every year it makes sense to want to convert them to electronic formats, but for an individual it makes no sense. And you're not talking about stuff like marriage licenses, now, you're talking about random individual tax records from years ago. WHY are you losing sleep over it?
The mere fact that it's hard for you to figure out how to do it should be a big clue that IT'S AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT YOU WOULDN'T OTHERWISE HAVE TO DO. Are you so bored?
Breakfast served all day!
What happens in 4 years time when the IRS wants to do an audit on your 2011 return and makes the request "Show us the receipts"? Likewise for any legal document under the sun. Sure its great to have scanned copies, but I bet that there is still a requirement to back them up with the paper originals
("oh look, I just found he document giving me ownership of slashdot. Pity its worthless")
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Why the hell would you give the guy at Kikos a box of your tax returns and legal documents? Especially since you are asking him to scan them! It only takes a minute for him to make his own digital copy and poof! There goes your identity.
Maybe you could stop being a self-obsessed idiot and cut your grandmother some slack. She's not sending you Christmas cards to spite your right-on tree-hugging ideals or because she's trying to convert you to Christianity. She's sending Christmas cards because that's what a lot of people do for the people they love. Ever considered that to her, *not* sending you a Christmas card might be as bad a breach of protocol to her as getting a paper bill or whatever is to you?
Not sure why you've been marked as troll, but there are services that will do this for you. Send them a box of paperwork and a couple of weeks later you get access to everything as searchable pdf files.
although some paper work can be eliminated after 4 years, other needs to be retained much, much longer. Supporting documents for tax returns -- especially those not reported by third parties to the irs -- should be kept for a minimum of 3 years AFTER you file the return. Six years if you have under-reported or taken aggressive deductions that may reduce your taxes due by more than 25%.
In addition you should retain every receipt for the purchase and capital improvements to your house until (see above) years after you sell the house -- this includes new roofs, AC, appliances, remodeling expenses, etc.
Stock records should be kept as above.
Contracts (esp. big ones) should be kept until the contract is completed, and at least until the statue of limitations runs out.
This doesn't even get into business property -- where you can be audited on a desk you purchased up to 14 years later (in theory). Property related to assets (vs. expenses) should almost be retained indefinitely.
The number of people being able to afford one is irrelevant. There are always wealthy people who can afford something that the poor cannot.
The question about the savings of keeping less paper are perfectly on target. Assuming the paper is recycled (either after scanning or after you've kept it for the required seven years) that part's a wash. They still printed and mailed you the paper, and you still handled it and disposed of it. There is no savings one way or the other based on how long you keep it.
The only actual savings is incurred if you change residences. Not having to move seven boxes of old papers is perhaps worth a few cents of your time and some truck fuel.
The other "savings" claimed is convenience. Having a searchable back index of these pieces of paper might have some value, but only if you actually need to refer back to them. And that's the deal. I have a box of paper marked "2006" in the closet, filled with receipts, bills, tax forms, etc. How often do I go back to that? Never. So how often would I need to refer back to the electronic version of the same data? Never. It's a box of pre-recycling scrap paper that I store only because I may need it in case of a future tax audit. Otherwise, doing anything with it is a waste of my time and effort.
Next January, I'll spend an hour in front of the shredder getting rid of the contents of that box. Even that's no different than spending a minute a week shredding them after scanning them, really. Now, a scanner/shredder combination might be a lower-effort way of handling them, but that's not the product we're looking at. Plus, I shred in bulk, which is a lot faster than shredding a sheet at a time while scanning it.
So I completely agree with you. Overall, scanning these papers would be a step that delivers no benefit to me, yet costs me in terms of time and money.
John
If you think THAT is crazy, look at the first, top-rated comment! Evernote? Yeah, like I want to give some third-party, "cloud" service access to all my stuff all the time? Geesh, even Google is bad enough now. And if you think I am going to use my phone to pay for stuff with Google Wallet.... think again!
Not sure why you've been marked as troll, but there are services that will do this for you. Send them a box of paperwork and a couple of weeks later you get access to everything as searchable pdf files.
Plus there's the added bonus of someone else having your complete history in digital form! Saves them a few steps if they ever want to make a lateral move into identity theft.
#DeleteChrome
Somehow, putting my personal confidential documents on somebody else's server seems like a very, very bad idea. I'm not at all sure why you'd suggest it.
Scan as you go makes sense for new documents, but I think THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER's question really was a request for our opinions on bulk scanning solutions for already existing paper documents, not an ill-advised "cloud" storage solution for new ones.
Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer either, scanners generally prove to be quite the annoyance.