[Macworld]

Post your comments for Review: Paperless is a solid paper-organizer here

[icerabbit]

Thank you for the review. I wasn't aware of paperless.

I've always been intrigued by going "paperless" but so far have found it more work than it is worth, due to scanning time, software limitations and the additional effort to create reports. Plus a digital file archive to keep track of.

A few more details would have made the review complete for me:
- a preview of the report table
- file format the receipts & documents are saved as
- file naming and folder structure (or is it some type of proprietary index file ?)
- reading receipt smarts: is it any good at automatically tagging the store and the actual total?

Final note. I would not headline a shipping commercial software product dealing with financial data as solid, when you have had to force-quit the application more than once during basic operation with just a handful of files. That's something that should have been long eliminated in testing.

[neilchapman]

I used the antecedent versions of this software in my law practice about 5 or 6 years ago. It was called "Document Wallet" and then "Receipt Wallet" before Mariner bought it and changed the name to "Paperless."

It was an awesome app about 5 years ago, in the age called "BE." (before Evernote.)

I might be wrong, but I don't think Mariner has improved upon the original Document Wallet in any meaningful way since then.

I switched to Evernote to manage my paperless law office about 5 years ago and never looked back.

Evernote does nearly all of what Paperless does, and then some, especially in regard to synching across multiple computers, iPads, iPhones, etc. via the cloud. Tough for Paperless to compete with that in my opinion. Plus, Evernote is virtually free and they are constantly improving it.

Neil

[wessew10]

Very interesting review. I used to use Paperless but due to some of the bugs and limitations in previous versions I switched to Evernote for research compilations and Devonthink Pro Office for sensitive documents, finance, taxes, bills, etc. Both work exceptionally well. If I could get beyond concerns about working in the cloud in terms of security I would use Evernote for everything. But I do not think it is worth the risk in terms of a potential breach.

[ibgarrett]

I used Paperless back when it was still Receipt Wallet. Their development has been very slow and the database has been somewhat buggy when the environment gets big.

I switched over to Neat's web document management system which allows for input via the iPhone's camera. So now my wife and I can enter in receipts on the go.

[pwith]

Thanks for the review. I would like to use Paperless and have tried (very hard) to use it but the constant crashes are unacceptable.

[realisticMac]

Irresponsible headline

As usual these reviews leave me scratching my head. INTRO: "..solid paper organizer" VS. CONCLUSION "but glitchy behavior casts a shadow"

Which is it? "But if you can live with that?" (glitchy behavior) - Who can live with "glitchy" when trusting with your personal documents.

The interface is incredibly clunky. Definitely designed by a windows designer fascinated with "Cover Flow" -- but weren't we all?

I don't keep programs (or depend on programs) that require me to Force Quit!!! Good grief. "Solid paper organizer" ??????


I used this product from day one with the previous developer (as receiptWallet) and when Mariner had it for over 18 months with no update, then came out with version 2.0 (charged upgrade) --- it was so full of bugs that it wasn't useable. That was April 2011.

Mariner software completely messed up the product. The company seems to specialize in buying other companies software and repackaging/reselling/bundling the same product with little or no updates. Its a heavy caution to buying anything they sell. To their credit, they refunded my "upgrade" fee because of the poor product.

I've evaluated DevonThink and settled on Evernote -- and never been happier. How can you not love a company who's goal is to be around 100 years and always give you the ability export your data.

If you concerned about privacy, you can store notebooks locally, that contain sensitive info.

[markiem]

I don't get all the negativity. I have several products from Mariner, including paperless, and have nothing but a positive experience with them. I did have some OCR corruption issues a year ago but their tech support helped me out in less than hour. Are there better softwares out there? maybe. I guess it depends on what your needs are. Paperless meets mine just fine.

Marcus

[pcryan]

FWIW - I'm a big fan of DevonThink Office. I use a fujitsu scansnap s1100 with it's native client and dump everything into DevonThink. Works just fine.

[Flexmeister]

Yet another Macworld review of a Mariner app that manages to completely ignore the app or apps it tries and fails to imitate. In this case DEVONthink.

DEVONthink is more expensive, but it's also stable, better thought-out and in active developement. And a database where you save your financials and other sensitive information seems like a really good place to value dependability over price.

If you want to save money, Evernote might be worth a try. I personally prefer to store my sensible stuff at home but a lot of people swear by it.

[RobLewis]

I was a beta tester for Paperless, and the software definitely had some teething problems and was perhaps released before it was quite ready for prime time. The latest release is working well, however.

I too use Evernote for ordinary things and Paperless for more personal and archival-type stuff that I don't want propagated to the cloud.

IMO, Paperless is a bit schizophrenic in that it wants to be a contact manager, too, and I can't imagine who would use it as that. Mission creep, I guess—but easy enough to ignore.

[whazzup]

Paperless had a big update recently that solved many of the bugs. I use it for all my home financial documents. I like the workflow. It does an OK job of parsing out the data from OCR, not great. I still have to manually add or amend data.

Evernote's downside (for me) is the proprietary file structure that they use. So if they go bust, I can't get my data. Paperless stores your original files in a standard OS X package. Evernote is also $50 a year for a full account (which you need for a paperless office). Having said that, I use Evernote extensively for other things, like ongoing projects.

DevonThink is an awesome program. The only downside is that you can't easily edit a file date. So if I import a bank statement from 12/1/2012 on 12/18/2012, the latter is the date of the file. And the only way to change it is through a script. They call this a feature, since they have clients who need accurate dating. But for me, it was too cumbersome for my needs. They have an amazing database search, so I use it for journal articles.

I wish one program could do it all. If I had my druthers, it would be Evernote, mostly because of it's cross platform availability.

[pcryan]

My concern with Evernote - and some other online apps is

"We worry not only about hackers breaking into their systems, but also the fact that Evernote’s terms of service state that Evernote reserves the right to review or enable third parties to review content stored on their servers. In essence, once you store a note at Evernote, it is no longer completely yours."
site - macnotetakingapps.com/evernote-mac/

NOTE - I do not know if they have changed Terms of Service as this comment appears undated.

[HMALETTER]

I haven't upgraded my Paperless since the newer version came out, so I'm running v 2.04 now. I use the Fujitsu Scansnap scanner. So far, I've been amazed at how easy it is to use. Granted, the auto naming and categorization took some time to get used to, but overall, it's been a good experience. I have scanned in old records and used my paper shredder to the max

I also have Evernote installed, and so far, fail to see the comparison between the two. In fact, I would never had made a connection until you brought it up. Still don't think there is one. So, I use both.

I can export anything from Paperless, so I'm not sure why anyone's worried about the product or contents.