Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
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MONTHLY MICRO APPS By Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP, Technology Editor Mobile Scanning Options for Accounting and Tax Professionals M any accountants need or want to capture documents outside of the ofce. Whether you have an audit team working in the feld or you just need to capture an image of a W-2, there are many hardware and sofware tools which can be used to create PDF versions of paper documents. Although there are few, if any substitutes for a traditional duplex workgroup scanner with image enhancement and fle optimization, tools like smartphone scanning apps and portable scanners can help you efciently gather and store information while on the go. Brian Tankersley is a Knoxville, Tennessee CPA and consultant whose practice is focused on technology consulting and training for accountants. Brian is a nationally recognized speaker with K2 Enterprises (k2e.com), and blogs on accounting technology at CPATechBlog.com. Comments, suggestions, and errata are always welcome, and should be e-mailed to brian.tankersley@ CPAPracticeAdvisor.com. sible) to optimize the quality of scans for different types of documents. Transferring the images securely to a computer generally requires the user to plug the phone into a computer, as the methods which are traditionally used for transmiting photos (e-mail, upload to personal clouds like DropBox or SkyDrive) generally do not meet the compliance requirements applicable to many kinds of confdential information. Mobile Camera Apps The easiest way to capture documents is to simply take a picture of each page. Most smart phones have a camera with sufcient resolution to capture a readable image of a document. Tese unmodifed high resolution color images create very large document files, which at 1 megabyte (MB) or more per page, are suitable for occasional reading. Tere are a number of apps like Genius Scan (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) and PDF Scanner (Android) which can be used to capture images and assemble them into PDF fles. W hile these tools require no additional hardware, they also frequently create burr y or poorly lighted images. Many of these applications do not have tools for image correction or enhancement, and it is very difcult (if not impos- Portable Scanners While portable scanners are another device and set of cables which must be carried on the go, these devices are designed to create optimized high quality images of documents. The smallest and lightest devices have less capable feature sets than the larger, bulkier models. For exa mple, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 is the smallest scanner I own (12 oz). It performs well, but does not feature duplex (two-sided) scanning and an automatic document feed tray. Larger devices like the ScanSnap S1300i and Canon P-215 Scan-tini scan much faster and have these missing features, but these devices are larger and heavier. (For example, Fujitsu���s ScanSnap S1300i weighs around 3.5 lbs with the required cables and power adapter.) Although some portable scanners are available for $100 or less, this is not an area where users should be cheap, and users may need to pay as much as $300-$500 depending on the required features. Most people who have used or supported these devices for a long period of time recognize the value of a scanner which engineered for efciency, and avoid no-name devices. Some models which receive good reviews from mobile accountants are the Fujitsu ScanSnap line (S1100, S1300i, and iX500) as well as the Canon imageFOR MULA P-215 Scan-tini personal scanner. Other Solutions Tere are other options for imaging documents when away from the office. Some virtual fax providers like Protus and eFax can be operated in a HIPA A compliant fashion, where the resulting PDF documents are stored securely (not e-mailed) and retrieved from a portal. Users can also recommend free PDF printers like the Bullzip PDF Printer (www.bullzip.com) to those they are communicating with so they can send the document in a standard digital format. Mobile camera apps like Genius Scan for iOS (shown) let users take pictures on a cell phone and use them to create pdf documents. April 2013 ��� www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 19