As we were about to leave to go on our last trip, the mailman arrived with the latest bill from our phone company. I saw that they were still billing us for a previous phone/Internet plan, even though we’d signed up for a new one… so I took it with us to deal with once we got set up.
It was several days before I got to it, and then, in the usual dreary process when I was being passed around from one person to another on a phone chain, I found that I needed to access information on previous bills. I’d been caught like this before on the road, needing information that was back home. The problem is that we don’t want to take the contents of our filing cabinet with us!
I resolved to fix this once I returned home, by scanning ALL essential information and recent bills and keeping it on my computer. I had been using an iPad app called ScanPro, which essentially takes photos of bills (or knitting patterns, or whatever) and turns them into PDFs. This works reasonably well, but you have to be sure to hold the iPad steady while you take the photo. The advantage of the iPad is that it was handy while we were travelling.
I started the hunt for a small scanner that was fast, easy to use and suitable to take away with us. I finally settled on the Fujitsu ScanSnap, which took only a week to arrive from Amazon. The ScanSnap sits next to my laptop on my desk at home, but takes up very little room in the caravan and is handy if I need to scan any brochures or documents while travelling. No more carrying bundles of papers around!
Apart from being invaluable for scanning bills, I can also scan business cards, caravan park maps, tourist flyers and information sheets. (If I want to scan just one page from a tourist booklet, I can either tear it out and scan, or I can use ScanPro on the iPad.) All of this can be kept in Evernote for easy reference from an iPad, Android tablet or phone. (Any computer at all, actually.)
Here is the Amazon link if you want to read more about it (there’s a video showing it in action on this page as well):
Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Mobile Document Scanner
I just copied this para from today’s Sun Herald. It’s now at the stage where we need to be scanning and storing all receipts and proof of ownership.
NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has blasted the ”cruel” behaviour of some insurance companies towards Blue Mountains residents who have lost everything, after demands that families provide photographs and receipts to support their insurance claims. In many cases, families were lucky to escape the fast-moving fire front.
“People who have lost their homes and possessions in recent bushfires are already facing a stressful situation without having to do battle with their insurers,” Mr Smith said. “This sort of approach to bushfire victims is cruel and unnecessarily adds to the trauma they have suffered.”
Wow. That’s a timely reminder of the value of doing just what we’re doing! I’m also backing up my computer to CrashPlan. (Love that name. Says it all.)