I've been trying to think of a way to add up receipts (e.g for tax returns) without having to manually use a calculator. I spent three hours doing this the other day, and my business is quite small. Each receipt was actually a computer printout and there should be a way to feed them all into my computer to be automatically added.
When you think about it, the amount of manual entering of data that already exists on a computer somewhere must be vast. Trillions must be wasted on this every year. Think of all the processing of invoices etc that goes on in the world every day. People with calculators and keyboards are doing work that should have been computerised long ago.
While XML has been proposed as a solution, I think we're a long way from my receipt for a shop-bought magazine being available to download into my tax return over the net.
Surely the solution to this problem is to have a machine-readable print-out on documents like receipts. It would be similar technology to a barcode, but with more information able to be stored (although the total amount of info would have to remain quite small, say 1000 characters). You could then have a device hooked up to your PC under which you swiped these documents to enter them.
For a standardised receipt, I could have simple software on my PC to which I could say “add up all of these including a separate total for sales tax”. Then I’d just swipe them one by one under the reader. The amount of man-hours worldwide a device like this could save is vast. Of course, retailers etc. would have to start putting the print-outs on their receipts.
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I was curious how much information existing barcode technology could encode, and ran across this site: <A href="http://www.idautomation.com/datamatrixfaq.html">http://www.idautomation.com/datamatrixfaq.html</A>
They have a 2D barcode that claims to reliably encode up to 800 characters.
This is a great idea.
Use XML as the basis, but implement in barcode.
It's been said before, but XML ain't a silver bullet. It's not the answer here. It's just too verbose, when you're looking at an 800-character limit. How about sidestepping the paper receipt (while keeping it for an audit trail) with its barcode, and having USB sockets on the till to dump a standard-format file onto a thumb drive that you take into the shop with you?
I don't think XML is the right solution for putting on the barcode. It's too verbose for 800 characters, as previously pointed out.
Maybe some type of cut-down XML. The software that you use to import the data could then convert it to proper XML.
The USB idea previously is a good one, but not at present. It would require too much new infrastructure. The advantage of paper-based, barcode is that it's a software solution for retailers etc. I think paper-barcode is the simplest soltuion.
Great idea, this. The paper idea is simple enough using barcodes. XML can work too even with an 800 character limit.
Another concept, would be to use "Glyphs", pioneered by PARC, although IMO, barcodes would be simpler.
The simple answer is a code39 bar code, or rather two of them.
One contains the phone number of the establishment (with a web based lookup if you want to get the name and address, plus a hyphen and a standardized category (restaurant, office suppply store, etc)
the other contains the date plus the total amount.
you approach Micros, Lawson, JD Edwards about adding it to their software, it becomes a feature to attract business to the establishment. go after hotel chains, office supply stores, kinkos/fedex.
2d barcodes are too big, plus receipt printers often have faded printouts - won't resolve well. plus a simple barcode wand is cheap and available now.
XML has to be ocred as characters - won't work for same reasons, too long for regular barcodes
XML is overkill. Use a simple format, and the 2D barcode.
How about a recipt with not only the barcodes (amount paid, business) but also uploaded to a website/web service which customers can register to so that they can load a digital recipt from the website to your taxes in one simple step. Everyone will have a secure password or conection method.
A document scanner, <a href=” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition”>OCR software, and a custom program that knows how to categorize each piece of data from your receipt. EG. A receipt from XYZCompany. You place it in the upper right corner of the scanner, press a button on the custom software that says getXYZ data. The OCR (optical character recognition) software knows the font type that XYZ prints on their receipts. It also contains the logic to parse the scanned document (image) into text characters. It can figure out how many line-items, where the sales tax is noted, etc. XML would be good for describing the data, and/or converting it into QIF, IIF formats. To my knowledge, this process is used by <a href=” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiline_Optical_Character_Reader”>many BIG companies that receive thousands of forms a day. The custom software would need quite a bit of work, and every time HomeDepot changes the layout of their receipt, it would need an update. A better solution might be to use a company account on Amazon.com for as many purchases as possible. Using the invoice email from amazon.com, a capable computer programmer would be able to parse the invoice into excel or whatever financial format you are using.