Bar Codes
This is an idea that Moneydance can not incorporate on its own
but it seems to make sense to me. Suppose every receipt you ever
got had a bar code on it that would encode all the data that we
presently have to enter by hand: vendor name, date, item(s)
purchased, amount paid, credit card account number, etc. You would
then scan that on a device attached to your computer and MD and
other programs would enter the data into your register. You would
only need to enter a category and you'd be done!
Any thoughts on this ?
Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.
Keyboard shortcuts
Generic
| ? | Show this help |
|---|---|
| ESC | Blurs the current field |
Comment Form
| r | Focus the comment reply box |
|---|---|
| ^ + ↩ | Submit the comment |
You can use Command ⌘ instead of Control ^ on Mac
1 Posted by Ben Spencer on 14 Sep, 2009 03:24 PM
Hi Mark
I think this is a really interesting idea and I believe a great deal of information can be encoded in modern multi dimensional bar codes. Theoretically an entire OFX file for all the transactions on the receipt could be encoded in a bar code. And I could imagine you could then take a photo of this with an iphone or other smart phone and have an image processing algorithm extract the data. The difficulty would be in getting the point of sale equipment vendors to adopt and implement a standard. And thats the hard part. It not much use if only a very limited number of point of sale companies implement such a technology. Intuit (the makers of Quicken) also produce point of sale hardware and so it might be worth bringing up the idea with them. Although I fear that they would make it a proprietary format that could only be read into quicken. Moneydance is a much smaller organization and doesn't have the resources to develop its own POS equipment.
We are however developing an iPhone application that will let users enter transactions (typing by hand) as they make them and then the iphone will synchronize the transactions to Moneydnace on their personal computer when they get home.
Sincerely
Ben Spencer
2 Posted by mark on 14 Sep, 2009 03:27 PM
Thanks, Ben. Don't forget us Blackberry users!
Mark
3 Posted by PrinterElf on 10 Oct, 2009 02:30 PM
Windows Mobile too! ;o)
4 Posted by Colin Tomlinson on 11 Oct, 2009 02:46 AM
Very interested in the iPhone application.
Meanwhile, let's be clear about the barcodes currently on some receipts. Much like the barcodes on products: they're simply a unique number. When returning goods to a store, the assistant can simply scan the barcode - but this simply identifies the transaction number: the actual details are retrieved from the POS system's data files.
Meanwhile, and entirely off-topic, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a barcode scanner on the rubbish (trash) bin? Then, as we use something up, it would be scanned as it went on its way to landfill or recycling and could be automatically added to our computerised shopping list!
Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 24 Jul, 2011 07:00 PM.