CardScan Business Card Scanner Review
By Ellen Thompson |
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A couple of months ago, I broke down and bought a business card scanner. Here is the process I went through to research my purchase and my thoughts on the CardScan Executive, which is what I ultimately purchased.
At first, I didn’t do any research because I was quite certain I was going to buy Neat Receipts’ Scanalizer. They are an award-winning Philadelphia-based company and I was very familiar with their management team and aware of their product. I also knew they had distribution in Staples, so I figured I would just drive there, pick one up and start using it that evening.
Unfortunately, my local Staples wasn’t carrying it anymore, so I went online to Amazon to purchase it.*
I searched for “Neat Receipts,” found the product listing, and then noticed the reviews. They were mixed enough that it made me stop and think that I should do a little more research and consider the other card scanner I knew about - CardScan. I found that there were two versions for sale – Personal and Executive. CardScan Personal was less money than Neat Receipts and the Executive version was more costly. There were no reviews for v. 8, their latest product, but the reviews for previous models were strong.
At this point I was confused, so I began to reconsider the primary reason I wanted a card scanner in the first place – to make it faster to enter business cards into my ACT! contact and customer relationship management software. At this point, I decided I would purchase the fastest model. At the time, I couldn’t find any information about how fast the Neat Receipts product worked.** However, there was clear information on the CardScan Executive product-color business cards can be scanned in 3 seconds. This tipped the scales in favor of CardScan Executive and I placed my order.
It only took me about 10 minutes to install the CardScan software and start using it. In about 30 minutes, I was scanning away and pretty comfortable with all of its features. I was also impressed with how small it was. It leaves only a very small footprint which is a good thing on my tiny desk!
Using the CardScan has certainly made entering business cards more fun and faster. I also appreciate it’s ease of use, small size, duplicate card detection feature and free online backup service.
However, don’t expect perfection. It uses optical character recognition (OCR) software to read, interpret and categorize the data it “sees” on business cards. CardScan works very well with text-based business cards. However, when the information is presented in a highly graphically format, such as when the company name is integrated into the logo, the card scanner cannot interpret the information. The bottom line is you will not be able to scan all of your business cards perfectly. However, you have the opportunity to check and approve each card, and you can easily make corrections at this time.
While I am very happy with my CardScan, it’s important to note that both CardScan Personal and CardScan Executive are both “one-trick ponies” – they only scan business cards. If you want a solution that offers a more comprehensive solution in moving towards a paperless office, then consider Neat Receipts which includes a larger, but more versatile, portable scanner that lets you scan business receipts as well as cards.
*I use Amazon.com for most of my book and tech purchases because I’ve paid for their Prime shipping plan which means I get free 2 day shipping on anything I buy.
**Sometime between my business card scanner search and when I wrote this article, they revised their site and there is processing speed information for receipt scanning, but still no information about how long it would take to scan and process a business card.
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