Awesome Apps for Accounting: Genius Scan, Hubdoc and Xero

In my search for a fully automated, completely paperless, and mobile-friendly accounting system, I’ve discovered three apps I love that have almost made it a reality. Genius Scan, Hubdoc and Xero Unless I’m near a desktop scanner, every receipt or document enters my virtual file cabinets through Genius Scan.  I don’t know how it does it, but it turns my iPhone’s camera into a high-quality PDF scanner.  I love being able to crop my receipts, make them black and white, and make the PDF file sizes less than 100 KB (while image files from the camera are normally several megabytes).  I then use the app to easily upload documents to programs I use to organize them such as… Hubdoc recognizes the text on the receipts and puts them into a list showing the vendor name, date and amount of each receipt.  It also automatically gives them file names (such as Wal-Mart_20150126_$20.00) when I download the files.  Hubdoc DIETA VEGANA E CARROCERÍA generic zovirax por generic en espana acyclovir bodybuilding – día a díahas some good organizational tools for marking documents as paid, adding tags and notes, and putting documents into folders.  Hubdoc also automatically pulls online statements from my Amazon, credit card and utility accounts and similarly names and organizes those documents.  Hubdoc exports the electronic documents and transactions into online accounting systems such as… Xero has been my personal accounting software for some time now.  I’m a fan of the beautiful web interface and the mobile app that lets me reconcile transactions on my iPhone. I have a wish list that would make the process perfect:
  • Genius Scan can automatically upload to several apps, but Hubdoc is not on that list.  I currently e-mail each receipt to my Hubdoc e-mail address to do the job which isn’t too much of a hassle.
  • I’ve created many bank rules in Xero to automate how it classifies bank transactions it downloads, but they don’t apply to transactions coming from Hubdoc.  Although the two programs do an amazing job auto-categorizing them, I wish I had more control.
  • The Xero reconciliation screen doesn’t show me how the transactions from Hubdoc are categorized, so I have to drill into the reports to find them and make sure they’re categorized right.
Please leave a comment below if you have a different set of accounting apps and processes to share.

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Comments (4)

  • Avatar

    Shane Eloe

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    Is there a resource limitation in one of these services that you’re trying to keep the file size small for? I just tried out the Scannable App from Evernote. I think it’s better than Genius scan, but gets the same thing done.

    Does Hubdoc data actually match to the bank import like the Sleeter review suggests their goal is? If not matching, would it be better to NOT integrate the systems and let Xero code the bank transactions and just have Hubdoc as the “documentation and support” for the raw transaction data in Xero? (totally searchable I assume).

    I also saw something about Hubdoc being able to retrieve and scan check images from certain banks. Have you witnessed this firsthand at all?

    Looking forward to #XeroChat next week. I think you’re on the shortlist for host rotation.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Dustin Wheeler, CPA

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    Shane,

    Xero has a 1 GB storage limit (if this post is still current: http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2013/10/xero-files/). In other words, if each picture is 1 MB, it would only allow 1,000 files.

    Hubdoc does not match to the bank import directly, but I do prefer to integrate the systems so Hubdoc creates the transaction in Xero and pushes over the document. When I reconcile the bank feed in Xero, it gives me some comfort to know I have matching receipts for each transaction. The integration is much better since Hubdoc released features giving me more control over how receipts are classified. I got two things on my wish list! See here: http://blog.hubdoc.com/say-hello-to-mission-control-for-docs/

    Hubdoc’s “vendor rules” aren’t as powerful as Xero’s bank rules, but it takes care of most of my transactions.

    I have seen Hubdoc retrieve check images. What a great thing for a bookkeeper!

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Ira

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    Hi Dustin,

    I also tried to automize my bookkeeping. One of the cloud software I use for myself and recommend to my clients is Getmyinvoices. It’s a secure and easy way to fetch all your invoices and upload it into different softwares, like Xero or Freshbooks. It also allows to scan invoices with your mobile phone and upload it.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Jesse Grillo

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    Hey Dustin. Thanks for this article. I’m going to check out Xero. Actually, do you still recommend it? I’e been in need of personal accounting software for a while now.

    Reply

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