Over the past couple of months I have been using Evernote to keep track of notes and documents that I handle each day. I use the software on my laptop as well as on the iPhone and iPad to capture notes throughout the day.
An update to the PC version of Evernote was launched last week that brings Evernote Trunk to the software. What Trunk does is lists all apps that integrate with the software. While scanning through these I came across an app called JotNot for the iPhone. The JotNot app allows you to use the iPhone camera to capture images of documents such as bank statements, legal letters and any other sort of document. When you have captured the image with JotNot you can keep it filed in JotNot or send it to a number of services such as Google Docs, DropBox and of course, Evernote.
Once the JotNot app is authorised to access your Evernote account you can simply give the document a name, put it in a category and tag it if necessary. Once done you hit send where it lands direct in to your account which in turn, can be accessed via the iPhone, iPad or PC as well as any other device that runs the software.
The quality of the document can be enhanced within JotNot with a number of options depending on what type of print you are capturing. Although using a smartphone camera isn’t the best way to scan a clear image, the quality is still good enough to use and is also good enough that Evernote can OCR the document allowing you to search for text within the image if needed. For example, I bank with Barclays and can easily search for Barclays which then lists all my captured bank statements.
If you just want to capture a couple of documents a day that land in the post then JotNot Pro is an app worth looking at. However, if you intend to scan a lot of documents and want a paperless office using an app such as Evernote then check out scanners such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap that can scan several pages per minute.
Using Evernote as a paperless office works well for what I need it to do. The JotNote Pro app has worked well for me so far although I wish they would let me set a default to send to Evernote rather than having to tap through the menus each time on the app. Other than that it works well for a handful of documents each day and allows me to shred and recycle my statements as needed. By using Evernote on the iPad and iPhone, it also allows me full access to my paperless office filing cabinet on the go.
What I am not sure of at the moment is the best way to organise the documents. Right now I have created folders for each type of document such as personal bank statements, business bank statements etc… What I am tempted to try do before I capture too many documents is to start using tags more which can also more easily integrate with Nozbe for example. Either way, the search functions allow quick access to the documentation and OCR in search also makes it easy to find what you are looking for quickly.
Quick Edit: Evernote for the iPhone can easily make use of the camera. However, it only captures images as the camera sees them. With JotNot you can easily crop, enhance and make the document better for storing it.