associate jpeg image of receipt with a transaction?

[Mike]

On Saturday 11 December 2004 06:08 am, Mark H. Wood wrote:

>To anyone contemplating the addition of such a feature, I'd like to
>suggest that the specific details should not be integrated into Gnucash

Mark,

I would appreciate additional features but my feeling (from a programming 
standpoint) is: Why complicate things?  An accurate and reliable accounting 
program simply cannot do everything for everyone.  I am not a programmer, but 
I know those who write code for Gnucash have plenty to do, especially when 
you consider they volunteer their time.  

As far as scanning an image of a receipt and using OCR to automatically enter 
transaction details, the transaction would require careful scrutiny.  A 
single misread OCR character may make it very difficult to track down a 
transaction when you discover your accounts don't balance.  OCR is far from 
perfect, at least in my experience.  Additionally, some manual entry would 
still be required.  For instance, OCR would have no idea of which account(s) 
to use for the transaction. 

For those here in the U.S who want to scan a receipt, do some OCR entry into 
Gnucash, save the image and then throw away the hard copy, consider this:

For business transactions, the IRS requires hard copies of every transaction 
for the previous five years and will not (in most cases) accept computer 
generated copies.  The same applies to personal records, the only difference 
being they must be saved for seven years.  Also, copies of important 
documents are not accepted in some States; you must provide the original 
document as proof of a transaction.

How often does one need to view or print a copy of a receipt?  If the scanned 
receipts are named and filed where you can easily find them, viewing/printing 
them is simple.  Of course if you think about it, the same applies to filing 
the original receipt.  If you can't find it later, why bother keeping it?

Data entry is the heart and soul of any accounting program and is not an easy 
task.   But it must be done accurately or else the end result is useless to 
anyone.   In my opinion, OCR could be an aid to manual data entry for some 
people, but will never replace the need to use the keyboard.  In the long run 
(at least for me) it is easier to enter the data manually and not put up with 
the hassle of constantly "training" an OCR program to recognize the correct 
data on every style of receipt I encounter.  And we all know there is no such 
thing as a standard receipt.   

Mike Zulkoski

-- 
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone.
 My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone." 
- Bjarne Stroustrup (originator of C++) [quoted at the 2003 International 
Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces]