Yeah, it sucks! Especially with today’s thermal paper receipts that fade to gray!
Just remember, you just need to be able to read the resulting files, you don’t need “pretty pictures.” Consider just using an “old school” point and shoot camera with good lighting, and renaming the files accordingly.
Suggestions for making it less of a chore:
* Scan on a dreary day when you don’t feel guilty about it while watching TV. It took 5 episodes of “Stranger Things” to scan 20 years of ancient tax returns.
* Write the date, general category and amount on the top of the receipt in black ink. This is especially important for fading receipts
* Scan in gray scale rather than black and white
* Don’t spend a lot of energy making things look pretty, rectangular, etc. Just be certain you can read the amounts.
I used a small sheet feed scanner for years (Dixie Go) and recently switched to using a phone camera scanner app with OCR. I did have to experiment with lighting a little to get quality results. I also take a quick peek at the output files to check for focus. Overall, much faster because I avoid the sheet feeder problems.
I use an external Bluetooth keyboard to quickly name the file rather than us using the screen keyboard. I have the scanner app upload scans automatically to cloud storage.
