Recording travel expenses, in the shape of bills and receipts, can be one of the most frustrating aspects of doing business on the road. A number of gadgets aim to simplify this chore. The Planon Slimscan (pictured) is a credit card-sized scanner.

By Eoghan Macguire, CNN
updated 7:36 AM EDT, Tue May 15, 2012 | Filed under: Innovations

(CNN) -- Recording traveling expenses can be one the most frustrating aspects of the business traveler's busy life on the road. Restaurant bills, train tickets, hotel receipts; they all have to be accurately accounted for.

This can be a time consuming chore, but an array of high-tech devices have hit the market with the aim of simplifying the process.

According to Duncan Bell, operations editor of tech magazine T3, receipt scanners and, to a greater extent, smartphone apps, are the main drivers of these developments.

"Technology has made quite major changes in terms of how people do their expenses -- particularly in larger companies," Bell says.
"Whereas before it was inevitably hand written, and then later typed into a spreadsheet, which involved bringing expenses into the office, now it can be done on the fly on a variety of different technologies," he adds.

Bell took a look at some of the most prominent products that are streamlining the expenses process.

Planon Slimscan

The Planon Slimscan is a pocket-sized scanner that enables users to record small receipts, business cards and all manner of other expenses-related paperwork.

It's a device that looks "impressive" and is easy to carry around, says Bell.

Given its diminutive size, however, the Planon Slimscan is unable to scan larger items of paperwork, such as hotel or taxi receipts, he adds.

"They're not actually physically wide enough to actually scan them (larger paperwork) in," Bell says.

Taking the pain out of doing expenses "(It's) something that you produce with a flourish from your wallet ... but is overshadowed by the usability element," he concludes.



 

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