NeatFiles Review: Pricing & Features
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Eric is a staff writer at Fit Small Business and CPA focusing on accounting content. He spends most of his time researching and studying to give the best answer to everyone.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
What We Recommend NeatFiles For
NeatFiles is our overall best receipt scanner app, and we recommend it for companies or individuals working mainly in the cloud. Additionally, with a free NeatInvoices subscription, you can create invoices and store them in NeatFiles afterward.
Hence, we think that NeatFiles is best for:
- Companies looking for an invoicing and file storage system: NeatFiles comes with the features of NeatInvoices. If you’re looking for storage software with invoicing features, NeatFiles is the best app. It saves you money because you need not get another invoicing app.
- QuickBooks Desktop Users: NeatFiles can export data into QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop easily. NeatFiles is a great complement to QuickBooks Desktop because you can store your receipts or documents in the cloud and attach them to your QuickBooks Desktop entries.
- Organizations that store large volumes of documents: NeatFiles offers unlimited monthly storage for its single plan. Moreover, NeatFiles uses bank-level encryption, making your files safe from hackers and cybercriminals.
NeatFiles Alternatives
- Shoeboxed: Scanning a large number of receipts takes a lot of time. With Shoeboxed’s MagicEnvelope, you can send your receipts to Shoeboxed, and it’ll do the scanning for you. Shoeboxed starts at $216 for the first year but is priced regularly at $276 per year starting the following year.
- Zoho Expense: NeatFiles has filters to sort items by category, but it’s not a full expense tracking app. With Zoho Expense, you can scan receipts, manage them, and reimburse employees for the expenses they pay personally. We recommend choosing Zoho Expense Premium at $5 per active user per month for advanced customization and approval workflows.
- QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks Online allows users to scan receipts using either a scanner or their mobile app and attach the receipts to transactions. If this is all you’re looking for, then we recommend QuickBooks Online because of its industry-leading accounting features. QBO is also our best small business accounting software.
- Wave: NeatFiles may have great features, but some businesses—especially relatively new businesses—may prefer free options for cost consideration. Wave is also one of our best receipt scanner apps and is free to use.
NeatFiles Pros & Cons
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Clean interface | Not a complete bookkeeping system |
| Subscription to NeatFiles includes features of NeatInvoices | Lack of appropriate migration options from legacy desktop software to cloud-based system |
| Detailed reporting system based on different categories | No invoice reconciliation unless subscribed to NeatBooks |
| Multi-user account access | |
| Free trial and unlimited customer support | |
NeatFiles Pricing
NeatFiles is available at $29 per month for unlimited users. There’s a 14-day free trial to test out the following key features:
- Unlimited storage per month
- Bank-level security encryption
- Access files anytime, anywhere
- Best-in-class data capture and human verification
- Personalized support
- All NeatInvoices features
You can opt to pay $288 for a one-year subscription, which effectively reduces the price to $24 per month. A credit card is required upon signing up for the 14-day free trial. After the trial, NeatFiles will charge your card automatically. Cancel before the trial ends if you don’t find NeatFiles suitable for your business needs.
Since Our Last Update
NeatFiles has recently dropped its pricing. As of our last update in September 2021, NeatFiles pricing was $30 per month or $300 per year if billed annually.
NeatFiles Features
NeatFiles promises to keep your business documents safe and organized. Let’s look at NeatFiles’ features in greater detail.
Upon logging in to NeatFiles, you’ll see the dashboard. It’ll give you updates about Neat and your account:
On the dashboard, you can use Quick Links to access frequently used items quickly. If you wish to add a new item, you can send items to Neat in four ways: by direct email, mobile app, direct import, or desktop scan utility.
NeatCloud Email for Sending Files (Source: NeatFiles Support)
Every Neat account has a NeatCloud Email. You can use this email to send files and upload them directly to your NeatFiles account. By default, Neat will auto-detect the file type in any of the following: receipt, bill, contact, document, invoice, statement, or check.
Alternatively, you can set a specific type instead of “Auto-detect” for ease of use. All files sent via NeatCloud Email will be marked as “Unfiled.” You’ll need to file them to their corresponding folders once you get back to your account.
You can use the Neat mobile app to scan and upload items to your NeatFiles account directly:
Uploading Files via Mobile App (Source: NeatFiles Support)
After taking a snapshot of the document or receipt, you can crop it by moving the blue borders. Once everything is good to go, select the item type and destination folder. By default, it will go to the Unfiled folder. However, you can also choose a specific folder.
Through the drag-and-drop method, you can upload files from your desktop to NeatFiles easily. Alternatively, you can choose files manually. It’s nice that you can immediately file items before uploading, saving you time from sorting unfiled things later on.
Importing Files to Neat (Source: NeatFiles Support)
The desktop scan utility is a free utility that works with your scanner. You can use this to edit scanned items, crop and adjust skew, adjust their colors, and upload them to NeatFiles.
Account owners can invite unlimited users to access the NeatFiles account. Moreover, if you have multiple NeatFiles accounts, you can also invite other users to access these accounts.
Managing items is easy with item filters. You can set filters on all your items based on type or other filter categories.
Filter Items Based on Item Type
(Source: NeatFiles Support)
With a NeatFiles subscription, you can also enjoy NeatInvoices features. You can generate professional invoices that contain your logo, address, and other business information. Moreover, you can set invoice reminders to remind customers about their obligations automatically.
Setting Invoice Reminders On, Before, and After the Due Date (Source: NeatFiles Support)
Neat also offers reporting features that can help in accounting and decision-making. Below are the reports you can generate on Neat:
- Expense Report: Shows column information from your grid and scanned images for your items.
- Tax Category: Shows items in groups based on their tax category and percentage.
- Sales Tax: Shows the sales tax reported for transactions, including the date, subtotal, and the total tax for each group.
- Spending Detail: Shows items in groups, including a vertical analysis of subtotals expressed in percentages.
- Spending Summary: Shows a summarized report of your aggregate spending, including a vertical analysis of subtotals expressed in percentages.
What Users Say in NeatFiles Reviews
Trustpilot reviews are generally positive for NeatFiles; however, reviews in ConsumerAffairs are mostly negative. The NeatFiles support team replies to both positive and negative comments about the software, providing a full explanation of the software’s true functionality.
- Trustpilot: 4.7 out of 5 with 2,100-plusreviews
- ConsumerAffairs: 2.5 out of 5 with 850-plus reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 stars with nearly 10 reviews
Overall, we think that NeatFiles is a well-loved software among users. Its high ratings in Trustpilot and G2 show that the software does what it’s supposed to do. For the negative reviews in ConsumerAffairs, most reviews pertain to software-related problems, such as problems with receipt scanning and switching from legacy software to a cloud-based system.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is there a free app to scan receipts?
Wave is our best free receipt scanner. Its receipt scanning capabilities are built within its accounting software environment. However, you can try NeatFiles for 14 days and cancel before the free trial ends.
What is NeatFiles?
NeatFiles is a document management and cloud storage system with receipt and document scanning features. If you get NeatFiles, you’ll have a place to store documents and receipts and receipt scanning capabilities. Aside from storage, you can also organize documents into folders and tags.
What apps integrate with NeatFiles?
NeatFiles can integrate with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, Google Contacts, MailChimp, and Outlook.com.
Bottom Line
Being one of our best overall receipt scanner apps, NeatFiles offers features that are vital to every business. Its file storage service works best with its invoicing features through NeatInvoices. Making invoices and storing them in your cloud storage will be easier and more comfortable than using two separate software. Therefore, we highly recommend NeatFiles if you’re looking for a receipt scanner and invoice software.
