I’ve heard this myth out there. So scary, this myth. I thought I might warn you, prepare you, just in case. Ready? I couldn’t believe it either: Many people are forced to tape receipts to paper.

Whether for bookkeeping, archiving, or expense reports, everyday many do-gooding Americans are told that scotch-taping their receipts to yet another piece of paper is the best way to get their expenses organized.

Fortunately, for each and every one of you that has been forced into such a situation, who has sat there with scotch tape in one hand and papers in the other wondering what on earth, who has wasted so much tape and so much paper.

To you we say, “Welcome.” Shoeboxed is here. Step away from the tape and put down the paper.

With Shoeboxed, you can send you receipts as loose pieces of paper (actually that’s how we want them) in an envelope. No tape or paper backing needed. Your receipts will be scanned and entered in to your online account, so you can sort them in a way that makes sense. There’s no need to have some elaborate filing system anymore. We’ll make your receipts sortable for you, without the tape.

Have you noticed that receipts are getting longer and longer these days? It seems that retailers are willing to print anything on a receipt in addition to actually listing the things you bought and how much they cost. Coupons, promotions, surveys, product recommendations, and just plain empty space make receipts exceptionally long sometimes.

The Charlotte Observer wrote an article about it here.

This obviously annoying; let me count the ways.

1. It’s really wasteful. Think of the trees, people.
2. It’s inefficient. It just makes it harder for you to scan your receipts to find the total and the item prices. Instead, you have to study the receipt to actually find the info you want.
3. It’s cumbersome. It bothers me when I can’t fit a receipt into my wallet. There shouldn’t be too many receipts that are longer than my wallet, but I often end up folding them up two or three times. When I eventually put them in my Receipt Mail-In envelope, I have to spend a few seconds flattening them out. Hey, well at least it’s still easier than scanning them myself.

Shoeboxed is well equipped to deal with long receipts. There is no limit to the size of your scanned receipt images, so they can be large enough to have your whole receipt in there with a high enough resolution to make it readable. Also, the receipt scanners we use for Receipt Mail-In can scan receipts that are more than 3 feet long, so we can handle most any receipt that you send us.

The article does make a prediction though about the future of receipt lengths:

If you haven’t noticed a difference at the checkout counter, keep your eyes peeled. Mounting environmental concerns mean that receipts are likely to shrink further.

Let’s hope they’re right!

Just wanted to give you a quick update on how our Earth Day celebrations at Shoeboxed went. Obviously, we’re very interested in helping the environment, and thus, encouraging people to recycle their receipts was a no-brainer. As you may remember, we asked people to mail in their receipts so they could be shredded and taken (by foot, bike, or Prius) to the local recycling plant.

We received an overwhelming response, as both local papers (The News & Observer and The Herald Sun) wrote stories about the event.

One elementary school teacher even turned it into a class project. It looks like all the kids in her class gathered up receipts and brought them in to school. They all combined their efforts to save some trees, and we were really proud to see that a new generation of Shoeboxers is ready, willing, and able to do their part in the fight against receipt clutter!

If you’re interested in doing a similar kind of activity at your place of work, or in your home, let us know. I’d be glad to help you out; just send me an email at dan@team.shoeboxed.com!

The other day, we were featured in both local papers here in Durham about our Earth Day promotion, and I just wanted to show you all the link from one of them. Sue Stock from the News and Observer wrote about us here. The other article in the Herald Sun requires a subscription online, but was a great story about the green initiatives of companies here in downtown Durham.

Making waves, people. Making waves.

Shoeboxed is excited to announce its official Earth Day initiative. As you all know, we strive to be a green company, and have made tremendous efforts in the past few weeks in and out of the office to build on our already strong commitment to earth-friendliness.

Our latest development is a receipt recycling drive starting on Earth Day, this upcoming Tuesday April 22nd. Shoeboxed invites all businesses and individuals to submit paper receipts to us through April 29th. All the receipts we receive will eventually be transported by foot, bike, scooter, or Toyota Prius to the local recycling plant.

If you help us achieve our goal to recycle a tree’s worth of receipts (58 kilograms), we’ll even scan all receipts and load them into your free Shoeboxed account for you before recycling them. That’s a pretty sweet deal, as this service usually costs $19.95 per month.

When you are sending in your receipts, make sure to include your name, email address, and phone number in an envelope with your receipts.

For more information about the impact that paper receipts have on our environment and some more details about Shoeboxed’s Earth Day celebrations, check out our Shoeboxed Earth Day page.

Digitize receipts. Save the Earth. Shoebox everyday.

Shoeboxed is dedicated to environmental protection and sustainability. You might wonder where we’re coming from on this one: I mean, we do organize receipts, which are made of paper, which comes from trees. Without the destruction of trees, we wouldn’t exist, right? WRONG!

We recognize that individual action needs to be taken in order to develop the environmentally-conscious attitude needed to preserve our natural resources, and using Shoeboxed is one way you can take a stand for the environment. By using Shoeboxed, YOU can start acting NOW to change things and make our lives more sustainable. Here’s how:

1. Scan in paper receipts to Shoeboxed and then recycle them. We had so many people contact us and tell us about how many thousands of receipts they are keeping around their houses. One woman emailed me the other day saying she had been saving every single receipt she has ever received since she was 7. Now that is a lot of paper. Digitize receipts and then recycle! Our Receipt Mail-In program makes this easy. Under our normal rates, you can send us hundreds of receipts at a time, and with special bulk pricing, you can mail in a lot more than that.

2. In the long term, Shoeboxed hopes to make the world free of paper receipts, and allow you to skip right to the digital copy. With your support of our current projects, you will make this happen more quickly, and the receipt revolution will accelerate!

I wanted to share some interesting facts with you about receipt paper usage in the United States every year, because I think they really drive home the point.

Basic Facts:

1 Ton of Paper = 17 Trees

220,000 tons of receipt paper are produced each year in the USA alone

220,000 tons of receipt paper = 3,740,000 trees cut ONLY for receipts EVERY YEAR

By recycling your receipts after putting them online on your personal and secure Shoeboxed account, you will not save only trees.

1 Ton of paper also represents:
- 6953 gallons of water
- 463 gallons of oil
- 587 pounds of air pollution
- 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space
- 4077 Kilowatt hours of energy

By using Shoeboxed regularly, imagine how many trees you can save every year. Start eliminating paper receipts today! And with Shoeboxed, you’re not just helping to preserve the earth’s invaluable natural habitats, you’ll also benefit from using the premier receipt organization service online. It’s kind of no-brainer.

Shoeboxed is going green! If you aren’t convinced yet, check out my video. Being environmentally-conscious is a high priority for the entire team. We’ve made a lot of changes to our work environment and our lifestyles as we embark on our long mission to be a sustainable start-up company. Here are some of the latest green developments in the Shoequarters:

1. Recycling—Flyers adorn the walls of every room reminding everyone to recycle paper, cardboard, plastic, and aluminum products. Some team members made special containers to help separate out recyclables from the trash.

2. Energy efficiency—As an Internet start-up company, we use computers all day and all night. There are certain guidelines we all follow to cut down on our computers’ energy use. Here are some of those tips:
a. Turn off or set computers to a lower power setting anytime we do not use them.
b. Do not use screen savers, but rather use screen/monitor shutdown options.
c. Turn on printers and scanners only when they need to be used.
d. Use only products with ENERGY STAR labels.
3. Utensils—We use silverware and dishes that we clean after each use to avoid resorting to plastic utensils and paper plates.

4. Water use—Water use in the Shoequarters is limited; however, all team members make efforts to avoid keeping the water running when washing dishes or washing their hands.

5. Electricity—It is a rule in the office to turn off lights in rooms that are no longer in use.

6. Commuting—Some of us live within walking distance of the office and others live on the nearby Duke campus. Walking, biking, and carpooling are the ways we encourage team members to come to the Shoequarters every day.

Shoeboxed is moving in the right direction. The changes we are making in the Shoequarters and in our personal lives are significant. We are proud to display our environmentally-conscious efforts and hope to inspire others to follow our lead.

Believe it or not, we don’t like receipts very much. We think they’re annoying, a waste, and difficult to keep track of. Our greatest motivation in developing Shoeboxed is to make it easier for people to organize and manage receipts, because after all, they contain lots of information worth keeping around.

I came across a website the other day that made a strong case for the existence of a site such as Shoeboxed. Mark A. Thomas of New York has decided to put most of his receipts from the past few years on the Internet. The site allows any visitor to access Thomas’ receipts in high quality resolution.

Although the idea of saving receipts online, as Thomas has, may seem appealing because it frees up your filing cabinets (or actual shoeboxes) and other storage space at home, the security and organization are lacking with Thomas’ method. With Shoeboxed, Thomas would be able to establish different Shoeboxes to better organize his receipts, thus making it easier to track down travel receipts from food purchases, for example. At the same time, with a personal and secure account, Thomas would not have to put all his receipts on display to everyone. With Shoeboxed you now have the option to keep your receipts online like Mr. Thomas wanted to in a secure and organized manner. Let’s also not forget that putting your paper receipts online allows you to recycle your receipts, an extra plus and step towards keeping a sustainable society model.

Shoeboxed can work for him and it can work for you! Sign up for free today!

At the beginning of my freshmen year at Duke, I started working for The Chronicle, the daily student newspaper. I worked there for three years, and even though I’m gone, my addiction to staying on top of the news remains. I just can’t kick the habit.

So, on one of my daily sweeps through GoogleNews, I came across a great story that I thought I’d share with you all. It’s a story about how much paper is used on receipts in the greater Toronto metropolitan area. One guy they interviewed did a little mental math and estimated that about 5 million pounds of paper are used every three years in the city… just on receipts.

There is a video version of the story at the link above as well. In it, the reporter mentions the growing trend of retailers offering digital receipts to stay environmentally friendly. Always make sure to ask retailers if they offer this green option, and if they do, have them send that receipt to your Shoeboxed e-mail address.

Moral of the story? Loving the planet is cool! Be cool with Shoeboxed!

What’s your ecological footprint? Different businesses have been asking themselves that question in order to better implement solutions to rising environmental issues. Here at Shoeboxed, we’ve been considering the environmental issues since day one. This environmental concern was huge motivation for Shoeboxed to launch its receipt-upload feature as early as possible.

With this unique online feature, we hope that our users can join us on a mission to promote more widespread recycling of paper receipts. No longer do you have to save that paper receipt in a folder buried in your filing cabinet. Now you can simply upload all of your paper receipts onto your personal Shoeboxed account and throw the actual receipt in a recycling bin. You will have the convenience of always being able to view your entire receipt online, while also knowing that the physical receipt can again be used thanks to the recycling process.

Most receipts are printed on recycled paper; however those receipts hardly ever go back into the recycling phase. Let’s change that together. Create your free Shoeboxed account today and do your part in making that particular aspect of our society more sustainable.