
Ask HN: paperless receipts - zemanel
After paying up on a coffee shop yesterday, i was wondering how much paper is wasted on receipts all around the world.<p>I don't know if are there any solutions out there (i live in Portugal), but what i've thought of was that a service could be implemented that would setup a device at the venues that would generate a bar/qr code for the bill, which could be scanned by the customer using a mobile app.<p>the mobile app could even integrate with an on-line personal finance management app.<p>what do you think?
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dreamux
The Apple stores (in Canada, at least) have the ability to email receipts to
the email address associated with your credit card instead of printing one. By
the time I walk out the door my phone buzzes with a copy of my receipt coming
into my inbox. I absolutely love this - it also helps that I don't have to
save my receipts for warranties since I can instead just run a search for
them.

I hope more stores catch onto this model.

~~~
zemanel
that would be great.

Apple can do that because you can register an account online with Apple and
they get your info (e-mail) by looking up your credit card?

A general solution would have to work with small businesses that don't have
online services, which i assume being the majority out there.

~~~
dreamux
Actually, I'm not sure if they cross-reference credit card numbers with itunes
accounts or if its done through the credit card company; but I think this
should be a service that credit card companies offer merchants... perhaps to
help justify their massive merchant fees.

~~~
nantes
This is an interesting approach. Right now, credit cards don't get itemized
receipts (afaik), just totals to charge to the customer's account.

For a service like this to be really useful to me, I would want itemized
receipts.

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timthorn
It wouldn't be hard for eg the Nectar card in the UK to be extended to support
this. The principal use case I see is for expense submission rather than
personal accounting; rather than having to photocopy each receipt and send
them all to finance, log on to the loyalty card website and tick the
transactions that need to be shared with one's employer.

~~~
timrobinson
Do Nectar currently provide this information to customers? If they did then
you could put together a quick hack that scraped their web site for the data.

~~~
timthorn
The information available goes down to transaction level. I get the store name
and location, date and amount spent for every purchase.

What is missing is a description of the line items, which would be required
for expense reports. It's all very well me saying I spent £20 at Sainsbury's,
but my company would want to know what on...

~~~
timrobinson
Right: I'd imagine that in order to persuade companies (i.e. corporate
expenses departments) to accept these receipts, they'd have to be convinced
that they were the same as the paper originals.

~~~
timthorn
Indeed - and more importantly, HMRC (the tax office) would need to accept
their integrity. But, Nectar is a sufficiently large organisation as to be
able to offer such assurances and for corporates to accept their word - backed
up by contractuals, I'm sure!

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timrobinson
I like the idea of electronic receipts. If you weren't bothered about wasting
paper you could print the code on the paper receipt; otherwise, you'd need a
dedicated device to transmit the QR code.

I wonder how big the QR code needs to be in order to encode all the
information on the receipt; those thermal receipt printers aren't that great.
How about an app that uses the phone camera to scan the entire receipt, then
reads the text? That way you don't need any dedicated equipment at all.

I've always liked how the Apple store sends me a receipt to my email address.
However, I'm not sure I'd like to give my email address to every coffee shop
just so they could mail me a PDF.

~~~
nantes
Perhaps this is an intance where a central service could aggregate e-receipts
for customers. I could see this being linked to loyalty programs from major
grocers, gas stations, etc.

You could then manage your preferences with the central service who could
email you receipts or just store them for you indefinitely.

~~~
timrobinson
I'd find this useful if I'm travelling on business. Right now I have to keep a
week of receipts safe somewhere and bring them back - coffee, restaurants,
taxis etc. Then I go back and type the details into the corporate expense
system, and put the paper receipts into an envelope.

I'd be happier if somebody looked after the receipts for me (in the cloud?)
and saved me the effort of typing them in when I got back.

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ncash
The guy who won Entrepreneur magazine's Student Entrepreneur of the Year in
2009 did so with the idea of paperless/digital receipts. You can see his
service here:

<http://www.3secondreceipts.com/>

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mmv2
<http://paperphobic.com/>

I thought something like exists. Just searched a bit on searchyc and got it.
This idea does not exactly match your thoughts, but somewhat close.

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CoachRufus87
I think that a problem this large would (perhaps) be best solved by the credit
card companies themselves (unless folks don't mind giving out their email
address to every cashier). They already know who I am, what I'm buying, and
when, so it'd make sense if they were to handle the digital receipt as well.

But I highly doubt they'd implement this b/c its not their core business.

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hugorodrigues
Delicious idea. hard implementation, mostly because (in)compatibility with
existing hardware/software already in stores.

One way to minimize the compatibility issue with existing software, is create
a (hardware) printer (generic), that print on screen, and generate the barcode
so the user may scan.

i love the part of "integrate with an on-line personal finance". there are
also some legal issues.

bring it on!

~~~
nantes
I think the key would be to find a company to partner with (say Krogers?) that
would, with the customer's approval share the data from their loyalty programs
that, in theory, store it.

This way the customer only needs to take one action, opt-in when signing up
for the loyalty program, as opposed to scanning a barcode or QR code for every
purchase.

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pedrolima
I would love to have this kind of solution. Not only to save trees but also
avoid having a wallet full of small papers. My wallet looks like a fat monster
most of the time.

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scottf007
yReceipts offers this service for any retailers already. We are live in the UK
and Australia, soon to be live in the US and other European countries. You can
send receipts via email from any POS, the customer receives an email with an
attached PDF. We have a website where you can login and see your receipts etc.

New features currently being developed include exporting directly to
accounting programs. www.yreceipts.com

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nreece
( _Shameless Plug_ ) We are working on a service that might interest you:
<http://costjar.com>

