I’m surprised the marketing or finance companies aren’t all over this. I guess they don’t want people to think about all of the privacy implications of their business intelligence capabilities. For example, it would be cool if I could click through a line item on my credit card statement to the merchant’s itemized receipt for the purchase. Credit card users could be given the choice to opt-in to specific or categories of merchants, or even specific time periods to help alleviate privacy concerns.
Ideas To Eliminate And Automate Retail Receipts
By Mike Maddaloni on Monday, September 06, 2010 at 06:00 AM with 6 comments
Although I don’t want to come off as repeating myself, paper retail receipts are out of hand. Where such receipts are important and necessary in documenting financial transactions, they can also become a cumbersome mess that can easily get out of control. Now some of you reading this may think I am going to an extreme, and you may not even save and reconcile to receipts. But I always have personally, and I have to for my Web consulting business, as any business owner should.
Here are a few more ideas I have regarding receipts, which build upon my initial rant conversation on retail receipts. As I don’t have the time, money or energy to act on these right now, I put these out there for anyone to take a stab at. Even if someone is successful and becomes a billionaire with some of them, it will eventually make my life easier!
Receipt File Format Standard – Call it the vCard or iCal standard for retail receipts. This would me an XML file structure for storing all of the data of a receipt into a file. This file will be in lieu of a paper receipt, and identifiable to the retailer by a unique serial number… which most receipts have today anyway. For the sake of discussion here, let’s call it vReceipt.
Deliver vReceipt files by SMS, Email or Web – Once a retailer creates a vReceipt, it needs to get to the customer. It could be delivered to them by any number of methods. If a customer provides their mobile number, it could be sent by SMS. If they provide their email, it could come in a message. The retailer could create a custom QR code for the transaction, and upon the customer scanning it, they could download the vReceipt from the Web. If the customer has a “membership” account with the retailer, the receipt could be delivered via their Web site.
Retailer transmits vReceipt data to third-party service via app – Why not have an app for that? When you check out, your app can show a QR code which can be scanned, then the retailer would transfer the receipt to the 3rd-party service. This service could be Quicken or your bank or a new service you use to track expenses.
Processing vReceipts Makes Expense Tracking Easy – Even though services like QuickBooks Online already sync with your bank, vReceipts can break down the transaction onto its pieces. Were 7 items purchased for work, one was a gift and the rest for the house? A vReceipt will know what was purchased, and will pre-populate the category of an item, or accept whatever override you have for it.
vReceipts App Can Be Used for Returns, Exchanges and Taxes – vReceipts should not just be for figuring out how much you spent on Pringles last year. As a replacement for paper, they should carry all the weight and responsibility of their soon-to-be-defunct paper counterparts. The identifiable information from the retailer should suffice for returns, exchanges, as well as proof for expenses for tax purposes. They would ideally replace having to fax receipts to your employer after you submit your expense report online as well.
What do you think of my ideas around vReceipts? Feel free to compliment, tear apart of use for your own, and your comments are welcome here, which along with vReceipts won’t consume any paper.
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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Business • QR Codes • Strategize • Technology • Web Development • (6) Comments • Permalink
Comments
Comment by Hi Brian - These are great ways to implement this! Of course there are issues of privacy, as what someone purchases is gold to marketers. However, with a balance of privacy and the portability of information, life can be made much, much simpler, let alone cutting down more trees to make the receipts.
mp/m
Comment by This is a great idea and you’ve obviously put some thought into this very well. Its something I’ve been thinking about for a long time too, but have no idea how to pursue it.
I’ve done a little research (through Wikipedia) on Point Of Sale (POS) devices and the Standard Interchange Language. The DATA is there, but no currently connected via the credit card companies via Cirrus/Star Interbank Network.
I’d be interested in following this discussion or sharing ideas for this.
Comment by Aaron Wrighton 10/05/10 at 11:43 PM
I would love to have a scannable QR code printed on my grocery store receipts so that I could sync my purchases with Mint.com and my Mint app on my Android phone. Think about the ability to have such an accurate breakdown of your grocery budget.
Being self-employed, I think it’d be great to scan a QR code after each purchase. At the end of the year, I could print out an accurate portrait of my spending for the year, including fuel, marketing material, client meals, etc.
Comment by We have a released add-on for Microsoft RMS system last month. It’s not easy to build but we did it. We are loading security and soon you’ll be able to have your own inbox @emailmypurchase.com
We are retailers too and have been on the heels of the corp’s to help change. Change can be hard but it’ll come and watch for our next releases in the very near future.
Landon
Comment by @Landon - great to hear!
Please let us know here as to further advances with this, and if you have something to announce, please contact me as well, as I may have enough for a follow-on to this with you plus what Sears is doing with email and receipts.
mp/m
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