I Like My Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Scanner
I guess that says it all. I have several scanners in my office, but the one that I always use is the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (and, no, Fujitsu didn’t give me one, I bought it myself). Is it perfect? Well, no, but I love the way it works in my particular situation. Let’s take a look at why I like it.
The main reasons why I like this scanner are:
- It is very reliable, I’ve never had it fail to work.
- It is fast, scanning 20 pages per minute in color mode, 40 pages per minute in B&W.
- It is absolutely easy to operate – most of the time I just stack up the documents and print one scan button. The document feeder can hold up to 50 sheets.
- It provides automatic duplex scanning, where it will scan both sides of the document in one pass, and if the back side is blank it will skip that.
- Images are cleaned up automatically. This includes auto rotation (to straighten out documents that might have fed at an angle, which can happen with narrow receipt documents), automatic detection of color documents, and more.
- You can mix different document sizes in one stack, although sometimes you may have to separate some kinds of documents. It works most of the time, but if I have a bunch of short documents mixed with really long receipt tapes, sometimes I find that I have to separate the documents.
- There is a great integration feature with SmartVault, my favorite document management program.
- The price is reasonable for a business/desktop scanner of this class (MSRP $495).
My desk is very cluttered (no, I won’t show you a picture of my desk). I don’t have a lot of space for peripheral equipment. The ScanSnap S1500 is very compact when not in use – it folds up to take a small amount of space. When I want to use it, I unfold it and that automatically turns it on. Add the documents to the feeder, press one button, and it scans all of the documents. Both sides of the pages in a single pass, which is very helpful.
You can set up different profiles so that it automatically scans to a folder, or to email, or to a number of different applications. You can easily switch between profiles by clicking on the ScanSnap icon in the Windows system tray. You can also easily manage profiles by right clicking on that same icon.
Once it is set up scanning is a breeze.
Scanning resolution is 300 dpi in color and gray scale, which is fine for almost all office use (I wouldn’t use this as a photo scanner for high resolution work). You can get 600 dpi in B&W.
Maintenance
Any scanner that you use regularly is going to require some work to maintain in top condition. The document feed rollers will start to get slick (particularly if you are scanning a lot of documents printed with a laser printer), the scanning element will get dusty, some of the “separation” pads may eventually get worn. The ScanSnap has a nice summary of the number of pages that have been scanned, so that you can see how old the “consumable” parts are.
I purchased a ScanAid Cleaning and Consumable Kit for about $90.00 – this includes all the items you need to keep this going for a long time. Pad Assemblies, Pick Rollers, cleaning sheets, cleaning solution and wipes, lots of stuff. I actually didn’t need to get the full kit at this point because I am a long way from having to replace the rollers and assemblies, so I would have saved some money by just buying the basic cleaning supplies. Once I ran into problems with documents mis-feeding (I was scanning tax documents from quite a few years) I just ran the cleaning sheets (with cleaning solution) through a couple of times and the problem went away. I do recommend getting the cleaning supplies. My only complaints with the cleaning/consumable kit was that there wasn’t a set of instructions in the box – just a note on the web page URL to find instructions.
Why Isn’t It Perfect?
At the beginning of this article I said that it isn’t perfect. There is one drawback to this scanner when compared to others, depending on your situation.
When you work with scanners you’ll see references to a “TWAIN driver”. This is a set of software that handles the the communication between an imaging device and the applications on your computer. TWAIN is a standard communication method – if you have software that is “TWAIN compliant”, then it should be able to work with any imaging device that has a TWAIN driver available. The driver is specific to the device. By the way, don’t try to figure out what “TWAIN” stands for – it isn’t an acronym. I’ve seen several explanations, the one supported by the nonprofit TWAIN working group is that it comes from Kipling’s The Ballad of East and West – “…and never the twain shall meet…”, reflecting the difficulty of connecting scanners and personal computers that people faced before this standard was developed.
So, what about the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500? There is no TWAIN driver. Fujitsu says that they could not make this an easy one-touch scanner while running on a TWAIN driver. What this means is that you have two choices when working with this scanner – use software that has specifically included Fujitsu ScanSnap compatibility, or scan your documents to a PDF file and include them in your application that way.
Do I suffer from “TWAIN pain”? Not really. I don’t have many applications that I use a scanner with that require a TWAIN driver.
I use my scanner for three things:
- Archiving documents in an attempt to achieve a “paperless office”. For many of my documents, such as personal documents and tax papers, I prefer to store the documents as PDF files for retention. I use the included ScanSnap Organizer to manage these documents into folders and to easily retrieve them. You can just as easily scan them to your My Documents folder and organize them there. This is what I do for my personal documents.
- Sending documents to other people, via email (rarely) or through a portal such as ShareFile. I scan to a PDF and use the portal to send the document.
- Saving business documents to SmartVault, which I’m starting to use for my business document management. SmartVault integrates with the scanner, as I’ll show below.
So, in my situation, the lack of a TWAIN driver is not important at all. It may be something that you need to consider when you are evaluating scanners for your office, however.
Working With QuickBooks
If you are using QuickBooks for document management, you can’t use this scanner to scan directly to the Doc Center. You have to scan to a PDF and then drag/drop the document into QuickBooks. Personally, I don’t like Doc Center in QuickBooks, so this isn’t a drawback for me. The Doc Center is a free feature in QuickBooks 2012, but it is a totally unsecure way to store documents. It also is very limited as far as how you can locate a particular document.
Intuit Check Solution for QuickBooks lets you use a ScanSnap scanner to scan checks easily, which works with QuickBooks desktop products. Oops! Correction – it looks like Intuit Check Solution for QuickBooks only supports the S1300, not the S1500 – I’m not sure why, because the S1300 ALSO does not have a TWAIN driver
Working With SmartVault
SmartVault is a great example of a Chunkification, where you have multiple software and hardware developers working to integrate products to provide you with a solution to a business task. SmartVault links QuickBooks with it’s documentation management system, and it also provides a great integration with Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners.
In the SmartVault Launchpad you will see an option to link Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners with SmartVault.
If you have a ScanSnap scanner installed, clicking on the Integration link will add two profiles to the ScanSnap Profile Manager – one for the SmartVault Toolbar and one for the SmartVault Inbox. If you are working with QuickBooks you will use the SmartVault Toolbar option. The SmartVault Inbox profile would be used to scan documents directly to your SmartVault Inbox, where you can either move it to a folder or attach it to a QuickBooks record.
If I select the SmartVault Toolbar profile I can open a record or transaction in QuickBooks, place a document in the Fujitsu scanner, and press the scan button on the scanner. The document is scanned, and a window opens to let me give the scanned file a name (note: I’ve blurred the image of the scanned document for security purposes).
That is all there is to it – SmartVault has taken the image from the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, attached it to the QuickBooks record of my choice, and has saved it in the SmartVault system so that it is available in QuickBooks as well as via the web interface from any computer. Very smooth and fast!
Final Comments
This is the low end of a “business class” scanner. Fujitsu sometimes classifies this as “personal use”, but that can be misleading. They aren’t saying that you can’t use this in a business, what they mean is that this is not designed to be a shared scanner in an office with multiple users. You’ll have this on your desk for your own use. If you have a large office and you want to share scanning capabilities, this might not be your scanner.
It is interesting – I see this scanner in a lot of offices (and the similar, but slower, S1300). Many “Accounting industry leaders” I’ve talked to have them on their desk, and love them.
I’ve used smaller scanners (such as the Canon P-150 that I reviewed last year), and I have scanning capabilities in my all-in-one desktop printer/scanner. Those generally are slower, and they often don’t offer all the image management features (the Canon has great image features, but it is slower). These other scanners have their uses, but they aren’t the ones that I use on my desktop daily.
Category: Product Reviews, QuickBooks Add-ons, QuickBooks Tips/Tricks, Working with QuickBooks
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He's been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70's, and remembers releasing his first commercial accounting software product when you had a one-floppy disk drive system, loading the program from one floppy and then replacing that with the other floppy to hold the data. He has a special interest in inventory and manufacturing software for small businesses. Charlie is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor with additional certifications for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Enterprise. He also is a Xero Certified Partner. Visit his CCRSoftware web site for information about his QuickBooks add-on products. Charlie can be reached at charlie.russell@sleeter.com He is also the author of the California Wildflower Hikes blog and a regular blog contributor to the Intuit Inner Circle. Connect with Charlie at GoogleSubscribe
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I am also VERY pleased with the Fujitsu S1500. Thank you for the article as I didn’t know that there was a maintenance kit. So far I’ve only needed to do a little cleaning (like removing sticky stuff left on SSA statements). I also didn’t know about the consumable status report. I updated my driver to get that report and it shows 14,329 pages scanned. I do a lot of small receipts and have learned how to get them to feed well in a stack, even mixing in real short ones. Also, if you hold the scan button down for a few seconds it puts the scanner into LONG sheet mode so it will take those really long register receipts too.
You didn’t mention the Carrier Sheet that comes with it (transparent plastic cover that you can insert documents into. This is useful for torn or odd shaped documents. You can even have a folded document that you align with the right edge and it will stitch the front and back of the fold together into an unfolded sheet. Nice!
Be aware that different Scansnap scanners come with different accessories. For instance I received Adobe Acrobat software and the Carrier Sheet with the S1500 but not with the smaller, cheaper S1300 (I don’t like the S1300 nearly as well and have trouble getting documents to feed right but at least it fits in my laptop case).
I have run it on Windows XP, Vista, and 7 with no problems. I have a client that I talked into buying the MAC version of this scanner and I receive scans electronically from him.
My only wish is that it had two scan buttons, one sided and two sided. I copy checks and don’t want the backs scanned so I use the menu item “Simplex Scan” to start those scans instead of the button. Since I use both 1 & 2 sided scans a lot I leave it in duplex mode so I don’t miss something on the back (like notes on the back of a receipt) when I use the scan button. I don’t miss TWAIN anymore either.
Jim, thanks for pointing out the carrier sheet (a concept that works with many scanners) and the long sheet mode of the button. There are a number of special features with this scanner that aren’t always that obvious.
I’ve been hearing a lot regarding the Neat Receipts scanners that will supposedly integrate with QuickBooks. Not the Document Center but actually import transactions. Doesn’t sound like this Fujitsu scanner will do that. Are you familiar with the Neat scanner and how\if it truly integrates?
Deborah, I’ve not worked with Neat Receipts myself, so I can’t comment on that. The Fujitsu doesn’t have the ability, on its own, to do that kind of transactional import of receipts.
Charlie,
I did my very best to use SmartVault with my S1500 Scanner but ran in to multiple problems with my Excel from Office 7. I finally had to remove the SmartVault software from my computer and everything is fine.
Kay
Kay, did you contact SmartVault tech support on that issue?
I have office 2010 on my system, and I don’t have any compatibility issues at all with either Fujitsu or SmartVault.
You mention it’s not for larger offices and sharing. We are two people using QB 2012 M&D multi-user sitting next to each other. Will it work for two people in an office so I don’t have to buy more than one? If so, how would we hook it up? Does it have a network port? My idea is to scan every customer PO and stop printing invoice copies for the office paper files. Thanks for a great article.
Bryan, good to hear from you!
This scanner is designated as a “personal” scanner, they don’t set it up to be shared with different computers. It has a USB interface, and the driver is expecting the device to be on the local computer. No network port. Fujitsu has higher-end scanners set up for shared use, but I’ve not worked with them. I have no idea if these higher end scanners are going to work with QuickBooks for check scanning, or with SmartVault.
Hi, Charlie!
I completely agree with your points–we have had six S1500s in our office for about two years and they work great with our SmartVault. We started out with one–and then two–trying to share them. We quickly learned the value of having one at each desk. Thank you for information on the kit and the cleaning–we didn’t know about that.
My wife and I love our S1500s, too, and the fact that it’s bundled with Acrobat Standard makes it a pretty good value. That said, there are some down-sides to Fujitsu’s proprietary “ScanSnap” interface.
For example, the Intuit check scanning solution you mention does NOT work with the S1500, or any other non-TWAIN scanner except the S1300, for which Intuit provided explicit support.
Like Intuit’s check scanning product, the vast majority of scanning add-ins require either TWAIN or WIA in order to work, and the vast majority of scanners support TWAIN and WIA. The S1500, as you point out, is one of the few scanners that offers neither. The result is that there are few 3rd-party add-ins that support it.
For those who use QB hosting services, many such services will work with TWAIN or WIA scanners, but you will not be able to use your S1500 with Quickbooks, or for any other purpose, with the host’s software. Similarly, if you install QB yourself on a cloud-provider’s hosted RDS or Citrix desktop that supports redirected TWAIN or WIA scanners, a ScanSnap will not be available in the hosted session, for the same reason.
JRV, thank you for pointing out my error. I don’t use Intuit Check Solutions myself, and I made the assumption that since it supports the S1300, it should support the S1500. Both use the same ScanSnap driver, from what I can see. I’ve corrected the post.
I point out the lack of TWAIN support for just that reason – it is an important consideration. However, in my particular situation, I’ve never really had that be an issue. It all depends on how you use things. And I really like how well it works with SmartVault…
I’ve always heard good things about the ScanSnap S1500. I recently received a product release regarding the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2000 scanner. Many features look similar to the ScanSnap, but it includes a TWAIN driver. I was wondering if anyone out there has any experience with this scanner.
http://www.brother-usa.com/VirData/Content/en-US/DSMobile/ModelBrochure/BRO5276-ADS2000-2PageBrochure-033012-Collection%20FINAL.pdf
I wanted to let you know that in my office I have 3 work stations and there is a way to share this S1500 scanner over a LAN.
I purchased the Silex SX Virtual Link LAN to USB device; this allows the S1500 (or 2 other USB gadgets) to be used over the LAN and control can be passed/shared to other LAN users via the Silex device. This has worked well for here for us and was a real factor in making the purchase of the S1500. I did have to really dig around at the ScanSnap site to find out about the Silex but the cost of both the S1500 along with the Silex was worth it.
I’m not sure I found the final answer in this thread, but I wanted to confirm that Intuit Check Solutions DOES work with the non-TWAIN Fujitsu ScanSnap. I have the S510 (the one before the S1500). I’ve had it for many years and never had a problem with it except a little dust once. More importantly, I use it every single day for Intuit check scanning to my bank. Hope that helps some anyone looking to use the ScanSnap with check scanning.
Love my ” Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 scanner”,… many thanks Charlie for taking ours off of my research:)
Thank you for this review Charlie. I’m shopping for a scanner to organize office documents and this helped to strengthen my decision to go for the ScanSnap.
I had a problem in the office where I am working. We have Scan Snap S1500. Before when I scanned the documents appeared on the whole screen. It was easy to save them in the falling menue from the top and they were placed in the folder where I want.
Now – when I scan, the document appear in the left half of the window and the other half is with browse button and the folders appear with clear and black arrows on the right side of the folders. This is a problem because sometimes the document saves not in the folder where I want but in the previous one that i used for saving the previous scanned dosument.
Please, help me to return to the previous way.
Thank you.
Susan, I’ve not seen that problem myself, so I don’t have an answer for you. I wonder, what kinds of things changed in your system? You might contact Fujitsu support on this.
I have been using my S1500 to scan checks into QuickBooks for about a year. It always works great! It was not easy to set up. You do have to have the correct driver installed, the one that came with the scanner didn’t work, had to be upgraded to the correct driver. But with QuickBooks support, we got it working.