[freudling]

Easier than it sounds. I can proudly say that our business is 100% digital. Even when customers bug us for paper receipts, we stand fast and tell them that we are digital and that is the way it is. If they must have a paper receipt, we charge them for it.

I have recently come across the website of a few other professionals who are advertising an all digital, paperless office and it made me feel good. I am starting to see more of this out there, and people are actually advertising it.

What I see over the next few years is a huge, massive and swift shift into going digital, and therefore, the use of tablet computers. Guys like me and the few out there who are all digital will just be part of the masses once everyone starts doing it. Right now, we are but few who do it. And I am not talking about a business that sells software over the internet either. We are providing a tangible service to large businesses.

I simply do not think in paper anymore. My brain is digitally wired. This digital perspective shapes everything I do in the office, and affects the strategies I think up for the business. I got a Newton 2100 and jot notes down on it. Any meetings, etc., that device is with me. No paper, no blackberries, a small digital device that I am 100% committed to, no turning back, no hesitation.

[Buckaroo]

Yeah, well the IRS won't accept anything other than a paper receipt. Well, except, unless you can guarantee that a pdf version gets to the right accountant via email. Besides someone still has to print it to attach to paperwork to be expensed against taxes. Sure, I could have a bunch of pdf receipts stored on some hard drive, but that means I have to switch to an accountant that will work with them.

If someone wanted to charge me extra for a paper receipt, I'd take my business elsewhere.

Give the customer what he asks for. A receipt does not cost that much extra, and it just pisses them off, and you may not see them for repeat business.

[mduell]

How does "no BlackBerries" relate to a paperless office? If anything, BlackBerries help avoid paper generation.

[MacosNerd]

I'm not sure what business you're in but if I was told that I'd have to pay extra for a paper receipt, I'd probably take my business elsewhere.

The original call of the "Persona Computer" was to harken in the digital age and eliminate paper - and that was what over 25 years ago? That's just not going to happen in the business world. Businesses live and breath paper and so don't governments and regulatory agencies.

I just don't see it happening w/o any major changes to laws or regulations.

As I personally said, I'd not do business that fails to provide a paper receipt for my records.

[alligator]

I fully support this concept. I have gone almost fully digital both at home and at the office. I really appreciate that even Apple e-mails me my receipt from the Apple store. I just wish I had a tablet in the office to take notes on. Right now, I just don't take notes.

[imitchellg5]

Wow, I would probably punch someone in the face if they made me pay for a paper receipt. With all due respect, that's retarded. I keep receipts of everything over $50. If your hard drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen, their goes all your receipts. Nothing short of an atomic bomb is destroying mine.

[Mastrap]

We haven't been asked for a paper receipt in years. If somebody would want one we'd probably accommodate them but like freudling, we'd probably also charge them.
We provide electronic receipts, if you want to print them out then that's your prerogative.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Wow, I would probably punch someone in the face if they made me pay for a paper receipt. With all due respect, that's retarded. I keep receipts of everything over $50. If your hard drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen, their goes all your receipts. Nothing short of an atomic bomb is destroying mine.

Very good point. I didn't even think about hard drive failure.

I'm sure the IRS will understand the excuse oops my hard drive failed with all my receipts.

Paperless office is a good idea, but there are certain things that must be printed. Receipts and contracts are two items that come to my mind. And don't forget, a receipt is a form of contract.

Something just occurred to me, and maybe some law experts can answer, are there any state laws that require a paper receipt be provided to the customer for transactions?

[Cold Warrior]

No joke. I'd laugh in your face if you or any other business told me they'd charge for a paper receipt. However, if they offer me a digital option, e.g., an official electronic version that I can get from their website (e.g., like Enterprise rental cars has), or something emailed, then I'll usually take it. I'll print these, or save them as a pdf, for future documentation if necessary.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

Something just occurred to me, and maybe some law experts can answer, are there any state laws that require a paper receipt be provided to the customer for transactions?

No. Receipts, paper or otherwise, are not mandatory in any business transaction.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

No. Receipts, paper or otherwise, are not mandatory in any business transaction.

And how will you return something without a paper receipt?

[64stang06]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

And how will you return something without a paper receipt?

Looking up via last name or credit card #?

[MacosNerd]

and what happens if they say they have no record of it.

I'm not putting my trust in their records, I'll have no recourse in disputing the sales.
This also raises the issue if they charge my credit card too much. a receipt is a proof of purchase which I'm not willing to relinquish.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

and what happens if they say they have no record of it.

I'm not putting my trust in their records, I'll have no recourse in disputing the sales.
This also raises the issue if they charge my credit card too much. a receipt is a proof of purchase which I'm not willing to relinquish.

And you'll have a receipt that you were emailed in PDF form... If you really feel the need for a paper copy you can print it out yourself. How hard is that?

I do the same thing. I never give paper to my clients, just PDFs. I'm not completely paperless though; I just find it much easier to keep track of things when I have hard copies. If I leave my credit card bill lying on my desk, I know I won't forget to pay it. If it's just an email in my inbox I have a hard time giving it the same priority. I also use paper for taking notes. I just can't take notes on my computer, because it's too linear a process and my mind just doesn't work that way. I also tend to print out things like project specifications, and other reference materials. I always use real reference books rather than online sources (like O'Reilly's Safari).

I would like to go fully paperless though, but in order to do it I'd need to get a tablet PC with a good note taking app (like the one on the Newton) to replace my paper notebook (and, I guess, my laptop at the same time). It wouldn't be the idea solution though. It would replace my notebook just fine, given the right application, but it wouldn't work quite as well for reading documents, because a lot of the time I like to have multiple documents spread out across my desk so that I can easily look down from my monitor to see any of them. That could probably be replaced with a second monitor, but that would only work when I'm working from the office. I spend a lot of the time working from the road and other various locations (like right now) and I'm not going to be carrying around an extra 24" monitor so that I have enough screen space for everything. A good tablet with the right software, however, could greatly reduce my paper usage. I definitely want to take a look at the ModBook, and see if it would work for me.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Wow, I would probably punch someone in the face if they made me pay for a paper receipt. With all due respect, that's retarded. I keep receipts of everything over $50. If your hard drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen, their goes all your receipts. Nothing short of an atomic bomb is destroying mine.

That's what backups are for... In a situation like this you really need to keep all your records backed up offsite, which any business should be doing anyway.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

Yeah, well the IRS won't accept anything other than a paper receipt.

This is not true.

[subego]

While the OP phrased this along the lines of "we're going to charge you for a paper receipt", wouldn't a more accurate statement be "we are going to charge you for a duplicate receipt"?

IOW, you already have a receipt, it just happens to be digital. Asking for a paper receipt is equivalent for asking for another receipt, to which I would say most big businesses would charge.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Wow, I would probably punch someone in the face if they made me pay for a paper receipt. With all due respect, that's retarded. I keep receipts of everything over $50. If your hard drive fails, or your laptop gets stolen, their goes all your receipts. Nothing short of a 5¢ match is destroying mine.

Fixed.™

[torsoboy]

I think some people are mistakingly thinking that this is a business that you walk into and buy something. We also do not provide paper receipts, but it wouldn't make sense to do that since everything is handled online. They go into their account area and can print our whatever details they would like. I assume this is the same type of thing that the OP was talking about.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Fixed.™

Yeah, since $.05 matches can burn up fireproof safes.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Yeah, well the IRS won't accept anything other than a paper receipt.

This is not true.

You took my statement out of context. I corrected it in the following sentence. My accountant wants a copy of the receipt. If I can be certain that a pdf gets emailed to him, and then if he wants to deal with pdf from all his clients.

What it comes down to, if someone insists on charging me for a paper receipt when I don't want to have to deal with a pdf version, then I will NEVER go back to them. Apple offers either paper and/or pdf. I ask for both. Last thing I need is for someone to mistype my email address and I'm not aware of it until the end of the year. By then, I'll have forgotten all about it.

No matter what for little things like this, give the customer what he wants. If the transaction is 100% online, then pdf should work just fine since you have a working relationship via email, or you've (the customer) typed in the email address yourself. My concern is if I walked into a business like Staples and bought a bunch of stuff then I want a receipt. They can email me one, but I want paper before I walk out the door.

Heck, Costco and Fry's won't even let you out the door without a receipt.

Yeah, well the IRS won't accept anything other than a paper receipt. Well, except, unless you can guarantee that a pdf version gets to the right accountant via email. Besides someone still has to print it to attach to paperwork to be expensed against taxes. Sure, I could have a bunch of pdf receipts stored on some hard drive, but that means I have to switch to an accountant that will work with them.

[imitchellg5]

I think that the core of the issue really just comes down to this: When you have an electronic receipt, there are to many variables that can lead to the loss of the receipt. A computer could crash, you could misspell the email address wrong by one word, your internet could go down (which happens all the time in Colorado Springs), etc. A paper kept in a safe is a lot harder to get rid of. That being said, I never object to having both an electronic copy, and a paper copy.

[MacosNerd]

^ Well put.

With a paper receipt you seem to have more options to dispute any mistakes.

Also theirs the issue of being consumer friendly. Charging extra to get a paper receipt is not consumer friendly.

[freudling]

Very good responses. Change, of course, is not easy sometimes. There are loads of adjustments, from finding an accountant who will deal with PDFs to customers who will accept digital receipts. Some comments...

Just as a hard drive can fail and you can lose your data, so too can you lose your receipts. How many times have you spent time looking for a receipt that you could not find? Also, back ups are good, and, after 15 years of computing, I have never had a hard drive fail. Not that it can't happened, but I think the likelihood of hard drive failure is exaggerated.

Also, the government, in Canada anyway, has progressively become more and more electronic. The Canada Revenue Agency all but shut down in person support and went, for the most part, all digital across the country. You now file your taxes online, and you are allowed to submit receipts for audit purposes in electronic format.

Charging for a receipt... Ya, it is not consumer friendly, but because of our digital business processes, it really does cost us to produce paper. I will use the duplicate receipt angle I think, to sound more consumer friendly.

Lastly, all digital, I think, it is imminently around the corner. As more and more businesses are going digital, both online retailers and brick and mortar ones, consumers will progressively accept it more and more. Tablets and all-in-one receipt and bank transaction database solutions for consumers, linked with business POS systems, will become pervasive.

[imitchellg5]

I never have to look for a receipt because I always know where they are. They go straight from a cashier to my wallet, then to my safe.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

And how will you return something without a paper receipt?

That wasn't the question - the question was whether they were mandatory, not whether they were useful.

[64stang06]

This is exactly what the Apple Retail Stores are trying to do; provide a paperless transaction in which you get emailed the receipt. They give you the option for a paper one but I wouldn't be surprised if they go all paperless in the next year or so.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by 64stang06 

This is exactly what the Apple Retail Stores are trying to do; provide a paperless transaction in which you get emailed the receipt. They give you the option for a paper one but I wouldn't be surprised if they go all paperless in the next year or so.

I don't think so. I believe they will always offer both. There are too many sales to people that may not have an email address. Besides, all it takes is one mistype of some ones email address and then you have an unhappy customer that has to come back to the store.

Online transactions are not a problem with paperless. It's the brick and mortar locations that should always offer paper as an option.

[SpaceMonkey]

I still have to deal with a lot of paper because I work in an industry that is still sometimes anal about having "original" (not scanned or photocopied) signatures.

As Michael Scott pointed out in The Office, sure, computers are great for playing games, or sending funny emails, but "real business is done on paper."

[64stang06]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

I don't think so. I believe they will always offer both. There are too many sales to people that may not have an email address. Besides, all it takes is one mistype of some ones email address and then you have an unhappy customer that has to come back to the store.

Online transactions are not a problem with paperless. It's the brick and mortar locations that should always offer paper as an option.

True, but everytime I made a purchase, they showed me my email address to verify they had it correct and by the time I got home, I had the receipt in my inbox. Now, this is with their "easypay" system, not the actual POS machines. I like this better but I can see the points of everyone that wants a paper receipt for their transaction.

[starman]

A paperless office = dream. If that were true, the printing industry wouldn't be growing as it is.

And here's something I didn't see when scanning this thread: signatures. Yeah, maybe it's OK for credit cards and such, but I'd like to see a mortgage company go paperless. It'll never happen.

[Love Calm Quiet]

I applaud your forward-looking action, Freudling. It sounds like a great start. *charging* for the paper receipt might be the one thing you'll have to re-think. [ though there are mainstream grocery stores that now charge a nickel for a paper bag ]

As for the paper-less receipt trend: Twenty years ago no one would have gone shopping without a checkbook.

And of course we know that computers should *never* be designed without floppy drives.

[torsoboy]

Now that I think about it, Redbox doesn't give paper receipts and I have never thought twice about it. They ask for your email address and send it to you over the web.

It would be easiest to move that direction if they started having your email address as a part of the information they could pull from a credit/debit card, that way you wouldn't have to spell it out for every store you visit.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

Now that I think about it, Redbox doesn't give paper receipts and I have never thought twice about it. They ask for your email address and send it to you over the web.

It would be easiest to move that direction if they started having your email address as a part of the information they could pull from a credit/debit card, that way you wouldn't have to spell it out for every store you visit.

What does Redbox do when the customer does not have an email address? I did a search for Redbox, and see that they rent DVD's online. Of course there is no need for a paper receipt for an online transaction. You don't have to worry about them mistyping your email address since you enter it yourself. There is NO need for an online company to provide a paper receipt.

[Chuckit]

Aside from the possibility of mistyping an e-mail address, what's the practical difference between a transaction over the Web and a transaction between two people standing next to each other that causes one to require a paper receipt?

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

What does Redbox do when the customer does not have an email address? I did a search for Redbox, and see that they rent DVD's online. Of course there is no need for a paper receipt for an online transaction. You don't have to worry about them mistyping your email address since you enter it yourself. There is NO need for an online company to provide a paper receipt.

Redbox rents movies from a vending machine... like buying a coke. You can go online and pick your movie but you still need to go to the vending machine to pick it up. If you don't have an email address you don't get a receipt. Their vending machines don't have any way to provide paper receipts.

Since something like 90% of americans use the internet, I don't think having an email address is too much to ask from a customer.

[alligator]

Why kill a tree when you can temporarily redirect some electrons instead?

[Cadaver]

I do my best to be as paperless as possible at work, and I'm trying to go more paperless at home. I use electronic/online billing for as much as possible. And for things I must do on paper, I've begun to scan my receipts and statements and OCR them with Acrobat Pro, save them appropriately on the computer, and shred the paper to recycle. Spotlight makes it easy to find documents if I need them again.

Even the Apple store emails me my receipts as a PDF file, and I haven't bought software from a brick & mortar store in some time. Hurray for downloadable products.

[PB2K]

..so you use less paper to use more electricity.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by alligator 

Why kill a tree when you can temporarily redirect some electrons instead?

The same tree gets incinerated* in a power plant to move your precious electrons from the server to the client.

*after millions of years of fossilization and catagenesis.

[MacosNerd]

at least paper can get recycled. Power plants typically use oil, natural gas or coal. this consumes the natural resources and adds to global warming.

[AngelaBaby]

I don't think there is one single paperless business.

[f1000]

Originally Posted by freudling 

I have recently come across the website of a few other professionals who are advertising an all digital, paperless office and it made me feel good.

Have you tried using their men's rooms?

[adamfishercox]

Originally Posted by AngelaBaby 

I don't think there is one single paperless business.

I don't think you have made one post that is more than 2 lines.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

at least paper can get recycled. Power plants typically use oil, natural gas or coal. this consumes the natural resources and adds to global warming.

I'm pretty sure recycling and paper production use more energy than sending 50 bytes across the Internet.

[Kerrigan]

I'm a bit torn on this issue. I prefer a digital medium for typing. For me, Microsoft word is indespensable when I need to write a complex or lengthy paper. And email is much, much more convenient than snail mail.

However, for reading and organization purposes, I greatly prefer printed texts. Paper is something I can hold, focus on, share, file, and archive WITHOUT having to worry about net connections, file formats, battery power, and HD failure. Furthermore, I do not have to worry about the potential for distractions; I can't use a book to check my email when I get restless, something which is too tempting to do on a tablet or laptop.

Also, I've read in a few places (online, ironically) that constant use of digital mediums of communication reduces your attention span and has the effect of temporarily lowering your IQ.

So in a nutshell, I would feel confined and impeded if I had to deal strictly with digital text.

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I'm pretty sure recycling and paper production use more energy than sending 50 bytes across the Internet.

Are you sure? Also consider the fact that paper can be recycled several times.

My point (somewhat tongue in cheek) is that just because you go green and eliminate paper does not necessarily mean you've reduced your carbon footprint.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

Are you sure? Also consider the fact that paper can be recycled several times.

I don't think running all the paper-recycling machinery requires less mechanical energy just because the paper has been through before.

[osiris]

It would be nice to go paperless, but I need physical receipts for accounting purposes, and really can't read large volumes of text on monitors. I make it up to mother nature in other ways though.

[I Love The Lounge]

If you run a credit card through a machine does it print out a receipt for them to sign? Do they get a copy?