Oh my God...
...pooflake just reminded me in a reply to one of my answers!:

I am not very good at living in the UK. I just can't keep up with all the beaurocracy and the amount of letters through the door, the amount of people that need paying each month, the lies they tell about what they sent you etc...

So...I set about finding a document scanner - one that would be double sided and would simply scan everything in one hit.

I found one on ebay, but it was far too expensive (I should look again now, this was a few years ago now maybe they've come down in price), so I ended up using a standard flatbed scanner (and it still makes me laugh to say 'standard flatbed scanner' - my first scanner was a hand-held thing and that was over 200 quid at the time. The cheapest flatbed scanner I could find at the time was well over 1500 quid. Now they give them away free with every Mars bar purchased).

Anyway, when letters came through the door, with the exception of junk mail and personal letters, they would all get scanned into the computer. As they were scanned a screen would pop up and ask me what type of document it was - i.e. a bill, a reciept, a vehicle document etc... and then pop up a list of all the companies that I dealt with that fitted into that category.

It would also update the database with a link to the scanned file(s). Once a bill was paid, I could scan the reciept in and add it to the 'electronic folder' that had a copy of the bills in and it would link to it in the database, so I could easily see which bills had been paid and which had not.

Many times this helped me out of a spot - especially when the council were taking me to court for non-payment of council tax. All I had to do was bring up the dates they said I hadn't paid, click on the 'council' link and then bring up the bills and reciepts.

Sadly, because it was a flatbed scanner and took time to scan documents in this little project fell by the weighside.

I might ressurect this one if I can find a document scanner and another touchscreen - it was also a pain in the arse having to sit and scan everything and then point and click it into the right place. Touching a screen would have been much, much easier and quicker.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 11:53, 23 replies)

with all these posts I have a question..
what do you do for a living? Also, do you just enjoy making things rather than making something to save time/effort?
(Studentken is looking for motivation on, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 12:18, closed)

I'm
a programmer. I program things for large machinery; cameras, switches, input counters, robot arms etc... as well as the usual database crap.

For the most part I enjoy making things that make my (and my family's) lives easier and things that are useful.

However, things like the QFH antenna was simply for fun - I wanted to see if I could pick up the weather satelites in my own home.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 12:25, closed)

Coincidence...!!!!
I use a development of your wonderful system you have outlined above: I simply pay all my bills as soon as they arrive, thereby saving hours of programming, modifying, scanning, clicking and dragging. Also if someone says you haven't paid, you know you have. Further evidence of disputed payments can be found in online banking statements......

The time saved can be used for relaxing, drinking, or simply one handed solo pleasures.
(Colonel Blink is now officially a pretentious prick, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 12:56, closed)

I too
generally pay bills as and when they come in (apart from when I'm on holiday).

However, not having a bank account means I cannot rely on bank statements to prove anything.

When I did have a bank account they seemed for the most part to be a work of fiction half the time anyway. They also used to charge £5 for a 'replacement' statement, despite me having opted for the 'paperless' option of only having them online. Of course, the online statements were only there for 3 months, so if I'd had a payment disputed after three months, I'd be a fiver down simply proving that I'd already paid the said bill.

I doubt that me simply me telling them that I would have paid the bill the moment it came in would prove anything to them.

It was a small price to pay for not having to use a bank and waste hours of lunchtimes and Saturday mornings queuing up to speak to a 'personal wanker' to sort out yet another problem that they had originated.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:01, closed)

yes
you really are into those touch screens! i don't blame you mate, even finding out you have cancer is palatable if discovered via the medium of a touch screen.
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:23, closed)

they
do make life easier.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:25, closed)

Meh ..
I started scanning stuff in and filing it on my computer but it got way too tedious and boring. Decided to do this instead:

- 1 ringbinder
- 12 sleeves, one for each month

Wack in everything you get this month into one sleeve and cycle when next month comes. When you make a full round into 12 months and 12 full sleeves, you simply empty out the sleeves one by one as you go along. Extended warranties and V5s etc go into the permanent file.

.. Yes, I do have a girlfriend.

.. No, she isn't online.
(MrNorm, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 16:29, closed)

i want one of these.
Seriously. I hate paper mail and having to sort it out, keep it somewhere, etc, etc.

Ideally, this'd scan both sides, save it on my home network and shred the original.
(MattWPBS, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 13:41, closed)

It
was quite useful.

The amount of cockups I have with utility firms, councils etc... is unbelievable.

I do have a name that might help explain it though.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 14:12, closed)

I think you'll find
It's fell by the wayside not weighside
(thefuckestuppest cheapened this, on, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 17:32, closed)

Technically
it DID fall by the weighside - the American bastardisation has become the 'wayside', but the origin of the saying means to give up on something as when a carts load was weighed and was over the allowed weight, it was said to 'fall by the weigh side' as the cart had to stay whilst the horses were allowed to continue.
(dchurch bah, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 19:17, closed)

Actually
I haven't been able to find any sources which would bear your etymology out. More logically something was said to fall by the wayside when it literally fell by the side of the way. One suspects that before the 19th or 20th C carts weren't really systematically weighed to ensure health and safety for all concerned.
(Flocculencio Anything's possible if you're a robot, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 5:25, closed)

It
wasn't for health and safety (duh!), it was for taxes, and predates the 19th century by a long way. It's also of similar origin for "to get away Scot Free" - taxes were levied on those that didn't have enough land to grow bramble for the building of sea defences (it was considered impervious to sea water), if you failed to pay the tax or grow bramble, your ear was cut off. If you lived outside the boundries that needed to pay towards the sea defences you were said to have gotten away "Scot free" as the tax was imposed by Lord Scot in the 15th century, the same Lord that imposed the tax on the weight in the carriages of trade goods through the same area - I'm not going to mention the area as it's where I live (I'm the local historian for the preservation society - again, which I'm not going to name as it would make it too obvious).

I'm pretty sure he wasn't known for his stance on health and safety issues - I mean, where would he get a knife sharp enough to have someone's ear cut off?

If you didn't have enough to pay the tax, the cart was confiscated until you did - or simply confiscated forever depending on the contents.

It was possible to pay the tax in advance - many people did this so that they wouldn't get stopped and weighed. This backfired as most carts were stopped regardless of advance payments. Many were found to have a weight in excess of what they had paid for. When asked where their load was they were said to reply "it fell by the weigh side".

It's mentioned in a book I have here, and is mentioned frequently in the Russel Thorndike novels that are based around this time - with the correct spelling of "weigh".
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 7:52, closed)

If we're going to be the self-appointed spelling and grammar police
It should be "number of" letters, people, cockups etc., not "amount of".

Number of letters ... amount of mail

Fewer cars ... less traffic

How many pints? ... how much beer?

The content more than makes up for the writing, though.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 10:36, closed)

I don't
recall even mentioning cars or beer.
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:20, closed)

Beer
It makes you forget things.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 13:05, closed)

Forget
what?
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 13:10, closed)

What you have there my son
is EDRMS - Electronic Document Retrieval and Management System. Something I have spent - at work - well over a million quid on in the last few years. Its really good stuff when you get going. And chuck in OCR - which at this level works really really well. We scan in 10,000+ docs a week and the error rate is about 5%. Of the 95% that are read and validated, almost all of them are processed automatically and no need for human interation along the way. All people do now is process the exceptions. We're probably making a whole ton of people redundant now because there simply isnt work for them. Its astonishing what can be automated.

The system we use, we saw running as a demo in a rather large insurance company. They used it to process claim forms. They had a whole rules based thingy setup. When a claim came in, it went something like this:

Is it a claim? Under £100? And the claimant hasnt had a successful claim in last 12 months? Yes to all? Then print out a cheque and post.

The other rule was:

Is it a claim? Over £100? Yes? Send automatic rejection letter.

Simplified, yes, but probably saved them a fortune.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:53, closed)

Errr....
Tel me it wasn't a susidiary of Lloyds of London?

If it was, then it's extremely likely that I worked on that software!
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:57, closed)

honestly cant remember
the solution was IBM Document Manager, Content Manager, and Kofax though.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 12:31, closed)

Hmmmm....
...this too was kofax.
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 13:11, closed)

out of interest
why so much paperwork? I get very little really, most stuff is online now isnt it?
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:54, closed)

I'm not sure
All the utility companies send bills - I tried to get BT to sign me up for on-line billing but it wouldn't work - long story.

The council seem to send about 4 letters a week regarding council tax - each one more complicated than the last and seemingly written by a four year old.

I don't have as much as I used to, but there's still a lot to keep up with, but then this project got shelved some time ago and is no longer in use any more.
(dchurch bah, Thu 27 Aug 2009, 11:59, closed)