You’ve got mountains of spreadsheets, statements, invoices and receipts. Perhaps a calculator and – of course – a fantastic tax expert as part of your team. But what do you really need to help you get ready for tax time? A scanner is one of the most valuable tools you can invest in, both for your small business and your personal taxes.

If you start the year off on the right foot by scanning each bill, document and form to a digital format as soon as they come in, then tax time’s a breeze. All the critical information you need will be filed electronically with copies available anywhere, anytime, provided you have remote access or use cloud storage. If you are playing catch up, however, fear not! Transforming your piles of paper into digital documents has never been easier, thanks to today’s advanced scanning options from Ambir Technology.

1. Size matters

Not all the receipts, notes and forms you need at tax time come on a crisp 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Invest in a document scanner with the flexibility to handle everything from standard 8.5 x 11 documents to smaller sized receipts, business cards and more.

2. Faster is better

Is there anything more tedious than feeding one sheet at a time into an old-fashioned scanner, flipping it over, scanning the other side, then beginning the whole process over again with the next page? High volume periods like tax time are the perfect reason to upgrade to a high-speed ADF (Automatic Document Feed) model like Ambir’s ImageScan Pro 820ix.

An ADF scanner can handle 100 pages at a time and crank out full-color pages at the rate of up to 60 per minute, and scans both sides of a two-sided document in one pass. The scanner’s TWAIN driver automatically rotates pages, adjusts brightness, and auto-crops images to minimize file size and increase optical character reading (OCR) accuracy.

3. Optimal options

A machine that scans only to an image file format, like .jpeg, may be sufficient for occasional home use. But in order to optimize your business files at tax time, you need more options. Choose a model that scans directly to PDF. Not only will this turn your documents into searchable digital files, PDF output allows you to easily combine multiple documents into a single package for simple storage and accurate archiving.

4. Connect to the cloud (and more!)

Scanning your documents is a great first step towards getting organized at tax time, but then what? You need to send files to your tax preparer, save them on your network, and store back up copies in the cloud. Sounds time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact you don’t even need a computer!

A standalone network document scanner like the nScan 915i needs no computer or cables at all, just an ethernet or wi-fi connection. With one touch of a button you can scan and send your documents to email, your office’s shared network, a USB drive, PC, Mac, tablet or mobile device, and online storage. What could be simpler?