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Pros
- Compact
- Accurate OCR
- Strong software bundle, including ScanSmart Accounting Edition
- Vertical path means no bulky output tray
- USB and Wi-Fi connectivity
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Cons
- ScanSmart Accounting Edition not supported on mobile devices
- Horizontal orientation, required for some documents, takes more space
- No LCD screen
- No USB thumb drive port
Epson RapidReceipt RR-400W Specs
Automatic Document Feeder | |
Maximum Optical Resolution | 600 pixels |
Maximum Scan Area | 8.5" x 120" |
Mechanical Resolution | 1200 |
The Epson RapidReceipt RR-400W ($379.99) is a compact sheet-fed scanner that’s optimized for managing the data from your scanned receipts. The hardware component is essentially the same as the Epson WorkForce ES-C320W. The difference is in the software: The RR-400W offers Epson's ScanSmart Accounting Edition, which is the regular ScanSmart edition with added invoice and receipt management as well as the ability to export scanned receipt data to third-party financial applications such as Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax. With its compact design, the RR-400W is an especially good fit for scanning receipts in cramped spaces. If you do have the available desk space, you might also consider the Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W, our Editors’ Choice pick for receipt scanners. The RR-600W is larger and more expensive than the RR-400W, but it’s also faster and more capable.
Honey, They Shrunk the Receipt Scanner
Almost identical in size and shape to both the Epson WorkForce ES-C320W and Epson DS-C480W, the RR-400W is a compact 4.9 by 11.7 by 4.1 inches (HWD). When you scan standard-size papers or receipts with the RR-400W, the scanner is able to keep those same dimensions. How is that possible? The scanned documents are routed back onto the top of the unit, where they’re stacked in parallel with the input tray. Because of this space-efficient design, the scanner has no need for a bulky output tray. Epson calls this the vertical scanning position. When scanning longer or thicker documents, including envelopes and plastic cards, you’ll need to slide the release lever on the back of the unit. This will recline the scanner slightly to better accommodate those types of documents. Epson calls this the straight scanning position, where the unit’s dimensions shift only slightly to 4.7 by 11.7 by 5 inches.
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According to Epson, the vertical scanning position reduces the required desk space by 60% compared with the RR-600W receipt scanner when its trays are fully extended. Most document scanners have to increase in size by as much as two or three times in order to handle the documents exiting the unit, so this is a pretty big deal. And if you don’t scan longer or thicker documents, you can just leave the RR-400W in its default vertical scanning position.
For comparison, the RR-600W measures 6.9 by 11.8 by 6.6 inches when closed. The Canon imageFormula R40 Document Scanner Receipt Edition takes up even more room, measuring 9.6 by 11.4 by 9.9 inches when closed. Similarly, the RR-400W weighs just 4.0 pounds, versus 6.2 pounds for the R-40 and 8.1 pounds for the RR-600W.
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Because of its compact size and weight, you may have to dial back your performance expectations with the RR-400W compared with the larger receipt scanners. The RR-400W has a speed rating of 30 simplex (one-sided) pages per minute (ppm) or 60 two-sided (duplex) images per minute (ipm, where each page side is counted as an image). The RR-600W is rated a notch faster at 35ppm and 70ipm (duplex) speeds. And the R-40 is rated even faster at 40ppm/80ipm.
Perhaps most importantly, the RR-400W has a 20-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), compared with a more generous 60-sheet ADF on the R-40 and an even more substantial 100-sheet ADF on the RR-600W. Their peak duty cycles aren't that different, however. The RR-400W is rated for 3,500 sheets, while the RR-600W and R-40 are rated for 4,000 sheets.
Another key differentiator is connectivity. Unlike Canon’s R-40, both Epson models support Wi-Fi, though all three models support USB connections and lack Ethernet ports.
Other differences include the control panel and the ability to save scans locally to a USB thumb drive. The RR-600W has a large 4.3-inch color touch screen that gives you direct access to configuration settings and workflow profiles. The RR-400W and R-40 have only button-based controls with no onboard access to settings or profiles. Similarly, the RR-600W has a dedicated port for a USB thumb drive. The RR-400W and R-40 do not have a dedicated thumb drive port.
Change the Angle to Scan Long Receipts
As with the Epson WorkForce ES-C320W and Epson DS-C480W, which share the same compact design as the Epson WorkForce RR-400W, you physically tilt the unit to switch between its two document scan modes. When scanning standard-thickness papers up to letter or A4 size, regular business cards, or receipts less than 15.5 inches, you can leave the scanner in its default vertical position. When scanning longer paper documents (up to 120 inches in length), receipts longer than 15.5 inches, plastic or laminated cards, envelopes, passports, or picture postcards, you’ll need to switch the unit to its straight path position.
You may find yourself using the straight path position more often with receipts than with other types of documents. While most receipts are shorter than 15.5 inches, grocery store receipts are often longer than that, depending on the number of items that you buy.
When you use the straight path position, keep in mind that any scanned documents will now exit onto your desk, and no paper output tray is there to catch them. As a result, you’ll need to allow for extra desk space whenever you scan these less-typical types of documents.
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In addition to the scanner position release lever on the back of the unit, you’ll find a basic control panel on the front of the unit. The control panel consists of five buttons: one button to power the unit on and off, two buttons to set up and configure the Wi-Fi connectivity, one button to start the scan process, and one button to stop the scan process. Above the row of five buttons is a row of five indicator lights. The first indicator light illuminates when the unit is powered on. The second and third illuminate when the unit is connected through a standard Wi-Fi network or a Wi-Fi Direct network, respectively. When in Wi-Fi Direct mode, the scanner can act as a network access point for as many as eight devices. The fourth indicator lights up when the scanner has been changed to its straight path position. And the fifth illuminates when an error occurs in the scanning process.
Even though you can initiate a scan from the unit itself, the RR-400W isn’t designed to be a standalone scanner. You'll find no dedicated USB port for saving the scans locally. You can’t have it independently route the scans to a specific email address or network file folder. And the scanner offers no onboard support for creating configuration profiles. You can’t do those things with the R-40 either, but you can do them with the RR-600W. With the RR-400W, those kinds of tasks will need to be handled through a USB-connected computer running the installed software bundle or a mobile device via a Wi-Fi connection.
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The installed software bundle includes the main Epson ScanSmart application, as well as the Epson Scan 2 Utility, NewSoft Presto! BizCard 6 application, Epson Software Updater, and Epson ES-220/ES-C320W/RR-400W User’s Guide. It’s the same bundle that’s included with the ES-C320W, except that the Epson ScanSmart application now includes a built-in receipt manager. However, Epson’s receipt management and export features are not supported on mobile devices. You can initiate a scan from a mobile device using the Epson Smart Panel mobile app, but you’ll need to be running the ScanSmart Accounting Edition application on your computer to access the specialized receipt-handling features.
You can use Epson ScanSmart to initiate a double-sided, single-sided, or receipt-optimized scan. You can save your completed scans, send them to a printer, or attach them to email messages. You can also send them to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Evernote, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. With ScanSmart’s Invoice/Receipt Manager, you can route the extracted data to Quicken, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, TurboTax, a CSV file, or an image file. You can initiate a receipt scan from within the receipt module, or you can load previously saved receipt scans and extract their data for export.
Epson Scan 2 Utility lets you change the scanner’s settings and determine how your computer will handle the scans. You can adjust the scan resolution, type of skew correction, and power-off time. Other options include brightness and contrast control, automatic document size detection, text enhancement, edge correction, background removal, and embedded watermarks. You can also have the date and time embedded into the names of the saved files.
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NewSoft Presto! BizCard 6 helps you manage the contact data from the business cards that you scan. You can synchronize that data with ACT!, Lotus Notes, or Microsoft Outlook. You can also export the contact data to a vCard or CSV format. Finally, Epson Software Updater lets you check for and download the most recent versions of the bundled software.
Testing the RapidReceipt RR-400W: Fast and Accurate
As previously mentioned, Epson rates the RR-400W’s scan speeds at 30ppm simplex and 60ipm duplex. It did a little better than that in our stopwatch tests, using Epson ScanSmart over a USB connection to our Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro. The RR-400W scanned our standard 20-page single-sided document at 32.8ppm and our 20-page (40-image) duplex document at 64.2ipm.
Most document scanners can convert printed pages to error-free, editable text down to 6 points in both our Arial (sans-serif) and Times New Roman (serif) font tests. The RR-400W easily surpassed that when I saved its scanned text documents to searchable PDFs. It was accurate down to 4 points with the Arial font and 5 points with the Times New Roman font. That’s the same result that we saw with both the Epson WorkForce ES-C320W and Epson DS-530 II. That’s impressive, though in most real-world business settings, you're unlikely to encounter text smaller than 10 points.
Receipts come in all shapes and sizes. Because of that, receipts can test a sheet-fed scanner to its technical limits. I scanned a variety of receipts and invoices, including ones that were printed on extremely thin paper. Others were crumpled up or misaligned when they were originally printed. Some had weak or faded ink, which made them more difficult to read, and a few had item descriptions, prices, or totals in unusual places.
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Overall, the RR-400W did a reasonably good job in extracting and cataloging the data from the receipts that I scanned. One receipt was so faded that I had to manually input much of the information. One especially thick shipping invoice refused even to be scanned. The ScanSmart software kept asking me to “load your originals in the ADF.” And some of the store names were missed, because they were embedded into a stylized logo. In those types of situations, you’ll have to manually add in whatever data is missing.
How Small Should You Go?
The Epson RapidReceipt RR-400W is unusually compact for a sheet-fed receipt scanner. It also has excellent OCR accuracy, which could be important when extracting data from receipts, where the size and quality of the text can vary widely. In situations where your desk space is limited, the RR-400W would be an ideal candidate for the job.
On the other hand, if you do have room and budget for it, the Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W may be the better choice. It’s our pick for best overall receipt scanner. The RR-600W is faster than the RR-400W, it has a large 4.3-inch color touch screen and a massive 100-sheet ADF, and it’s only moderately more expensive.