With the annual tax return ritual in the U.S. just a few months away now (gah!), it seems the right time to review Shoeboxed, a new receipt-management service.

If you tend to gather receipts in large piles, or aren’t a fan of scanning them (or do and then find it difficult to organize the scanned documents), Shoeboxed may be particularly helpful to you. It presents itself as the alternative to those two approaches.

Shoeboxed works like this:

1. You create an account via their website.
2. You mail Shoeboxed your printed receipts and email them your digital receipts.
3. They scan into digital format and categorize them.
4. You go online to sort by vendor name, date or amount.
5. You export your receipts to Excel, Quicken, PDF, or CSV if you wish.
6. You can download copies of any receipts you need for IRS, store returns, proof of purchase, etc.

View the 5-minute Shoeboxed demo video for more information (same page has customer testimonials and screenshots of the website interface you’d use).

It does seem Shoeboxed has tried to be thoughtful about security and privacy, including how they minimize who sees your receipts and how they maintain online security. Shoeboxed pricing plans run from free to $49.95/month U.S., depending on usage needs.

My sense of Shoeboxed is that it’s well thought through and the interface is designed for ease of use. But I can’t help but wonder what happens if the young guys who founded it move on to something else? I suppose you can download a comprehensive digital file for safe-keeping.

If you’ve tried Shoeboxed, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. And by the way, I’m not a Shoeboxed affiliate nor do I gain if you try it.