6-10-2008 Post-its and Electronic Receipts

Posts-its: big deal.  I remember how in a more paper centric office I had used them to add notes to an underlying document, or whatever.  But with the advent of email, I hardly ever use Post-its.  There is only one thing I use Post-its for anymore is putting labels on stacks of binder clipped paper business receipts.

Which brings up a the question of why I am accumulating all these paper receipts in this digital age. 

I looked around for some e-receipt standards which may exist.  Here's what I found:

•  Back in 1999, a Digital Receipt Consortium was formed.  http://xml.coverpages.org/dri.html  It's receipt.org website is now being used for random marketing.  So, either they merged or failed.   In 2002, a Digital Receipt XML Schema  was speced out by the Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) and IXRetail.  I don't think that got anywhere, AFAICT.
  

• And in 2002, somebody patented a mechanism: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6487540.html
• Then this blogger came up with the idea for a short-term receipt card which would hold a receipt for a month or so, then it would delete, so the card wouldn't need much storage.  I sort of like the idea, but I'd rather the receipts were stored on a server without me carrying another stupid card around.  I also need to keep the receipts for longer, for tax and reimbursement purposes.
• And in May 2008, a company called AllEtronic is working with some big box stores to be a unified storage place for your receipts.  I'm not big on this because it's a standards-less single-implementer solution which, because of that fact will not achieve pervasive adoption. 
  

Which brings us full-circle to the need for the first bullet point's standards development solution.  Don't you just love technology?  Anyone interested in resurrecting the Digital Receipt Consortium?