When I reviewed NeatReceipts Scanalizer earlier this year, I pointed out that the software side of the package includes a business-card module that's every bit as good as most dedicated business-card programs. That's a nice extra for a product that's designed primarily to scan, recognize, and manage receipts. But NeatReceipts, the company, has now come out with a new package that's focused on business cards. And Neat Business Cards ($199.95 direct) has even more going for it than you might expect.

NeatReceipts could have taken the business-card module from the Scanalizer program as is, combined it with a business-card scanner, and sold the result as a perfectly reasonable product that would stand up to the competition. Instead, the company says it enhanced the parsing engine, tweaking it for the specific task of recognizing business cards. More important, it took the idea of a business-card scanner to the next level, by letting you scan directly into two popular contact-management programs—Act! and Microsoft Outlook.

Like other business-card packages, Neat Business Cards comes with its own program for managing the contact information from scanned cards. Similarly, it lets you synchronize the data with another contact manager—although it's limited to syncing with Outlook and the online Plaxo service.

Unlike other business-card packages, Neat Business Cards comes with plug-ins for Outlook (2000 and later) and Act! (version 9 and later), so you can scan cards directly into either program. This won't help if you use another contact manager, such as Goldmine. But if you're one of the legions of people who use Outlook or Act!, Neat Business Cards gives you a simple way to get information off a business card and into the program you already use, without your having to learn an entirely new program or worry about synchronizing data. The package even bundles Act! 9.0, giving you a full-fledged contact manager if you don't already have one.

The hardware side of Neat Business Cards is a 600-pixel-per-inch color scanner that takes up hardly any more room on your desk than a stack of business cards. At 1.1 by 4.4 by 2.1 inches (HWD) and just 3.3 ounces, it's small even for a business-card scanner. It's also highly portable. You can easily take it with you on trips, scan cards while you still remember why you took each one, and add notes along with the cards. It even comes with a small travel case with room for both the scanner and included USB cable.

Setup is standard for a business-card scanner: Install the software and connect to a USB port, with the USB cable providing both a data connection and power for the scanner. I suspect most people will ignore the Neat Business Cards program and use the Outlook or Act! plug-ins, which show up as an extra toolbar in both programs. Insert a business card into the scanner's feed slot and choose the scan button in the toolbar. The plug-in will scan the card, recognize the text, and wait for you to make corrections. You can then choose an onscreen button to save the information, or save it and scan another card.

You can also use Neat Business Card software to manage your contact information. The software looks very much like the business-card module in Scanalizer, with the screen divided into four panes. One shows a list of contacts; a second shows details for the currently selected contact; a third lets you see the front or back of the card for the currently selected contact, or switch to an advanced search screen; and the fourth lets you list action items and notes for the currently selected contact.

As with other business-card scanners, there's no automatic document feeder, so you have to feed the cards manually. A scan button on the scanner itself works only with the main Neat Business Card program, not with the plug-ins.

There are some minor drawbacks, no matter which software you're using. For example, you don't have the option of scanning multiple cards and then processing them in a single batch (as you can with most other business-card scanners). Fortunately, with most cards, the wait for the recognition step is tolerable. Even so, NeatReceipts says it is planning to add batch processing to the next release of the software. Anyone who gets the current version will be able to download the new one from the company's Web site when it becomes available.

A potentially more annoying issue is that there is no way to skip the verification step when scanning. (Most business-card programs let you scan cards without your having to verify them on the spot. That way, you can later go back, find the unverified cards, and check them at your convenience.) NeatReceipts says it has no immediate plans to add this feature.

What more than makes up for these issues is that Neat Business Cards did better job at recognizing text and parsing the information into the right fields than any other business-card package I've tested. Only the more expensive CardScan Executive comes close, essentially tying Neat Business Cards for accuracy with our standard set of cards but falling a bit behind for our set of problem cards—cards with issues such as unusual fonts, color backgrounds, and light gray text.

The one real problem I ran into with Neat Business Cards was a bug in the Outlook plug-in, which crashed Outlook fairly reliably when I tried scanning several cards in a row. I don't count this heavily against the program, however. After all, it's a flaw in a feature—the Outlook plug-in—that other business-card packages don't even offer.

As of this writing, NeatReceipts says that it has been unable to reproduce the problem so it can fix it. Until it does, if you use Outlook and run into this problem on your system, the workaround is simple enough. Just use Neat Business Cards the way you would use any other business-card program, scanning into Neat Business Cards and then synchronizing with Outlook.

Even considering the problem with the Outlook plug-in, Neat Business Cards is an impressive product. It's not only the most accurate business-card scan package I've tested, in terms of parsing and recognizing text, it's also significantly less expensive than the next best choice. If you're looking for a dedicated business-card scanner, Neat Business Cards belongs on your short list.

Compare the scanners mentioned above side by side.