A mobile phone or tablet is like having a mini scanner in your pocket. Here are some tips to leverage this technology to streamline the gathering of your tax documents.
Scan documents as PDFs on an Android device
- Install and open the Google Drive app.
- Tap New Scan.
- When you're done scanning, tap OK.
- (Optional) To scan multiple pages, tap Bulk add. OK.
- Tap Save.
- Enter a name for the file, choose a Drive account to save the file to and a Drive folder, and tap Save.
Scan a document as PDFs on an iPhone or iPad
- Open Notes and select a note or create a new one.
- Tap the Camera button, then tap Scan Documents.
- Place your document in view of the camera.
- If your device is in Auto mode, your document will automatically scan. If you need to manually capture a scan, tap the bottom center button. If adjustments are needed, you can drag the corners to adjust the scan to fit the page, then tap Keep Scan.
- Tap Save or add additional scans.
Here are some tips for making your paper documents readable and easy-to-process electronic files:
- If the document is already electronic, upload PDF files as-is.
- PDF files (.pdf) are required, do not send multiple images (.jpg, .bmp, .tiff, etc.)
- When scanning documents, place them on a flat, well-lit surface, and smooth out any folds or wrinkles so that the entire page fits in the frame.
- Scan at a sufficiently high resolution. This is typically around 300 dpi. Please do not scan at less than 300 dpi. It can be tempting to scan at the highest available resolution, but higher resolution means much larger file sizes, which may cause errors when uploading.
- Excel files (spreadsheets) can be uploaded as-is.
- If there are notes or questions, uploading a Word file is acceptable.
Security Note: After you have confirmation your documents are uploaded to the portal, you may want to delete the documents where it was saved (any cloud storage such as Adobe, iCloud, or Google Docs, and the device itself).