The Epson WorkForce ES-65WR ($259.99) is a fast and accurate portable document scanner that packs in plenty of features for on-the-go users.
It has a built-in rechargable battery, wireless connectivity, and the ScanSmart Accounting Edition software, a powerful utility for scanning financial data.
If your document-capture needs are on the simple side and you don't foresee needing to scan and export receipts and invoices on the road, you can save $100 by going with the Editors' Choice ES-60W.
But if number-crunching while on the road is a top priority, the ES-65WR is an excellent choice.
Traveling Light
Before delving into the ES-65WR, I should point out that this is not the first Epson portable bundled with the ScanSmart Accounting Edition Software that we've reviewed.
You can also get the financial extension with the company's beefier (and costlier) WorkForce ES-300WR , which is essentially the highly impressive Editors' Choice ES-300W plus the plug-in.
Those 300-series scanners have built-in automatic document feeders, and as such are much better at handling heavier workloads.
At 1.3 by 10.7 by 1.8 inches (HWD) and 0.7 pound, the ES-65WR is identical in size and girth to its siblings, the DS-80W and the ES-60W.
All three Epson models are smaller and lighter than most competitors we've tested, including the Editors' Choice Xerox Duplex Travel Scanner and the Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 (another Editors' Choice model).
The IRIScan Anywhere 5 WiFi, on the other hand, is very close in size and weighs only somewhat more than the ES-60WR.
The ES-65WR supports wireless networking, which, among other things, allows multiple users to connect to and use the scanner concurrently.
The ES-65WR takes this even further by automatically detecting when a scan is coming wirelessly or over USB, and then configuring itself accordingly.
It also supports single-pass two-sided scanning.
Looking around the scanner itself, it's nearly identical to its DS-80W and ES-60W siblings.
All controls and the mini-USB port are located on the right side of the machine, as shown below.
On the right-front edge you'll find Wi-Fi Connect (for connecting with Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS), the Wi-Fi Switch (for toggling manually between Wi-Fi and USB), and the Power button.
On the right end cap is a mini USB slot for charging and/or a data connection.
And on the left end you'll find a designated area for scanning cards, receipts, and other narrow items.
As with most scanners, all aspects of your scan, including its resolution, destination, and document format, are determined in the software on the computing device hosting the scanner.
The ES-65WR does have a small control panel, but it's designed primarily to choose connection types and to display device status.
The controls consist of a Start/Stop toggle and a small LED that displays the following status lights: Automatic Feeding Mode, Battery, Error, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Access Point.
To the right of the LED is a Ready status light.
It's in the Software
The ES-65WR's software bundle is simple but highly effective.
It includes Nuance OCR for converting scanned text to editable text, ScanSmart, and the ScanSmart Accounting Edition extension.
It also includes apps for scanning to your Android or iOS mobile devices.
ScanSmart is the company's latest scanner interface for setting up, scanning, and processing scans.
Since I reviewed the ES-300WR back in October 2018, Epson has added support for the desktop version of QuickBooks and TurboTax to the ScanSmart Accounting Edition plug-in, as well as improved the Excel support.
The Accounting Edition plug-in consists primarily of an extension called Receipt Manager that automatically recognizes and extracts financial data from invoices, receipts, and other financial documents.
Receipt Manager then helps you manipulate the data to make it compatible with financial or tax programs, which can help eliminate monotonous and inefficient manual entry.
The Excel export is CSV, a format accepted by most bookkeeping programs.
Epson says that as you use the software's automatic file naming and receipt-recognition tool, ScanSmart learns how to identify recurring data, such as vendor names and logos, recurring expenses, and so on, thereby streamlining the storing, retrieving, and finding of critical data.
As for its QuickBooks and Turbo Tax support, ScanSmart hooks directly into these programs and walks you through the export process.
Relatively Fast
Epson rates the ES-65WR at 1 page per 4 seconds or 15 pages per minute (ppm) for one-sided pages and about twice that, or 30 images per minute (ipm), for two-sided pages.
But as with any manual-feed scanner, much depends on how quickly you can feed it pages.
My experience with the ES-65WR and its equally rated DS-80W and ES-60W siblings is that if you have the time and patience to sit there feeding it pages, one after the other, as each preceding page finishes scanning, you can get close to Epson's ratings.
I tested the ES-65WR over USB from our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional.
See How We Test Scanners
At 11.9ppm and 23.8ipm, when scanning to image PDF, the ES-65WR was a fraction of a page faster than the DS-80W, but these times are more than twice as fast as those of the Visioneer X3 and the Xerox Duplex Travel Scanner; but recall that the X3 and the IRIScan Anywhere 5 WiFi don't support automatic two-sided scanning.
The IRIScan Anywhere 5 did somewhat better on one-sided scans than the Xerox and Visioneer models did, but it still couldn't keep up with the ES-65WR, falling behind by well more than 4ppm.
When scanning to searchable PDF, the ES-65WR easily scanned and converted the document pages as fast as I could feed the scanner, and its Automatic Feeding Mode easily combined multipage scans into one, automatically accepting and inserting the pages in the order they were scanned.
Since much of this process depends on user intervention, I didn't time it, but it all worked smoothly.
Clearly, though, if you plan to scan multipage documents, you'd be much better off with the ES-300WR and its 20-sheet ADF.
Admirable Accuracy
If, after scanning several pages, you must go back and make multiple corrections, it doesn't really matter how fast the scanner is.
Combined with Nuance OCR, the ES-65WR scanned both our Arial and Times New Roman font test pages down to 6 points error-free.
That kind of accuracy is about as good as it gets.
Both the Visioneer and the IRIScan models mentioned earlier managed 8 points without mistakes, which isn't bad, either.
The Xerox Travel Scanner, at 5 points mistake-free on the Arial page and 6 points on Times New Roman, did a little better.
Good for Capturing Financial Data
While the ES-65WR packs an impressive software bundle, make sure you plan on scanning lots of financial data before you decide to buy it.
If not, you can save $100 by going with our Editors' Choice portable scanner, the Epson ES-60W.
That said, if you have a lot of receipts and other financial data you need to keep track of, the ES-65WR is an excellent value.
On top of the great software, it's fast, performs well, offers great travel-friendly features including a rechargable battery and wireless connectivity.
The Epson ES-65WR portable document scanner is a fast, accurate, and feature-rich lightweight machine designed for the road warrior.
The Epson WorkForce ES-65WR ($259.99) is a fast and accurate portable document scanner that packs in plenty of features for on-the-go users.
It has a built-in rechargable battery, wireless connectivity, and the ScanSmart Accounting Edition software, a powerful utility for scanning financial data.
If your document-capture needs are on the simple side and you don't foresee needing to scan and export receipts and invoices on the road, you can save $100 by going with the Editors' Choice ES-60W.
But if number-crunching while on the road is a top priority, the ES-65WR is an excellent choice.
Traveling Light
Before delving into the ES-65WR, I should point out that this is not the first Epson portable bundled with the ScanSmart Accounting Edition Software that we've reviewed.
You can also get the financial extension with the company's beefier (and costlier) WorkForce ES-300WR , which is essentially the highly impressive Editors' Choice ES-300W plus the plug-in.
Those 300-series scanners have built-in automatic document feeders, and as such are much better at handling heavier workloads.
At 1.3 by 10.7 by 1.8 inches (HWD) and 0.7 pound, the ES-65WR is identical in size and girth to its siblings, the DS-80W and the ES-60W.
All three Epson models are smaller and lighter than most competitors we've tested, including the Editors' Choice Xerox Duplex Travel Scanner and the Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 (another Editors' Choice model).
The IRIScan Anywhere 5 WiFi, on the other hand, is very close in size and weighs only somewhat more than the ES-60WR.
The ES-65WR supports wireless networking, which, among other things, allows multiple users to connect to and use the scanner concurrently.
The ES-65WR takes this even further by automatically detecting when a scan is coming wirelessly or over USB, and then configuring itself accordingly.
It also supports single-pass two-sided scanning.
Looking around the scanner itself, it's nearly identical to its DS-80W and ES-60W siblings.
All controls and the mini-USB port are located on the right side of the machine, as shown below.
On the right-front edge you'll find Wi-Fi Connect (for connecting with Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS), the Wi-Fi Switch (for toggling manually between Wi-Fi and USB), and the Power button.
On the right end cap is a mini USB slot for charging and/or a data connection.
And on the left end you'll find a designated area for scanning cards, receipts, and other narrow items.
As with most scanners, all aspects of your scan, including its resolution, destination, and document format, are determined in the software on the computing device hosting the scanner.
The ES-65WR does have a small control panel, but it's designed primarily to choose connection types and to display device status.
The controls consist of a Start/Stop toggle and a small LED that displays the following status lights: Automatic Feeding Mode, Battery, Error, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Access Point.
To the right of the LED is a Ready status light.
It's in the Software
The ES-65WR's software bundle is simple but highly effective.
It includes Nuance OCR for converting scanned text to editable text, ScanSmart, and the ScanSmart Accounting Edition extension.
It also includes apps for scanning to your Android or iOS mobile devices.
ScanSmart is the company's latest scanner interface for setting up, scanning, and processing scans.
Since I reviewed the ES-300WR back in October 2018, Epson has added support for the desktop version of QuickBooks and TurboTax to the ScanSmart Accounting Edition plug-in, as well as improved the Excel support.
The Accounting Edition plug-in consists primarily of an extension called Receipt Manager that automatically recognizes and extracts financial data from invoices, receipts, and other financial documents.
Receipt Manager then helps you manipulate the data to make it compatible with financial or tax programs, which can help eliminate monotonous and inefficient manual entry.
The Excel export is CSV, a format accepted by most bookkeeping programs.
Epson says that as you use the software's automatic file naming and receipt-recognition tool, ScanSmart learns how to identify recurring data, such as vendor names and logos, recurring expenses, and so on, thereby streamlining the storing, retrieving, and finding of critical data.
As for its QuickBooks and Turbo Tax support, ScanSmart hooks directly into these programs and walks you through the export process.
Relatively Fast
Epson rates the ES-65WR at 1 page per 4 seconds or 15 pages per minute (ppm) for one-sided pages and about twice that, or 30 images per minute (ipm), for two-sided pages.
But as with any manual-feed scanner, much depends on how quickly you can feed it pages.
My experience with the ES-65WR and its equally rated DS-80W and ES-60W siblings is that if you have the time and patience to sit there feeding it pages, one after the other, as each preceding page finishes scanning, you can get close to Epson's ratings.
I tested the ES-65WR over USB from our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional.
See How We Test Scanners
At 11.9ppm and 23.8ipm, when scanning to image PDF, the ES-65WR was a fraction of a page faster than the DS-80W, but these times are more than twice as fast as those of the Visioneer X3 and the Xerox Duplex Travel Scanner; but recall that the X3 and the IRIScan Anywhere 5 WiFi don't support automatic two-sided scanning.
The IRIScan Anywhere 5 did somewhat better on one-sided scans than the Xerox and Visioneer models did, but it still couldn't keep up with the ES-65WR, falling behind by well more than 4ppm.
When scanning to searchable PDF, the ES-65WR easily scanned and converted the document pages as fast as I could feed the scanner, and its Automatic Feeding Mode easily combined multipage scans into one, automatically accepting and inserting the pages in the order they were scanned.
Since much of this process depends on user intervention, I didn't time it, but it all worked smoothly.
Clearly, though, if you plan to scan multipage documents, you'd be much better off with the ES-300WR and its 20-sheet ADF.
Admirable Accuracy
If, after scanning several pages, you must go back and make multiple corrections, it doesn't really matter how fast the scanner is.
Combined with Nuance OCR, the ES-65WR scanned both our Arial and Times New Roman font test pages down to 6 points error-free.
That kind of accuracy is about as good as it gets.
Both the Visioneer and the IRIScan models mentioned earlier managed 8 points without mistakes, which isn't bad, either.
The Xerox Travel Scanner, at 5 points mistake-free on the Arial page and 6 points on Times New Roman, did a little better.
Good for Capturing Financial Data
While the ES-65WR packs an impressive software bundle, make sure you plan on scanning lots of financial data before you decide to buy it.
If not, you can save $100 by going with our Editors' Choice portable scanner, the Epson ES-60W.
That said, if you have a lot of receipts and other financial data you need to keep track of, the ES-65WR is an excellent value.
On top of the great software, it's fast, performs well, offers great travel-friendly features including a rechargable battery and wireless connectivity.
