  The Receipt Tracking Assistant was brought together in the Fall of 2004 under the name of the Checking Account Tracking System. Since then the project has undergone several structural and design changes. The original Project Manager Tosha Hartley has left the project and moved on to the Proximity Reminder System and we have gain two new members. Edward Denecke has taken the role of Project Manager and has pulled the team together to bring you the Receipt Tracking Assistant.
  In the Fall semester the project started as the Checking Account Tracking System which was a way for people keep track of credit card transactions. The solution called for application software on a smart card located on the debit or credit card. On every transaction the card would keep track of all expenses and a hardware reader component for the card. The goal was to bring awareness to the user about money management when purchasing through a card. PPT
  The Checking Account Tracking System changed the target market and became the Receipt Tracking Assistant. The market in the conceptual phase was geared towards people who use credit cards. The new market was too large and required changes to registers in every store. This was not feasible, the new market changed to include only traveling business men and women. The design made a drastic change which was the digitizing and organizing of receipts for users. The hardware was changed from the basic card reader to a PDA device with an attachment that would scan the receipt and organize the informaiton and provide expense information. The new features that the RTA will provide are the digital tracking of receipts, the ability to compare employee spending trends, reduce fraudelent spending, and creation of an expense report. The new objectives for the RTA are the reduction of paperwork by digitizing receipts, decrease time for reimbursement approval, reduce fraudelent speding, and tracking/comparing employee spending trends. PPT
  The group decided to change to a software only solution in which we remove the PDA device. The scanner which is not provided by us will be obtained separately. This decision was made to reduce development and production costs. PPT
  The development of the prototype in the Spring of 2005 has progressed smoothly. Most of the design issues have been resolved and the low level design has been improved. The prototype has been created that will be able to scan receipts, process the images with OCR software, organize the receipts utilizing the RTA engine, and create an expense report. RTA