Receipts are an important part of any sales transaction, but as the world's economy slowly migrates online, they're becoming harder to keep track of.

Now, however, Dayton, Ohio-based NCR Corp. has orchestrated the creation of a digital receipt standard backed by such companies as America Online, Microsoft, Office Depot, ValiCert, RCS and Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone division, collectively known as the Digital Receipt Alliance.

A digital receipt is an Internet version of the traditional paper receipt, and can be delivered via e-mail or to a Web site database. The technology can be used to issue digital receipts for purchases made in brick-and-mortar shops as well as for online purchases. These receipts can then be collected and easily imported into tax software, expense software and other applications that traditionally require the manual input of purchase data.

ARTS, the New York-based Association for Retail Technology Standards of the National Retail Federation, has formally accepted the proposed XML-based standard. Several other parties have identified interest in the Digital Receipt Alliance, including a leading payment card association (whose identity at press time still hadn't been made public). Meanwhile, Shop.org, the trade association of online retailers, has also agreed to review the proposed standard.

Richard Mader, executive director of ARTS, says it makes sense for his organization and others to support an open receipt standard such as Digital Receipt Alliance's proposal. "ARTS supports the Digital Receipt Alliance, and believes that this collaborative approach is neutral and in the best interest of the retail community," he says. "Similarly, ARTS believes that a standard electronic receipt will be great for e-commerce and may be the best choice for some consumers making in-store purchases."

Dr. Raymond Burke, director of Customer Interface Research at Indiana University, says the new digital receipt model "enables retailers to reach each customer individually, creating a more useful and convenient medium for reaching online consumers, and ultimately, a more loyal online customer base for retailers."

Digital receipts offer more than just easier tax and expense tracking, though. Because the receipts are based on XML, they can offer other services like one-click warranty registration and rebate applications.

Jim Greene, senior product manager with the NCR retail solutions group, says NCR is betting on wide adoption of the standard because it's fairly open and able to support a variety of data. The standard has also been left open for exactly that reason — to encourage widespread acceptance. "We settled on XML because that seems to be where companies are heading with data models today," says Greene.

While the standard hasn't caught on yet, NCR seems confident that it will. "Software companies as well as point-of-sale companies will be able to architect their current solutions to feed this data model."

Go to the top.