It’s no surprise that during economic hardship individuals start looking for ways to supplement their income, or even generate a whole new stream of income. Gina Trapani over at Life Hacker has some experience starting a new gig and provides a few tips for how to turn your hobby into a money-making machine.

As a personal productivity guru, Gina’s “in the know” about what tools help to make life/ work more streamlined and productive.  She recently recommended the ScanSnap as a cost-effective tool to manage paperwork for your new business endeavor….

Wrangle Your Paperwork
Paperwork like contracts, invoices, taxes, business cards, and bills are an inevitable reality of running a business, but there are a few ways to reduce the occurrence of dead trees in your venture. In lieu of faxing or filing in manila envelopes, I’m still in love with my ScanSnap document scanner for turning receipts and contracts into PDFs instantly. For invoicing clients, the excellent Blinksale is an inexpensive and easy way to track what’s gone out and what’s coming in. (Plus their invoices look a lot better than that Microsoft Word template you’ve been using.) Freelancers tracking billable hours should check out Harvest for time-tracking and invoicing capabilities as well. Finally, for nifty custom business cards, check out Moo.com’s offering.

Whether you’re using ScanSnap to organize your office or clean the clutter in your home, once you get your hands on one, you’ll probably find a variety of uses for it.  If you’re on the brink of kicking off your new business, the ScanSnap might just be your [organizational] saving grace!

Happy Scanning!