是时候纸质收据要退出舞台了

When stores first started to ask if customers wanted a paper receipt or an emailed receipt, I always took the email option. I knew I was giving up a little privacy when I did because the store now had my email. The stores that offered it were typically clothing stores, and I appreciated that I could always get the receipt if I needed to make a return or an exchange.

每当店铺询问顾客是想要纸质收据还是电子收据时，我总会选后者。我知道当我这样做的时候会放弃一点儿隐私，因为店铺会知道我的email。一般提供收据的店铺都是服装店，如果我需要换退衣服，都会有收据，这点我还蛮喜欢。

Then in 2014, one of my local grocery stores, Shoprite, sent me an email saying it would be offering digital receipts. It's a free program that allowed me to "print, search and categorize" my receipts. At the time, the program was still in the testing phase, so I still received paper receipts at the register, but it was a start.

2014年的时候，我光顾过的一家食品店叫Shoprite，给我发来的邮件称它会提供电子收据。这个免费程序可以让我轻松“打印、搜寻、归类”我的收据。在那时，该程序还处于测试阶段，所以我还是在登记处收取纸质收据，但至少这是开始。

Now years later, digital receipts are increasingly common at a lot of different businesses — and that's a good thing.

几年过去了，电子收据在不同商业领域也越来越常见，这是好事儿。

Why it's time to retire paper receipts

是时候纸质收据要退出舞台了

Digital receipts offer a few improvements over traditional paper receipts. One is health-related. Lots of receipt paper contains bisphenol-A, or BPA. This chemical can potentially influence or outright alter some bodily processes, like hair growth, hormone function and cell repair. Reducing receipt paper reduces the risk for BPA exposure for not only consumers but also for employees who handle the paper on a more routine basis.

电子收据对传统纸质收据来说有很多改善提升。其中之一就是健康问题。大多数纸质收据含有酚甲烷，也称BPA。这种化学成分可以潜在影响或直接改变身体进程，比如头发生长、激素运转还有细胞修复。减少纸质收据不仅降低了顾客接触BPA的风险，也降低了大多时候拿着纸质收据的店家接触BPA的风险。

The second improvement is environmental. Receipt paper consumes a lot of trees, some 10 million of them a year, according to Green America. (And at least half of that is probably used by CVS for their still-too-long receipts.) They also use up about 21 billion gallons of water a year — and these stats are just for the United States! That's so many trees and so much water, all when emailing the receipt is a lot easier. Pile on the fact that BPA-coated paper can't be recycled and you end up with a bunch of receipts in landfills.

第二个改善的就是环境问题。纸质收据消耗很多树木，一年约消耗1000万棵(至少一半可能都是便利商店那长长的收据单消耗的)。它们在一年中也用了约21亿加仑水，而且这些都还只是美国用的!和方便的电子收据比那真的是很多树木和水资源了。再加上含BPA的纸不可回收，所以最后都垃圾填埋了。

The third improvement has to do with economics. Receipt paper costs businesses money, between $5,475 to $18,250 per year if they're printing 1,000 receipts a day. That's a lot of receipts, a lot of paper and a lot of water. It's also a lot of money, money that could be used elsewhere, say giving employees raises or covering health insurance or lowering prices.

第三个改善和经济有关。如果每天打印1000份收据，这些收据纸将每年花费企业5475到18250美刀。这可真是很多收据，很多纸，很多水资源。同时也是很多钱，这些钱都可以用在别的地方，比如涨工资、覆盖健康保险，还比如降低物价。

The fourth reason digital receipts are better just boils down to convenience. You can access those receipts through your email and archive them in a separate folder or with a specific label for easy sorting. Or, if you need more help on the organization front, try a receipt tracking app. Physical receipts require you to physically keep track of them, and that means a shoe box or an accordion folder or a big thumb tack on a cork board in the kitchen. There have been times when I've let something go unreturned because I didn't have the receipt. I'm betting I'm not alone on that.

第四个电子收据更好的理由就是它很方便。你可以从邮件中获取收据放在单独文件夹中，或者附上简单分类的具体标签。要是你在组织方面需要更多帮助，还可以下个收据记录APP。实体收据单需要你好好保存好它们，要么放鞋盒子里，要么就厨房一软木板上大图钉钉着。有时候因为有些东西没收据所以就没办法退，我敢打赌我不是一个人。

Returns aren’t the only convenience digital receipts offer, though. For tax purposes, if every purchase I made at a brick and mortar store gave me a digital receipt, it would be wonderful. If I received a digital receipt every time I bought office supplies or picked up a prescription or paid for a restaurant meal I can write off as a business expense, my life would be so much easier when I did my taxes.

电子收据不止能退换东西这么方便。从收税这个角度看，如果我每买一砖一瓦，店铺给我电子收据，这就真的太完美了!如果每次买办公用品、买药或付餐费时都能收到电子收据，那我就可以记成工作开销，交税时我的生活也会因此更方便。

Some businesses, particularly local ones, use newer point of sale systems like Square that will automatically send you a digital receipt if you've already received one from another business that uses Square. When you pay with the same credit or debit card you did at the first vendor, and you've already provided an email address to the Square system, you'll automatically get a receipt in your email minutes later. This can be a little unnerving, but it's easy to stop the automatic flow of receipts if you want.

一些企业，尤其是当地企业会用更新的销售系统比如Square，如果你曾收到过其它用Square的企业发来的收据，它就可以自动发送电子收据给你。当你用同一张信用卡或借记卡向第一家商铺付账时，你就已经向Square系统提供了自己的email，几分钟后就能收到电子收据。这可能有点儿烦人，但如果你想的话，关闭自动收取收据信息流也很简单。

Then again, why would you want to do that? Or maybe you just enjoy having random slips of paper everywhere.

那问题就来了，为啥想关闭呢?难道你可能只是享受纸张胡乱散落在每个地方的快感?