How Does Data Capture Improve Business Automation?
Modern business cannot go without data. Collecting, storing and using the data from the business activity are critical to business success. When the amount of data that needs to be processed is high or keeps growing, having a Data Capture solution will be very helpful. From gathering data source (paper or digital) to sending the required data to right person or department, intelligent data capture solutions handle data inflow accurately and efficiently.
A Data capture solution is much more than OCR, it increase the extraction accuracy and greatly enhance the overall automation. The solution transforms high volumes of documents into structured data and drive automation into business process. The Data Capture technology has evolved a lot in recent years due to the advancements in capture accuracy, full text search and indexing technology. These changes have real and significant impacts to how to automate the data processing steps.
Turn unstructured data into structured data
A data capture system transforms content from documents and images into usable information, by using optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), optical mark recognition (OMR) and barcode recognition. It identifies and classifies document/image types and extracts all relevant information, generating huge time savings to end-users on the otherwise manual tasks.
The basic and simple example is to process forms. The form layout is fixed, fields are in the same position in the form, this fixed layout enables its automatic processing by data capture system, the system can read the input channels, search the documents and read form content, thus free the staff from all manual tasks.
More complex example is to process invoices. The invoices have different layouts from different vendors. Despite various layouts, an advanced data capture system should automatically recognize the invoice types and extracts the data related to the supplier, invoice number, prices and taxes to forward the necessary details to further payment.
Process multiple input sources into one output format
Import channels can be various including hardcopies, emails, or electronic files and in different formats. Creating one processing standard can be the key to meet business efficiency, service and compliance goals. The data capture system extracts data, classifies and validates against existing database, to make sure that data is always correct, guarantee that accurate information gets to the staff who need it as quickly as possible.
In the example of invoice processing, recognizing invoices and automatically filling financial values in accounting system archive greater accuracy and are far more efficient than having the staff manually key in all the data. What is more, the higher the invoice volume is, the more improvement can be seen, and the more costs the business can save.
Benefit from business automation
Advanced Data Capture solution drives automations into business process, reduces both time and costs. However, when it comes to implement a real effective data capture solution, user should consult with the right solution provider to ensure balance data capture needs with existing IT infrastructure.
Entia Software is among the earliest batch of companies that provide advanced data capture solutions in Singapore. By working with users from different industries, and by knowing in details of many automation requirements, we have form a very skillful team who can help user get the automation functionalities and maximize business outcomes. The rich project experience and knowledge in advanced data capture technologies are keys of our success.
