Businesses in all industry sectors deal with large-volume data every day and this data comes in different formats such as surveys, PDFs, invoices, forms, images, and other paper-based documents. Information contained in these are used to derive insights and make informed business decisions. But according to Forrester’s research, businesses have about 60 to 73 percent of unused data, which means that they are not maximizing the data. This is because the data is stored in different formats and it is difficult to analyze it. So, converting all forms of data into a format that is easy to understand is important. This can be done with the support of a reliable data conversion service that can convert all your data into a uniform format and organize it, so that there is better efficiency and no loss of data.
Among the various business documents are invoices that need to be stored properly for tax preparation, tracking expenditure and overall business budgeting. However, stacking these invoices in file cabinets can take up a lot of space and could prove to be an expensive affair. So, the best option is to convert invoices into digital format.
OCR in RPA
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has the key feature called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that helps to extract text from images and documents electronically. It can convert printed, typed, or handwritten documents into machine-encoded text. OCR technology is not a new concept; with advanced technology, we have Artificial Intelligence-powered OCR solutions that can recognize and capture data from machine-printed documents with utmost accuracy. These can decipher handwritten text accurately. OCR in RPA helps to automate large-volume documents related to various operational business processes, especially in those areas that depend heavily on scanned paperwork such as customer-completed forms etc.
Most of the enterprises want to automate and digitize their business processes to make use of big data. One of the major barriers to this goal is the expense and complexity of storing and analyzing scanned documents. Even in today’s digital world, most companies still process large volumes of documents such as invoices in hard formats with no digital copies available.
RPA for Invoice Scanning
Robotic Process Automation is a tailor-made solution for paper-intensive businesses. In this process, the software scans the invoice irrespective of its format and converts it into an image or a text-searchable document. RPA also helps to capture different ranges on an invoice so that it gets the right data and keys it into the ERP system.
RPA Components That Help with Invoice Scanning
The main components of RPA include:
- Recorder: The recorder first verifies and records the keyboard and mouse movements of the regular works and then automation is done continuously.
- Development Studio: In this decision making logic and instructions are set for the robot to perform the execution.
- Extensions and Plugins: The addition of plugins like Email, Word conversion, PDF Conversion, and Excel makes the running of the processes easier.
- Bot Runner: Manual invoice scanning processes are automated with the help of a recorder and plugins.
- Control Center: It controls the robotic operations. Through this feature, one could stop, start, or control the tasks of the robot.
Benefits of RPA in Invoice Scanning
There are many benefits RPA provides when using it for invoice scanning purposes. Some of them are:
- Better Efficiency: Robots can continue to work for 24 hours of the day without causing any form of delay or inaccuracy in the operations. So, the chances of achieving better efficiency is high.
- Enhanced Productivity: RPA allows the use of robots that enable to focus on specific tasks. This helps to perform heaps of specific tasks without any form of errors.
- Improved Security: Since the robot performs only single tasks, there is no chances of any data leakage. The data is fully controlled under operation and thus you can achieve better security.
Scanning invoices allows to convert all of your invoices, accounts payable etc into a fully digitized system so that it can be placed onto a digital document management system easily. This helps to access any invoice data just with the click of a button and share it easily with colleagues and anyone else who needs access to them. These scanned invoices can also be encrypted and password protected for security of the data. The practical option is to reach out to professional data conversion services that can help with conversion of invoices into accurate digital format for easy and safe access.
