Choosing the right intelligent document processing software

Across every industry, the volume of consumer information is increasing, with more documents to process and data to collect than ever. In fact, the International Data Corporation is predicting that the amount of data generated on a daily basis will surpass current storage capacity. At the same time, consumers expect faster processing times and fewer errors, but rising labor costs make it challenging (or impossible) to effectively scale up operations with enough workers to handle this load.

That’s where automation can save the day.

Many organizations already use robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline some of their more mundane tasks. However, it lacks document processing capabilities, requiring considerable attention and manual effort from workers to extract unstructured data from documents. Fortunately, advancements in artificial intelligence have allowed technology to understand document content to automate processing as well.

What is intelligent document processing software?

Intelligent document processing (IDP) is a class of automation technology that uses AI to understand the contents of a document. This facilitates flexibility in identifying and extracting complex information (like the intent of an email or the line items in an invoice), transforming it into structured data that’s easy to use and ready for further processing.

Software benefits

Increasing labor efficiency isn’t the only reason to implement intelligent document processing software. Here are some of the other benefits:

Improved accuracy

It’s relatively easy to focus on processing one document. However, when increased to dozens or even hundreds of documents a day, workers are likely to lose focus and motivation throughout the day, resulting in slower processing speeds — and mistakes. A study published in GreenBook Directory found that accuracy for single-keyed data entry is only 96%. While this seems impressive, that equates to more than 400 mistakes per 10,000 keystrokes. 

Intelligent document processing software eliminates human error and has a higher overall accuracy than manual data extraction. Reducing manual entry with IDP software also gives the added benefit of higher employee satisfaction, which may reduce retention costs.

More scalable operations

Reducing the reliance on human labor also helps organizations process more documents immediately, without the need to hire more employees. In industries with busy seasons for document processing, IDP allows organizations to tackle the increased workload without altering their operations or workflows.

Reduced costs

Any time automation achieves greater efficiency, it cuts costs because it allows organizations to make more money with less time and labor, improving the bottom line. IDP’s enhanced scalability means that companies can drastically expand their bandwidth for new leads, customers, sales, and other revenue-generating opportunities, further improving profitability. 

What to look for

Not all intelligent document processing software is created the same. The best solution will include these features:

Is easy to implement

Out of all automation technologies, IDP is the most flexible, but can be challenging to integrate  into complex business processes. Automation Hero makes it simple, replacing manual document intake procedures to extract data and format it for further use by RPAs or other processes.

Processes every type of document

Documents aren’t just paper forms or PDFs. In businesses, they encompass everything from emails to online form submissions and even traditional letters and forms. The right IDP will be able to process all these document types. Some advanced automation platforms can even detect the intent of emails to streamline customer support processes.

Uses true artificial intelligence

Traditionally, document processing required rigid templates or complex coding. Artificial intelligence is capable of more flexible understanding, so it works more quickly and with less set up from users. Even better, it will improve accuracy over time, and be able to process new document formats with greater ease as organizations evolve and make updates to procedures.

Intelligent document processing software is an ideal solution for any organization trying to streamline data extraction processes and automate beyond the capabilities of their RPA. And with so many recent advancements in the field, you can find software that can easily implement end-to-end processing for more types of documents than you could imagine.