Are You Planning to Employ Automated Data Entry Software in Your Business?

Data entry has been around for a very long time and is one of the oldest and most crucial tasks in any business organization. It has been an a very integral aspect of technology and the business since its inception. Data entry is a very time-consuming process when done manually, and that is why data entry automation is gaining great popularity in the big data field. A Gartner study estimates that manual data entry errors in the finance processes alone add almost “25000 hours of avoidable rework at a cost of $878,000 every year”.

Automated data entry software refers to software-based solutions that can optimize the data entry process by eliminating or reducing manual processes. Such data automation software can generally extract data from the PDFs, documents, images, emails, or websites and present just the relevant information in a simply structured format (CSV, JSON, XML, etc.).

Automated data entry software leverages RPA and OCR (like zonal OCR), among the other technologies, to handle the repetitive tasks and “read” documents at scale. They are accurate, flexible, scalable, and fast, saving businesses precious time and resources.

The Automated Data Entry Process

An end-to-end automated data entry process usually involves the following steps:

1. Uploading or adding a data source

Organizations receive raw unstructured data in documents, images, or scanned files. These are to be imported into a data entry automation software/system.

2. Pre-processing each file or document

This vital step turns the documents into machine-readable formats. Advanced OCR, AI, and ML capabilities allow algorithms to “read and understand” documents.

3. Recognizing extracting the data of interest

The data entry automation software recognizes and extracts only relevant portions of data. The algorithm can also be easily trained to identify the fields and data points of interest.

4. Validating the extracted data

This optional step allows a manual or semi-automated verification based on the validation rules. Extracted data can also be checked for accuracy and even improved upon if needed.

5. Sharing and entering the extracted data

The concluding step in the data entry automation process is to send these extracted data to a proper destination. The extracted data, presented in a structured output like CSV, XML, JSON, Excel, etc., can be conveniently imported into the ERP software for additional downstream workflows.

Benefits of Automating Data Entry

Automated data entry software eliminates the inefficiencies and drudgery of manual data entry. Businesses increasingly automate data entry to focus exclusively on the data review and make relevant business decisions.

Here are some of the benefits of adopting data entry automation:

1. Greater accuracy

Automated data entry software leverages AI and ML capabilities to extract data accurately and minimize post-processing. Such algorithms are equipped to handle typical data constraints and eliminate errors.

2. Reduce overall costs

Reduce operational costs and overheads by eliminating the inefficient manual processes. Avoid the burden of outsourcing or employing dedicated data entry professionals for the job.

3. Save time

Faster data entry permits for improved data/document processing workflows. Companies can save more than 75% of time spent on their otherwise manual data-entry.

4. Highly scalable

Handle the huge volumes of data and sudden spikes in data entry demand.

5. Increase productivity

Allocate resources and person-hours to productive tasks that directly affect the bottom-line.

6. Increase employee satisfaction

Reducing or eliminating the monotony of the repetitive manual data entry affects employee engagement positively.

7. Process documents intelligently

AI-based software can classify specific document types intelligently. Such software can intelligently classify the data from documents by type like invoice, receipt, bill, etc. or source like supplier, vendor, internal, etc) for further processing and data entry.

So, are you ready to try out data entry automation software? Log in to https://formreader.app/ today!