Is It Worth Choosing Automated Data Entry Over Manual Processes?

Keeping your business competitive in today’s extremely fast-paced markets requires very efficient and streamlined processes. Manual data entry can very quickly become a bottleneck and harm your business if your business relies on data that is not available in an easy-to-access format. Automated data entry can help your company eliminate such bottlenecks and automate workflows. We will try to understand how data entry automation can actually help your business and improve overall business processes.

What is data entry automation?

Data entry automation now involves using software to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable personal hours and reducing errors. The data entry automation process generally falls into one of the two categories:

  • Assisted:

These software tools help people to automate data entry tasks in their day-to-day activities. An autofill tool, like the one with your browser, is a straightforward example.

  • Independent:

Some technologies like the robotic process automation (RPA) tools, let you run automation to manage specific tasks and processes. For example, you might have the RPA bots allocated to process specific questions or claims. This type of automation helps the organizations free employees up entirely from the mundane tasks so that they can take on greater and more specialized roles.

What technologies are used in the process of data entry automation?

Data entry automation can actually be as simple as your browser’s autofill feature. But there have been significant advancements in automation in recent years so that you can take your pick from the more robust tools.

Two very popular technologies used for data entry automation processes are:

  • RPA:

Automated data entry software attempts to mimic human interactions, like the keystrokes and navigation, to automate the repetitive tasks.

  • AI:

Artificial Intelligence has almost become a catch-all term for every shiny and new technology trend, but it’s also beneficial for the simple stuff—like automated data entry. For instance, AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) tools can read the scanned documents and input data pretty automatically.

These two types of technology are also so versatile that they’re used in different ways to achieve automation. For example, some Chrome extensions for automating tasks are built on RPA technology.

Overcoming challenges in data entry automation:

To successfully automate data entry processes, it is essential to maintain the accuracy and quality of information. This can be done using validation rules, cleansing tools, and regular auditing techniques. Encryption, mapping solutions, and syncing applications must also address integration issues. Finally, offering guidance and support for personnel during the transition will help with a smooth switchover from manual operation to automated methods associated with entering data into system platforms.

The Benefits of Data Entry Automation:

Investing in data entry automation processes can benefit your business in several ways. Here are some of the primary advantages:

  • Long-term Cost Reduction

Data entry is quite a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Workers must sit in front of computers for hours, inputting data into different fields. Businesses often hire more staff for manual data entry or even outsource it; however, the costs can be high if there are many documents to process daily.

With data entry automation, businesses can minimize their data entry costs significantly. The initial investment may be higher than manual data entry, but the long-term savings will compensate for it.

  • Higher accuracy, fewer human errors

As data entry is typically a manual process, it’s simply prone to errors. Data entry automation processes, on the other hand, is much more accurate. With the rule-based data entry automation, data is put into the system automatically according to the pre-defined rules. With machine learning data entry automation processes, data is entered into the system by algorithms trained to recognize different types of data formats. This results in much fewer errors and more accurate data. Moreover, the accuracy of data entry automation is often higher because there will be some of the pre-processing and post-processing of images, and employees can also verify the results.

  • Boost operational efficiency

Data entry automation processes can also help businesses boost their operational efficiency. By automating data entry, companies can free up their employees’ timing so that they can focus on more strategic tasks. This also permits businesses to process the data much faster, as data gets entered into the system automatically and doesn’t have to be manually inserted.

  • Maximize employee value

Data entry is a tedious and a much monotonous task that doesn’t require too much skill. As such, it’s often regarded as a low-value task that can be easily outsourced or even automated. By automating data entry, businesses can actually free up their employees’ time to focus on the more strategic tasks. This permits businesses to maximize their employees’ value and also use their skills more effectively.

  • Improve customer service

By automating data entry processes, businesses can reduce the time it usually takes to input data into their systems. This means that companies can provide faster and much more efficient customer service.

For example, data entry automation that is powered by OCR and Machine Learning can also extract data from different identity documents during the customer onboarding process so that the customers need not enter their information one field at a time. This will significantly shorten the time required for customers to complete their application or the onboarding process.

  • Enhance marketing efforts

Data entry automation processes can also do wonders for all your marketing efforts. With the process of data entry automation, businesses can also have a complete and up-to-date view of their customer data. Companies can extract information from different data fields, like product name, product amount, price, etc., from consumers’ receipts. This allows businesses to segment customers more effectively and target them with personalized marketing campaigns.

Automating your data entry processes can save you time and money. Form Reader App, an Intelligent Document Processing solution, has helped diverse businesses across the globe automate data extraction and data entry. Visit https://formreader.app/ now!