How to Eliminate Manual Data Entry

Eliminating the "Oops" with intelligent data capture

No matter how skilled your Accounts Payable department may be, processes that rely on manual data entry from paper is slow and subject to human "oops"

Every time a piece of paper changes hands, the opportunity to misread, misplace or misunderstand information is introduced. Whether a company handles a few hundred to thousands of invoices per month, even a small number of "oops" can result in losses.

AP departments are transforming the time-intensive task of manually processing documents into a fast and effective automated routine with Intelligent Data Capture. AMI uses industry leading data extraction software which pulls key information directly from your scanned documents, email, fax EDI, and forms.

Intelligent data capture automatically learns key characteristics of invoices and captures vendor name, vendor number, PO number, dollar amount, tax, and key information from packing lists and receiving documents. The data is subsequently uploaded into an ERP and ECM solution for access anywhere anytime.

The Data Capture Process

Step 1: Input

From hand-printed forms to customer correspondence, received either electronically or on paper, Intelligent Capture(IC) captures almost any document for processing. Once captured, it can perform many image clean-up functions like straightening the image, removing lines and dot shading or enhancing characters for the best automated data extraction results.

Step 2: Classification

Intelligent Capture automatically identifies each captured document, without the need for barcodes or separator pages. By automatically identifying a document or a set of documents, IC ensures it extracts the correct information from each page, no matter what business process they are a part of.

Step 3: Extraction

Using various technologies, IC reads information on the image, including typed, hand printed, bar codes or marks like shaded radio buttons or checked boxes. IC uses advanced methods, technologies and tools to find the critical information on each document. After processing a document once, the capture solution remembers the location of each piece of information, accelerating processing even further

Step 4: Verification

IC, after extracting the necessary information, automatically validates the data against existing databases of information, including other back-end systems, or by applying user-defined business rules. Any remaining exceptions are flagged for review and presented to staff in a customized screen to best fit the way they work.

Step 5: Deliver

IC immediately sends the extracted information and original document to the relevant systems in your business process, including SAP™, Oracle™, PeopleSoft™, Lawson™, Epic, Guidewire® and most databases. The content management, case management and process automation capabilities ECM can also be leveraged for further processing.

Benefits

• Elimination of time-consuming manual processes, such as sorting and data entry.
• The ability to earn significant, risk-free returns on cash via early payment discounts.
• One record per invoice plus complete transactional records.
• Fewer lost or misplaced documents and resulting routing delays.
• Better cash management and visibility of cash flow.
• Improved productivity

Summary

AMI’s ECM solutions centralize all critical AP documents and automates processes on a single platform. Utilizing cloud storage for ECM, our solutions combine integrations and mobile capabilities to grant remote and non-AP users access to the information they need to accelerate invoice processing. With ECM, AP departments spend less time filing and searching for information on paper, and more time analyzing information to support the strategic goals of the organization.