Forms processing can be a difficult undertaking if some technical facilities are not available. Smart soft’s software for automatic processing of invoices and other documents is like a salvation in conditions of a dynamic work environment. With its help, the work process is accelerated, very accurate results are achieved, and working with documents becomes more enjoyable. In the following lines you will find out how forms processing is possible without it taking a lot of time and costing a lot of effort.
What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?
We live in a world where high technology takes precedence. The digital environment brings with it many advantages, among which is the possibility to facilitate and rationalize the document processing process. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a part of the achievements of the 21st century, when the modern companies can optimize the work process through the integration of special software solutions.
They help the managers of the company but also the employees who work in it – with them, the processing of forms and other documents is more accurate and easier to do. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) helps to manage a large number of forms containing different types of identifiers. It can be surveys or job application applications, handling such documents is among the main duties of any accounting officer and not only.
The program for working with fixed forms gives great convenience. With it, the process is optimized and the results of the processing occur faster, and along with them comes the increased accuracy. Intelligent data capture is aimed at working with questionnaires, forms, medical claims documents and much more. Over time, this software is increasingly used in modern day-to-day life, when in a professional aspect it is important to achieve a good quality/speed ratio.
More about fixed forms
In many business sectors, including industry, fixed forms are standard. They look similar and working with them is boring and time consuming. Characterized by those small squares and fields where specific information must be entered. What characterizes them is their specific structure, which, however, is far from being so simple as to be suitable for automatic processing.
We can meet the fixed forms in the form of documents related to medical care, insurance forms, client portfolio research and more. Apart from their purpose, they also differ in what exactly their structure is:
- semi-structured – documents of this type are bills of lading and invoices. Even if the vision of these documents is one and the same in most cases, there may still be discrepancies in some fields. It is possible that the number of fields will increase along with the information entered, causing the data to move to another page. Here comes the work of OCR software which aims to show flexibility and capture the important data.
- structured – in this case formats is completely fixed. Examples include all state tax forms, standardized tests, and insurance claims. Documents of this type have the same structure, with checkboxes and fields always in the same place. This precise distribution of characters in the document enables error-free automation by OCR software;
- unstructured – the name of the form type makes it clear that a particular structure is not available. Documents with a similar layout are contracts, company reports, official letters, etc. However, OCR software can again be applied, in this case relying on the optical recognition of the available characters.
Smart Soft invoices can be used in any of the three cases, but it is important to know that the software will change in the different cases. The interesting thing about fixed forms is that at first glance they follow a strict sequence, but in fact they turn out to be much more complicated to process. Fortunately, OCR software does a great job with such tasks, which makes it so popular for businesses in all fields.
What are the benefits of the software?
When we talk about modern software solutions, the advantages of their integration into company activity are a hot topic of discussion. The processing of fixed forms is associated with serious challenges, but also with numerous benefits of a corporate nature. Among them is the ability to correctly process forms that arrived with different settings when they were created, resolution level, with different markup methods, with various layout options, etc. The role of the software system is to successfully cope with all these challenges, reading even the most complex documents.
Is it suitable for scanning PDF documents?
Smart Soft software is preferred because it can read both scanned files and vector pdf forms. For the scanned documents OCR technology is used, but for the others it turns out to be unnecessary, since the digital text is easily and very precisely extracted. It is only necessary to upload the desired document, after which automatic recognition of the structure and details follows.
