How to process forms quickly, accurately and with minimal risk of errors

Work with documents is defined as a task of greater complexity. Extraction and processing of information, sorting and archiving, data analysis – each of these steps is a key factor for the good business results. In order for accounting work to be maximally productive and effective, it is recommended to use software for automatic processing forms. With the help of this innovative technology working with documents (not only forms) will not be such a complicated process for employees. Learn more about the topic in the following lines.

What is the application of OCR in processing forms?

What if we didn’t have the opportunity to take advantage of software solutions to optimize the work process? Perhaps, as was the case in the past, document processing would only be done through manual processes, which however are defined as error-prone process and complex to manage as well. OCR technology (Optical Character Recognition) is a solution that is gaining the interest of users, as here are the reasons behind this:

  • intelligent capture of key data – everyone knows how difficult it can be to process a document in which there are many squares, fields for signatures and other structural details in the layout of documents such as forms. To optimize the process after extracting data from each cell (and not only), it is important to use software for automatic processing, the principle of operation is based on OCR;
  • good results even with low predictability of the structure – some types of forms have a precise and clear structure that is easy for workflow automation software technologies to analyze. Other forms, however, are not so clearly positioned from the point of view of their layout – there are discrepancies in the number of pages, the place for signature and other key fields that must be correctly understood by the program;
  • possibility of analysis even in the presence of challenges of a different nature – each form comes into the company’s system from different sources. This leads to a great variety in terms of the quality with which they are printed, the type of image of the scanned documents, etc. Fortunately for users, software solutions such as automated processing forms help the accounting work run much more efficiently and quickly. Even if it faces challenges related to the quality of the scans, the way the document is loaded and the low quality of the compression, the SmartSoft’ software will do an excellent job of data extracting.

Another advantage of the forms processing software is that it can be used for two types of documents – scanned and pdf. This breadth of use makes it a highly preferred digital tool for business owners from a variety of professional fields. It is important to mention once again the OCR technology thanks to which the good results become possible to achieve – its revolutionary working principle is why form processing is such an easy process to implement.

What types of layouts of this kind of documents are there and how are they understood by the technology?

There are three types of document layouts such as form – unstructured, structured and semi-structured. Structured ones are the most predictable and easy to automatically process because they have a fixed format and same number of pages. As an example can be mentioned tax forms, insurance claims, work tests and other similar documents with a standard layout. They are a more than ideal representative of structured forms that can easily be processed by OCR technology and then archived.

Semi-structured and unstructured forma differ from unstructured in their challenging layout. However, this is not at all an obstacle to their quality processing by technologies such as SmartSoft’s OCR. The characteristic in this case is that the arrangement of the fields in documents such as bills of lading or invoices can be different in different cases. In addition, the number of lines can also be different, as well as the number of pages, which is also determined as a challenge.

In fully unstructured forms (reports, contracts, letters, etc.) we see great variations related to the way the information is arranged. Realistically, an exact structure in this type of documents does not exist, which makes them significantly more difficult for automatic processing than the other types of forms – structured and semi-structured. Optical character recognition is also used in these cases, such as NLP (natural language processing) and in this way optimal results against the background of the difficulty of understanding layout are achieved.

Advantages of SmartSoft’s automatic processing software

It became clear that the software solutions OCR introduced by SmartSoft are a step towards business progress that would be impossible if modern automation were not used. They help companies in many ways – to reduce their costs, to approve efficiency and to establish their positions in the world of competition. The team of SmartSoft reminds that the investment in this type of technology is completely worth it, as the return over time is very large.