Optical character recognition (or OCR for short) accomplishes exactly what the name suggests – converting images with text in them into the actual text a computer can process and understand. All in all, it’s an important step to take if you want to be moving towards a paperless office. This will serve to make your documents sortable, searchable, as well as help you save on paper and make your business more intelligent. Implementing it also comes with the following benefits:
- Automatic invoice processing
Don’t you hate having to manually re-enter data from paper invoices? It’s a dull and repetitive task that can hardly be described as intellectually stimulating (nor is it a productive use of your time spent in the office). Of course, manually digitizing an invoice every once in a while is no big deal. But imagine if a large portion of your business operations calls for a huge volume of these to be processed on a daily basis – you’d probably have to hire someone just for that specific task. Hence, implementing OCR helps you streamline the process, thus saving you time and money.
- Business card recognition
Attending lots of trade shows and you’re tired of having to re-enter the data from all the business cards you receive and store it inside a database, contact management system, or a CRM solution? Companies like InData Labs that develop customized OCR and data capture solutions can soothe the pain of manual data entry and save you plenty of time.
In practice, all you have to do is snap a photo of it and have the app process the image to extract relevant data points from it, which sure beats having to do it all on your own.
- Importing forms
Depending on the nature of your business, you may be dealing with paper forms like waivers, rental agreements, service sign-up forms, loyalty program enrollments, and similar. The objective is to then take the data you’ve collected and turn it into a digital form. OCR technology can not only help you streamline the otherwise tedious process, but also reduce other unwanted factors such as human error.
- Preserving notes
Using the good old pen and paper to take notes during a meeting is not out of style quite yet. In fact, some may prefer it due to being able to retain more information in their mind this way. The obvious downside of it, however, is losing searchability. Admittedly, deciphering handwritten text is more challenging than its printed-out counterpart, but with the right software, it can be done. Do note, however, that some degree of manual reviewing will be needed afterwards, since 100% accuracy is hard to expect even with the best OCR tools. Even so, the amount of time you’ll save by not having to retype it all manually can be enormous.
Conclusion
If you find yourself spending too much time and effort on trivial tasks such as document digitization, data entry, and retyping, you are not running your business to its fullest potential. In case the volume of documents the OCR technology can process is large enough in your specific case, it is the kind of investment that will end up paying for itself.
