November 21, 2024

Documents are available in various file types and formats and hold vital information. The majority of the time, you process the documents manually, which is time-consuming, prone to error, and expensive. 

Today, there are a lot of tools online that help to document data capturing. 

Using intelligent document processing, you can extract information from complex content in any document format, including insurance claims, mortgages, healthcare claims, contracts, and legal contracts, to help you overcome these difficulties.

What is document data capture?

The process of capturing data automatically from different document types—including scanned documents and files, paper documents, pictures, electronic files, or PDFs—is known as automated document data capture. 

One of the most common document data capture use cases is invoice data capture. 

For most businesses, critical data is stored in multiple business applications and the flow of data from these sources is nearly impossible. They end up spending resources and time in collecting this data and cleaning and verifying it. 

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology streamlines and automates the process of document data capture.  

Using OCR technology for document data capture

OCR technology scans documents consisting of text and graphics by employing pattern recognition algorithms to identify numbers, characters, and alphabets from these documents. The OCR software uses AI to carry out intelligent character recognition (ICR) including identifying the language. OCR software for document data capture turns hard copy documents into PDF format documents which the user can then edit, format, or such as if created using a word processor. OCR software saves time, cost, and other resources by using automated data capture and storage functionalities. 

How does OCR work?

Optical character recognition (OCR) identifies letters, characters, and symbols from documents. On top of that, intelligent OCR technology can even identify different styles of handwriting and languages. In the simplest terms, OCR software extracts data from PDFs, scanned documents, handwritten notes and camera-images. 

Here’s how OCR technology work:

  • Users initially upload their scanned papers to the systems.
  • The technology then reads through the entire document methodically, character by character, identifying texts, and line items.
  • Next, using OCR algorithms that documents are read and data is extracted and converted into the editable text. 
  • Users can export documents in formats of choice such as PDF, CSV, Excel, and so on. 

In addition, feature detection is currently used in modern OCR in place of pattern recognition, allowing for the analysis of specific characters, letters, and symbols as opposed to the detection of generic typefaces. 

For instance, if a rule instructs a program to recognize the letter A as two angled strokes with a pointy end at the top and a horizontal line passing across them, the program will be able to recognize it regardless of the font or writing style used.

How can a Document AI solution help in capturing data from documents?

There are a number of document data capture software available in the market that use OCR technology to convert unstructured documents such as invoices, IRS forms, and bank statements among numerous others, to actionable data. They do an excellent job of extracting data from PDFs into structured documents and this data can then be delivered to the integrated platform your organization uses. 

One of the most noteworthy benefits of such solutions is the accuracy in data capture – you can achieve field level accuracy up to 99%+ and an STP rate of 95% or higher. That means in 95 out of 100 cases, you wouldn’t even need to look at documents before processing them, the data is captured automatically and pushed into a database or analytics system.