OCR for forms processing – why should we bet on this technology?

When it comes down to managing a large volume of documents, the use of software solutions for faster and more efficient processing is imperative. Technologies such as processing ocr forms are among the most popular solutions of this type, which are considered not only a profitable investment with high returns, but also a reliable tool for managing large volumes of documents. The software is suitable for various types of businesses, including healthcare companies.

A practical overview of automated forms processing

Forms are the type of documents that are not always easy to process, considering their complex (sometimes) structure, which is also defined as unpredictable. When considering software for extracting information from fields and other structural elements of the page, it is very important to know that:

• with the help of technologies such as OCR, even complexly formatted documents can be successfully processed. Another advantage of the technology is that it has a simple principle of operation – in order to be used by employees of a given company, it is not necessary to undergo a special course to achieve the desired results;
• basically, the technology is also scalable because over time it is improving more and more, which is possible thanks to consumer feedback – this is very useful for those looking for solutions of this type which not only help the business financially (because it saves on salaries), but also because they help employees be more productive;
• more and more companies decide to streamline their work processes, which to a large extent are involved in the processing of forms – the characteristic of this type of document is that its structure can vary from very easy to understand to extremely challenging even for AI. A good example of a complexly formatted document are the contracts that often varies in number of pages and the font that is often handwritten. OCR is tasked with analyzing the document and extracting key information from it in a way which provide accurate and fast results;
• intelligent processing of a wide range of documents – whether it’s a medical or insurance claim, a questionnaire, or an application, OCR for forms processing has the potential to handle all of these documents perfectly. Structural forms are found in all business sectors, including industrial sectors. They are so massive, but at the same time they are difficult to process – this makes software tools for automatic processing extremely effective in this and many other cases.

Manual document management is no longer the only solution that accounting department employees can rely on. While in the past this was the only option, today we have much better opportunities to fulfill administrative tasks related to the processing of forms and other types of documents. Smart Soft offers its audience a variety of IT solutions that will take your business to the next level.

What documents is OCR applicable for?

Here we will consider the types of forms and which types are suitable for processing by optical character recognition (OCR) technology. First of all, it is good to remember that software is extremely flexible – it can be adapted to forms that are unstructured, semi-structured and fully structured. What they all have in common is the structure characteristics – there are features that are distinctive for this type of document, such as checkboxes, fill-in fields and other accents that are typical of documents in industrial, commercial, medical and other sectors.

Very often, people think that forms are trivial to process even if it is automatic. Yes, but not completely… These types of documents are different from everything else, but not easy to manage, because they can vary drastically in their format – number of pages, fields to fill in and other details.

In this train of thoughts, the use of special software to automate the processes related to document processing, such as extracting information, processing and analyzing the content, and then intelligently archiving the documents is something very useful. With its help, great results are achieved in several areas – finances, speed and accuracy, streamlining the entire workflow.

Advantages of the technology and possible challenges

As it turned out, OCR technology for forms is something that has no analogues. It is based on artificial intelligence and is a valuable asset for large organizations that are characterized by a huge volume of documents every day. These same documents must be processed with maximum accuracy so that the work process runs smoothly for all parties – users and clients.

In addition to the effectiveness of the software, it also has some weaknesses, such as difficulty in reading the context of unstructured forms or handwritten ones. Despite these challenges, the software does a pretty good job of overcoming them – this makes it even more preferred by companies that want maximum results in document processing. Choose Smart Soft and the software technologies they offer to users!