Data Capture & Doc Assembly

Your Data Capture Strategy Matters

In an Accounts Payable Automation system (our specialty) there are generally four different document & data capture methodologies.

But that’s only part of the data capture equation. Most organizations receive invoices from a variety of different channels and in all kinds of media/formats. 

The key to streamlining the data capture process in your AP automation system is to quickly and efficiently identify incoming documents, separate them into their logical groups and route them to the the appropriate people or process. For example, a multi-page PO based invoice file in PDF format comes into a designated email box. ICG’s Document Assembly Tool (DAT – see illustration below) would identify that file, automatically route it to the DAT tool where a user can separate single from multi-page invoices. From that point the system would automatically route the invoices for matching and upload into the financial system for payment utilizing our workflow management system.

We turn incoming documents and data into actionable data for your back office. Our data & document capture tools are designed to accommodate large and medium sized AP operations who receive a wide variety of invoices/payment demands from multiple sources and in many formats.

Document Assembly

OCR

ICG does not have our own OCR solution, why re-invent the wheel? ICG has over 30 years experience working with OCR in varying capacities integrating with a variety of OCR solutions with applications ranging from claims processing to accounts payable invoice data extraction.  By far the most experience with this technology is with our clients who are automating their AP operations with ICG.

When evaluating OCR products, there are several questions to ask:

• What percentage of our invoices actually require OCR?
• Of the invoice population that require OCR, what percentage are not conducive to high-quality OCR extraction, such as images with colored backgrounds, invoices printed on dot-matrix or impact style printers, or documents that are significantly marked up?
• How many form templates will be needed to support the required accuracy?
• If form templates are used, how will these be created and maintained?
• If formless data extraction or automatic form learning are used, how effective are these strategies, given your population of vendors/forms?
• What is our tolerance for errors?  How will we validate to reduce errors?

ICG assists our customers in evaluating their population of incoming invoices and helps them to develop a holistic strategy that includes data capture from electronic invoices from numerous sources as well as from paper-based invoice using a variety of tools and methods. 

Virtually all stand-alone OCR products have tools that allow their solution to integrate with the line-of-business applications that they support.  ICG does not mandate to our clients which package to use, but does require our customers have, and allow ICG access to, the tools in order to successfully integrate our solutions to the target OCR product.