Technology is inevitable, especially when it is one like artificial intelligence. With the inclusion of digitization in the corporate sector, business entities are becoming more and more inclined towards Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Enterprises tend to look for solutions that offer better resource planning so that customers can enjoy a purposeful experience. In this regard, AI-driven character recognition solutions play a vital role when it comes to verifying new clients during onboarding procedures.
Character Recognition – Old vs New
Optical Character Recognition OCR is the technology that has been around for many years now. It uses electronic beams to scan text written on printed documents and convert them into a digitized and presentable form. Its advanced counterpart known as the Intelligent Character Recognition technology is fuelled by Artificial Intelligent (AI), making it much more reliable and time and resource-efficient. By using ICR solutions, businesses can offer a wide range of services to their customers from quick and convenient user onboarding to on-the-go data retrieval using cloud storage.
What Can ICR Technology Offer?
Below is a list of activities/operations that can be performed using ICR technology:
- Reading text (printed or handwritten) from the document
- Categorizing the document for real-time access
- Extracting personally identifiable information from the user ID
- Validating that the data format and structure is optimal
- Creating a manageable digital copy of the document for future reference
The addition of artificial intelligence in the classic OCR services allows expanding its functionality by incorporating smart features that offer greater accuracy. Apart from the reduced turnaround times, the passing rate (the number of documents processed with the need for human intervention) is also improved. This paves way for better RPA solutions that offer end-to-end automation in daily business operations.
ICR Technology Use Case – Finance Industry
Without a doubt, ICR technology brings innovation to the table in the field of image recognition and RPA-based systems used in enterprise planning. Let’s understand the process in terms of a business operating in the finance sector. When it comes to accounts payable – services for which vendors are to be paid yet – an organization needs to process a good deal of invoices and receipts from different suppliers.
Each client or service provider may have a different format for their invoice that the business needs to process. There may be invoices sent by physical posts while other clients will send a copy to your email. In this regard, ICR technology works regardless of what documents the vendors provide and extracts relevant information like name and address of the supplier, amounts payable to them, the number of items ordered, and stores all these in an online database in a manageable form.
Why OCR is Not an Option?
Many corporate entities already have an OCR-based solution to help them with manual data entry tasks. But these often fall short of computational efficiency and accuracy when it comes to extracting the required fields from a custom-generated accounts payable receipt. High error rates can lead to disruption in business operations which means companies have to turn towards old-school manual checks to look for data consistency and error-free input data.
But when ICR technology is in place, businesses can use AI-based features to reduce data misinterpretations and replace manual checks with intelligent automated systems based on machine learning. This enables enterprises to streamline their end-to-end processes from invoice data extraction to general record-keeping.
ICR technology when combined with RPA can leverage a lot of corporate benefits. For instance, when the paper-based record is converted into digital form, the required fields are matched against the requirements in the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. The RPA-based solution can evaluate the data and carry out operations without the need for human assistance.
To Wrap It Up
- Businesses are banking on technology trends like RPA and ICR to make their daily operation smooth and streamlined
- AI-powered OCR, also called ICR technology, allows enterprises to better manage their resources and time
- ICR solutions enable smart receipt management for accounts payable in the finance sector
- ICR-based systems have better accuracy and passing rate than the classic OCR engines
