How AI-powered Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) can help with digitalization

It’s Monday morning, and your inbox is already overflowing. Your desk is buried under a mountain of invoices, contracts, and reports. You’re not alone. Studies show the average knowledge worker spends 20% of their time just searching for information – that’s one full day a week!

If this sounds familiar, then it’s time to consider Intelligent Document Processing. IDP leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to extract, classify, and validate data from your documents with incredible speed and accuracy.

Intelligent Document Processing is a powerful tool that can declutter your business, freeing up valuable time and resources.

With IDP, your invoices are processed automatically, contracts are analyzed efficiently, and customer data is neatly organized. Employees are more productive, your bottom line improves, and you might finally have time to tackle that ever-growing to-do list.

What is Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and why it might be useful?

In simple terms, Intelligence Document Processing is a technology that uses AI to understand and extract information from various types of documents using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), NLP (Natural Learning Processing) and ML (Machine Learning). It’s not just about scanning; it’s about making sense of the content within those documents and turning unstructured data into what really matters – simple, easy to find, organized information.

Intelligent Document Processing in Action: Real-World Examples

IDP isn’t just a buzzword; Here are a few real-world examples on where is it actively used:

• Finance: Automate invoice processing, expense reports, and financial statement analysis.
• Healthcare: Streamline patient records, claims processing, and medical coding.
• Legal: Speed up contract review, due diligence, and eDiscovery.
• Human Resources: Automate resume screening, onboarding paperwork, and employee data management.

The Business Case for IDP: Why It’s Worth Your Investment

Implementing IDP is one of the pillars of digital transformation for companies of all sizes and a key business process automation aspect. Here’s why it’s a smart move:

• Efficiency: Intelligent document processing automates repetitive tasks, freeing up your employees to focus on more strategic work.
• Accuracy: It minimizes human error, ensuring data is extracted and processed correctly.
• Cost Savings: By reducing manual labor and errors, IDP can significantly cut down on operational costs.
• Faster Decision-Making: IDP provides quick access to critical information, enabling faster and more informed decision-making.
• Improved Compliance: It helps ensure that your documentation processes comply with regulations and industry standards.
• Competitive Advantage: By streamlining operations and gaining insights from your data, you can stay ahead of the competition.

IDP for Every Budget and Business Size – No Matter Where You’re Hustling

Whether you’re a startup bootstrapping in a basement or a Fortune 500 company with offices around the globe, there’s an IDP solution that fits your needs and budget. Let’s break it down:

For Startups with a key focus on AI business process automation:

If you’re a lean, mean, document-processing machine, chances are you’re looking for a solution that’s as nimble and affordable as your business. Luckily, there are plenty of user-friendly, cloud-based intelligent document processing tools designed with startups in mind.

These tools often have pay-as-you-go pricing, require minimal setup, and offer pre-built templates for common document types like invoices and receipts. They might not have all the bells and whistles of enterprise-grade platforms, but they can still pack a powerful punch when it comes to automating your document workflows. Start small and grow it based on your needs.

Popular picks for startups:

• Staple AI: This intuitive tool excels at extracting data from structured documents like invoices and forms.
• Amazon Textract: Backed by Amazon’s cloud infrastructure, Textract offers a scalable and cost-effective solution for extracting text and data from virtually any document.

These plug-and-play tools are perfect for businesses looking for a quick and easy entry into the world of IDP.

Advantages:

• Pre-built templates and workflows: Designed for common document types like invoices, receipts, and forms.
• User-friendly interfaces: Easy to learn and use, even for non-technical users.
• Affordable pricing: Often available on a subscription basis or with pay-as-you-go options.
• Quick implementation: Get up and running in a matter of days or weeks.

Disadvantages:

• Limited customization: May not be able to handle complex or unique document types.
• Scalability constraints: Might not be suitable for large volumes of documents or complex workflows.

Large enterprise solutions

If you’re dealing with a tsunami of documents and complex workflows, you’ll need a more robust Intelligent Document Processing solution that can handle the volume and complexity. Enterprise-grade IDP platforms or customized solutions offer features like:

• Customization: Tailor the solution to your specific document types and business processes.
• Scalability: Handle large volumes of documents and integrate with your existing enterprise systems.
• Security: Protect sensitive information with advanced security features.
• Advanced analytics: Gain insights from your document data to drive better decision-making.

Industry leaders for enterprise:

• IBM Datacap: A powerful solution for capturing, processing, and managing high volumes of documents.
• ABBYY FlexiCapture: A comprehensive IDP platform known for its accuracy and flexibility.
• Kofax TotalAgility: Offers a wide range of intelligent automation capabilities, including IDP, RPA, and process orchestration.

Custom-Built IDP Solutions: Tailor-Made for Your Unique Needs

If your document processing needs are more complex or unique, a custom-built solution might be the way to go. These solutions are tailored to your specific requirements and can handle a wider range of document types and workflows.

Advantages:

• Complete customization: Designed to match your specific document types, workflows, and business processes.
• High accuracy: Built using machine learning models trained on your own data, resulting in more accurate data extraction.
• Scalability: Can be easily scaled to handle large volumes of documents and complex workflows.
• Integration: Seamlessly integrates with your existing systems and applications.

Disadvantages:

• Higher upfront costs: Requires an investment in development and implementation.
• Longer implementation time: Can take several months to build and deploy a custom solution.
• Technical expertise: Requires skilled machine learning engineers to build and maintain the solution.

Choosing the right IDP solution requires a logical process and in-depth consideration – it needs to fit your needs and your budget. Whether you’re a startup or an enterprise, there’s an IDP solution out there that can help you streamline your document processing, save time and money, and free up your team to focus on more important tasks.

Steps for implementing an Intelligent Document Processing Solution:

Step 1: Define Your Document Goals

Map out your document landscape and how the workflows should be. What specific pain points do you want to solve? Are you buried in invoices? Struggling with contracts? Overwhelmed by customer data?

Define a clear strategy, workflows and the end ideal goal to solve your pain points – consider 2nd and 3rd order of consequences, not only immediate results.

Step 2: Choose the IDP solution – Off-the-Shelf or Custom-Built?

This will boil down to your budget, needs and timelines that you are aiming for. There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides. Choose wisely, discuss and negotiate with vendors and make your choices based on your strategy defined in Step 1.

Step 3: Structuring and preparing your data for Intelligent document processing

No matter which IDP solution you choose, proper preparation is key to a smooth implementation. Here’s how to get started:

• Gather and organize your documents: Make sure your documents are digital and organized logically. This makes processing easier for the IDP software.
• Clean and standardize your data: Ensure your documents are error-free and consistent. This improves the accuracy of data extraction.
• Define your data fields: Determine what information you want to extract. This helps configure the software to capture the right data.
• Train your model (for custom solutions): If you’re using a custom-built solution, you’ll need to train the machine learning model to recognize and extract the relevant data. This involves providing the model with labeled examples of the data you want to extract.

The Bottom Line:

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to automating your document processing and reaping fully the benefits of Intelligent Data Processing.

By identifying your needs and goals, you can choose the right IDP solution and tailor it to your unique workflows. Remember, IDP isn’t one-size-fits-all, so defining your objectives is the stepping stone for smart decision making.

Why is Intelligent Document Processing important in the age of AI?

In the age of digital transformation, where data is the new oil, mastering your documents is non-negotiable. Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) isn’t just a trend; it’s a necessity for businesses that want to stay competitive, efficient, and profitable.

Whether you’re a startup manually dealing with invoices or an enterprise overseeing thousands of contracts (contracts with thousands of pages, usually), Intelligent document processing offers some huge help. It’s time to ditch the paper cuts, the lost files, and the endless hours wasted on manual data entry.

Artificial Intelligence has the ability to support with multiple business process automation and intelligent document processing is one of them (probably one of the most time-consuming). Best part? You can liberate your employees, and unlock valuable insights from your data. Remember, in the world of business, time is money, and every minute spent wrestling with paperwork is a minute lost on growth and innovation.