Digitize documents end-to-end – do you know how?
Digitalization is advancing inexorably in companies of all sizes in all sectors. And this is happening in all departments and at a sometimes rapid pace of transformation. But where do companies stand in the Digitization of your documents? After all, intelligent digital solutions open up high savings potential in this area in particular thanks to efficient, lean and agile processes. The switch from paper and folders to digital files, workflows and archives is not only far less error-prone, it also speeds up the entire document workflow. This makes it a profitable digitization factor that companies should use across the board.
Numerous companies shy away from the changeover
Nevertheless, too many companies still shy away from such a changeover. This was the result of a survey that we conducted together with the market researchers from Statista: Only just under half of the companies surveyed use digital solutions to manage their documents intelligently. The potential for increasing efficiency in this area is therefore still enormous. The reasons for this are usually complex, because if a company decides to manage its documents digitally from end to end, it has to rethink tried-and-tested processes and fundamentally change existing structures. What’s more, many companies do not even have the know-how about the opportunities offered by digital technologies. At the same time, companies are required to implement innovations and new technologies in ever shorter cycles in order to remain competitive – numerous business processes in companies are therefore increasingly technology-based. These aspects are also reflected in digital document management. Technological innovations open up a wide range of options.
IDP facilitates the transition and reduces barriers
For this reason, and to make this change easier for you, we have developed a solution for Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). This enables you to create digital, user-friendly document workflows with little effort. You can use IDP to convert scanned documents, such as your invoices, ID cards, payslips, PDF files or even insurance contracts, into categorized and machine-readable formats. Manual processing is completely eliminated. The tool is characterized by a user-friendly interface and can be operated without in-depth IT skills. The extraction of information can be fully automated using IDP.
Artificial intelligence supports digital processes
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) and workflow automation are used for this purpose. These ensure that human skills in identifying, classifying and processing documents are imitated. But our IDP solution can do even more: unwanted interference, image effects and rotations can be easily removed. We adapt the OCR engine used precisely to your requirements. Our IDP solution also reliably checks the accuracy of read-out data such as addresses. It can also be easily integrated into your existing IT infrastructure via a flexible API.
Best practice: IDP tool from PTA
Our AI specialists have developed a special tool for automatically extracting information from documents, known as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). The artificial intelligence functionalities used are based on an OCR engine that can read information on the structure, key values and entities. Accurate text recognition is crucial for such an IDP solution to work reliably.
To evaluate the performance of different OCR tools in a software evaluation we carried out a manual evaluation. The following solutions were tested:
- Microsoft Azure OCR
- Google Document AI
- Salesforce OCR
- Tesseract OCR (Open Source)
The methodology: what we tested
As part of our performance test, we investigated the fundamental question of how OCR and intelligent document processing (IDP) are connected in the first place. Intelligent Document Processing uses OCR as a fundamental technology, but goes far beyond this. By using artificial intelligence and machine learning, IDP is able to extract information on structure, key values and entities. Form recognition using machine learning, which is based on an AI service, plays a central role here. It was precisely this aspect that we examined and evaluated more closely in our test:
Form recognition with artificial intelligence
The form recognition OCR engine contains a version of the read model optimized for documents, while more complex tasks are solved by other models with artificial intelligence. The selection of the appropriate model depends on the type of document to be analyzed and includes both predefined and user-defined options. Form recognition currently supports the following predefined models:
- Read model: Extraction of text lines, words, positions, languages and handwriting from various document formats (PDF, TIFF) and image formats (JPG, PNG, BMP). The Read model is also the basic model for the other models.
- Layout model: Extraction of text, tables, selection markers and structural information from documents (PDF, TIFF) and images (JPG, PNG, BMP).
- General document: Extract text, tables, structures, key-value pairs and named entities.
- W-2 model: Extract text and important information from W-2 tax forms.
- Invoice: Extract text, selection marks, tables, key-value pairs and important information from invoices.
- Document: Extract text and important information from documents.
- ID document: Extract text and important information from driver’s licenses and passports.
- Business card: Extract text and important information from business cards.
In addition to the use of predefined models, form recognition also offers the option of configuring user-defined models.
Take advantage of our many years of digitization expertise and take your document management to a new, digital evolutionary level:
