Document-heavy organizations will agree – enterprise document management is quite a nerve-wracking task, riddled with challenges. Processing and maintaining documents consumes a lot of productive hours, which employees could have otherwise used to serve more valued purposes. The chances of losing important files, extracting and updating incorrect data on the spreadsheet are always high. Then there are risks of digital file management chaos, high document process cycle time, version control, and unavailability of accurate information when needed. Given the current challenging scenario, document processing automation seems like the best bet for all.
Shortcomings of traditional document processing
Paper document-centric industries like banks, healthcare, and other enterprises share one common problem – the unavailability of crucial data on time. Enterprise data plays a significant role in placing organizations ahead of the market competition through strategic decisions and proper implementations. But enterprise data stays hidden amidst piles of paper documents. The legacy approach demands that employees convert those documents into their digital state and extract information accordingly. Unfortunately, humans make mistakes and easily overlook granular subtleties while extracting data. The data thus pulled paints a half-hearted picture of the actual reality, impairing proper and adequate decision-making. New-age technologies like Automation and AI have the power to dive deep into the core of the documents and fetch insights that carry more value. The following is the list of issues document processing automation is designed to override:
- Storage issue: Manual document filing takes up a lot of space for storage.
- Easily damaged: These paper documents are vulnerable to damage, loss, or misplaced.
- Time-intensive: Even converting paper documents into digital format takes a lot of time.
- Difficult to edit: For paper documents, edits are hard to manage and follow a lengthy process. Contrarily, errors in digital files are easily rectified. But manual extraction increases the time spent on rectification.
- Access time: Filing, organizing, and digitalizing documents by human staff are by themselves laborious and time-consuming. But the real challenge arises when certain information is searched for, and with improper documentation or categorization, that job resembles searching for a needle in a haystack.
- Lack of security: Physical documents can be easily cloned or stolen. The same security risk remains high with their digital versions in the absence of a secure and robust infrastructure.
- Higher cost: Last but not least, manual document filing adds to the company’s overhead cost for multiple reasons. And even a cloud software system for document storage might not go easy on the pocket.
7 Reasons for choosing document processing automation
There are varied reasons why document processing automation is the need of the hour. Here are five compelling ones to assist in your decision-making:
- Eliminating human errors: Involving too many heads in the same task to speed up the process will only leave behind a trail of error. That can prove costly for the enterprise. But automation is not inherently inclined to cause mistakes. The software solution follows pre-programmed rules and executes functions without any deviation. Hence, the responsibility of document management and data extraction is done seamlessly without any downtime or mistake.
- Saving productive hours: Sharing the burden of processing complex documents of varying formats spares employees of mundane tasks. Document processing automation does that on behalf of in-house staff. As a result, the latter can better utilize the time bandwidth to focus on areas that require immediate attention and skills.
- Optimizing resources effectively: With reference to the above point, enterprises find optimal ways to put their resources to proper usage – time, talent, and cost.
- Removing data silos: Data silos refer to business information retained within each process but not shared across teams. Mostly, such valuable data remains unused or forgotten inside office systems or within long email trails. With document processing automation, such insights are captured and stored in a secure, centralized repository easily accessible by authorized users.
- Boosting collaboration and accessibility: Document automation tools enable employees to process and use documents wherever they are. This fosters team collaboration, an essential ingredient for remote or hybrid work modules. In addition, a few software solutions allow cloud storage of documents, making data available on time.
- Addressing the burden of paper and email trail: Paper documents and files are already receding in the past, courtesy of digital solutions. However, emails remain one of the primary modes of business communication. In addition, so many insights are shared daily via emails. Without proper automation tools, manually scanning every email trail, extracting data and shared documents, and storing them in the centralized system is a lengthy and inefficient process. Proper tech-enabled platforms relieve employees from the burden of surfing through each trail for important documents. The whole task is automated, streamlined, and accelerated with document automation.
- Generating profit: When employees are released from recurring, mundane, and long-haul document management tasks or searching data, they reinvest their time where it counts. Document processing automation allows enterprises to put their resources into sales, marketing, and customer service that generate profit for the business as a whole.
What is document processing automation?
Automated document processing comes with in-built capabilities that harness the power of AI and Automation to process, store, and manage documents effectively. With the right tools in place, such platforms can also handle data extraction tasks effectively. And cloud-based document processing automation software accelerates digital transformation initiatives of organizations. Because documents and data play a primary role in scaling an enterprise’s digital transformation journey, uplifting these areas with tech-enabled solutions should be the priority. Hence, document automation is strategically the first step taken towards it.
Document AI platforms like XtractEdge provide a purpose-built document extraction, processing, and comprehension solution that readily apply to most enterprise scenarios. Furthermore, with advanced AI capabilities like Machine Learning and Deep Learning, software tools optimize the document extraction, processing, and comprehension pipeline to help enterprises unlock business value faster.
Document processing automation best practices
Regardless of the types of documents to process, there are a few best practices to observe to prevent time-consuming, costly problems later. Here are a few tips to consider:
- Eradicate manual practices
- Choose secured cloud storage
- Limit access for compliance
- Automate document workflow lifecycle
- Implement version control
- Create comprehensive audit trails
- Define user-specific roles and responsibilities
- Enable data privacy initiatives
Benefits of document processing automation
The key benefits of automating document processing are the most obvious ones, and they are as follows:
- Processing documents faster
- Handling unstructured documents
- Proper document storage and management
- Increasing data accuracy
- Enhancing data security
- Reducing operational costs
- Optimum utilization of resources
Conclusion
Managing complex documents in bulk has always been challenging for enterprises, regardless of which industry they fall under. And extracting and making quality data available on time is another one. Document processing automation is probably the best discovery for organizations and their employees. Its benefits are far-reaching. As technology advances with each passing day, the future of document management looks promising. Automating document processing is probably the first strategic step towards it – an essential milestone for organizations in their quest for digital transformation.
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