Though the concept of a paperless office emerged decades ago, there are still many business setups that are paper oriented and yet to embrace digitization. The major challenge for adapting a complete digital solution is because the suppliers are still skeptical about whether to switch to e-invoicing and e-document processing due to the high costs involved. With the growing number of invoices, business organizations often find it challenging to maintain proper records of their purchases. Invoices in paper format are difficult to store. Businesses can handle their invoice processes efficiently by digitizing these records with the help of document scanning services.
Invoices received by businesses are vital data that is necessary for accounting, business intelligence applications and resource planning. Accounting departments often stack up paper invoices on desks or in huge fining cabinets and accessing and locating them is difficult. This affects the organization’s efficiency and workflow. Scanning invoices and converting them to electronic format is the best way to access and leverage the data they contain. Converting invoices into digital format makes it possible to recognize and extract the vital data.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology extracts the text from a digital image of invoices and documents. OCR enables a computer to interpret a human readable document and get data from it. It can recognize handwritten invoices and convert them into machine-readable format. Previously, the first step to digitizing was document scanning and archiving. The introduction of OCR technology has made it possible to extract data efficiently from structured and semi-structured data. OCR transforms serial numbers or codes consisting of numbers into digital format.
Advantages of Scanning Invoices
- Avoid Manual Inputting of Data: Manual data entry is time consuming and comes with risk of typing errors. Scanning with OCR enables accurate capture of critical data from invoices.
- Quick Access to Data: By digitizing critical invoice data, all information like client or vendor name and address, invoice date, amount due, purchase order number, etc are available at your staff’s fingertips. Manual filing is no longer required. This not only saves your staff’s time, but also saves on the costs typically associated with paper-based filing systems, such as office space, filing cabinets, and printing costs.
- Faster Payment Times: Scanning helps automate accounts payable and accounts receivable. This ensures that you’ll never miss another due date or pay a late fee. When you’re on the receiving end, digital payment processes help you get paid faster through streamlined billing processes and also helps your customer make paperless payment.
- Find Everything Faster: By scanning and digitizing invoices, you no longer need to waste time searching through several cabinets of paper based records. Scanning puts all of your invoices at your fingertips away with a simple keyword search.
- Better Visibility: In most accounts payable processes, the staff has very little control over incoming invoices. They don’t have proper access to real-time data. By scanning invoices, you get instant access to invoices in one central location which helps you better track and manage all your costs.
- Reduces Security Risks: Scanning invoices can protect these sensitive and confidential documents. With digital copies of the documents and authentication, only the right people would have access to those records. This will ensure better control over the documents and their security.
If you have huge volumes of invoices and wish to convert them into electronic format, the ideal solution is to approach a document conversion company. Established companies offer bulk document scanning services for all types of records.
