The Invoice Automation Revolution

Businesses are inundated with invoices. Whilst most invoices are received in digital formats such as PDF, scanned image, or email, which makes physical storage less relevant for businesses, one major problem persists: how do businesses cost effectively leverage the data hidden in digitized invoices to their advantage?

Business invoices hold data that is crucial to accounting, resource planning, customer relationship management, and business intelligence teams.? ?Yet invoice data needs to be extracted and transferred into a variety of business applications before it becomes valuable. ?This often happens at great expense in terms of time, money and frustration, with staff manually copying and pasting data from invoices into business applications. ?

This does not have to be the case.? In this article, we delve into world of invoice automation. Invoice Capture Software?is a tailored?invoice automation solution that can save businesses a lot of time and cost.? We explore how IDP, OCR and IA are transforming traditional manual invoice processing and paving the way for greater efficiency and accuracy in financial workflows.

Unlocking Financial Efficiency.

The field of invoice processing has undergone a remarkable transformation, as the digitalization of the workplace continues at pace. Cutting-edge technologies such as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Zonal Optical Character Recognition (ZOCR) technology, and Intelligent Automation (IA) has transformed the way businesses handle invoices. Modern invoice capture and automation platforms are helping businesses automate their invoice workflow processes quickly and cost effectively.? If your business receives an invoice via PDF, email, scanned image, photo, fax or even snail mail, you can save hours of time manually extracting invoice data by using a secure, cloud based document automated invoice extraction platform such as Docparser.??

Docparser recognizes all the key data fields in your invoices, captures and parses it automatically and then passes this newly structured data into other applications such as an ERP finance system such as QuickBooks, CRM like Salesforce, or event spreadsheets.? Gone are the days of having to manually re-key invoice data into other applications.

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How does Invoice Capture Software work?

It is relatively easy to train invoice capture software to reliably recognize and extract data fields from an invoice. Docparser, for example, offers a powerful, easy-to-use?invoice processing?solution and a fully functional invoice parser that can be set up in a couple of minutes. ??For other data fields you want to extract, Docparser’s simple point-and-click methods enable anyone within the organization to point to the key data fields that need extracted

If you have more invoice templates, then you can quickly train Docparser?to securely parse the relevant invoice data by creating parsing rules for each layout – choose from a selection of rule templates or create your own rules. A parsing rule is a set of instructions which tells our algorithms what kind of data you are looking for.

Alternatively, Docparser provides a wide variety of prebuilt parsing rule templates for all kind of business use-cases.? For example, when choosing ?‘Invoice' as the document type, Docparser automatically creates parsing rules which extract the invoice date, the invoice number and the totals (Net, Tax, Carriage, Total). ?

Figure 1: Docparser allows you to extract data from a table in an invoice in a matter of minutes ?

You can add more instructions to a parsing rule, such as formatting a date, cropping or modifying words, etc. until your extracted data matches exactly the format you need. And that’s it!? Once trained, all future invoice documents that have the same layout will be recognized and the invoice processing software will automatically extract data in a structured format for further business use.?

In addition, you can set up a recurring process to automatically retrieve invoice documents, process them, and convert them into your preferred format (e.g., Excel, CSV, JSON or XML).? Or, if you prefer, Docparser offers excellent direct integrations with?Google Spreadsheets?or?Salesforce CRM, OneDrive, Excel, Box, and more.?

It also connects to?thousands of other cloud-based services?and ‘low-code / no-code’ automation platforms.? And with the help of Docparser’s in-built cloud integrations, automatically sending your invoice data to your ERP system, or any other software is easily accomplished. ?

Docparser enables non-programmers to connect services and automate business processes, including Zapier, Workato, MS Power Automate, and more.? ?For example, you can also use Docparser Zapier integration to automatically create QuickBooks Online invoices from data parsed via Docparser.

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Docparser?is an uncomplicated application that can be learned in no time at all. Most importantly, time saved inputting data, can be reinvested in more valuable, complex, or strategic work.

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When do automated invoice scanning solutions fail?

Automated invoice scanning solutions usually work best when the invoice format is familiar. When you have hundreds or possibly thousands of different invoice formats, training a computer system?for each layout based on specific fixed field location many not be practical and another approach may be required.?

Instead of training invoice OCR scanning software based on the fixed field location of the data points, intelligent filters can be?used which find specific data fields in variable locations. The way these filters work is by identifying entities such as numbers and then searching for typical keywords close by. For example, the keyword ‘Total Due’ followed by a dollar amount would be considered as the invoice total. ??

That said, extracting line items presented in a table may be less reliable due to the fact different tables may contain different types of data. Yet, even this challenge can be bypassed by adding an additional layer of human data validation to your invoicing process.? ?The way this method works, is to allow the computer system do the heavy lifting and then have a ‘person’ validate your data.?

Another alternative is?outsourcing. ?Manual data entry can be done in-house if you only need to process a couple of invoices per month. ?But if you need to?process hundreds of different invoices,?and don’t want to use invoice capture software, then you could think about outsourcing the task. Inevitably, outsourcing comes with other issues such as data security, processing time, and the overhead of finding a service provider, but it can work for some companies!

To sum it up…

Whether or not your invoice automation project will become a success or a source of frustration, heavily depends on you and the technology solutions you choose. Gone are the days of paper filing cabinets that used to occupy precious office space. Today’s business processes are digitalized and most incoming invoices, are received in digital format.

In a world inundated with invoices - refining secure methods to interact with and manage the data trapped within them is essential.? Businesses that embrace cloud based document ingestion applications, such as Docparser, are not only automating their invoice processes; they are adopting a secure, error free and comprehensive approach to financial data management and business decision making.?

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Try Docparser for free?today and see the results for yourself.

If you want to see Docparser in action then visit Docparser.com

You may also like to read It’s time to get very excited about boring AI – Kieran Gilmurray or Revolutionizing Logistics: The Power of AI-Driven Data Extraction & Automation