Tech

OCR and ICR Technology: It’s Time To Say GoodBye To Manual Data Entry

Document management is an essential part of project-based businesses, and with the right system in place, these businesses can easily organize all essential data. But a lot of businesses use scanning technology that only produces a photo of a document. Therefore, unless a company staff manually adds this information, the photo cannot provide the full data present in the document, such as the customer invoice amount, date, name, etc.

 

The market has recently seen new scanning techniques that can “read” a document and gather the necessary metadata to make the file searchable. OCR and ICR are the technologies that reduce the time needed for an employee to manually search for and add that information. Various companies routinely automate their recurring tasks using these strategies.

OCR vs. ICR – What is the Difference?

With the help of optical character recognition (OCR) systems, computers can convert a paper document into a digitally editable format like PDF. A conventional office scanner, on the other hand, can only scan & reproduce an unchanged digital image. OCR works best for businesses with a fixed document structure. It is limited to matching games involving shapes, patterns, and colors. This becomes difficult when attempting to read handwritten human cursive or intricate fonts, like those found on forms & other documents. ICR can be useful in this situation.

 

Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) is an enhanced version of OCR because it serves the same purpose. It converts scanned paper documents into editable digital files. ICR is different from OCR in that it uses AI and ML to read and comprehend handwriting and unconventional fonts. ICR is adaptable and better suited for circumstances like those involving invoices, where formatting is subject to frequent change. 

How Do OCR and ICR Technologies Work?

OCR and ICR enable systems to read and recognize text embedded in images, convert that text into an editable document that can be searched, and do all of this without the need for human intervention. It makes sense to assume that a computer could finish this task fairly quickly since it only requires humans to read text, which they can do with relative ease.

In reality, getting a computer program to accurately identify text and convert it into an editable format is a very challenging task, made more complex by a lot of factors. The issue is that a computer only recognizes pixels as distinct features when it examines a photo, not objects like text, faces, or backgrounds. AI text recognition technology assists computers in distinguishing text by instructing them on which patterns to search for.

Regretfully, even this isn’t as simple as it seems. This is due to the large number of text font variations that each represent the same characters in a unique way. 

The Benefits of ICR and OCR for Large Organizations

Large organizations can benefit from ICR and OCR in many different ways, including:

  1. Boost the accuracy and Speed of Data Entry

Human error can occur during manual data entry, which is both expensive and labour-intensive. OCR solutions help to digitize data sources and facilitate their import into a system, eliminating the need for manual database entry.

  1. Process Automation

Large corporations and firms generate a massive amount of paperwork. The OCR ICR reader improves productivity and saves time. For instance, invoices and bills can be added to an automated workflow process that gives a speedy experience from receipt to online delivery to the right internal departments.

  1. Improved Form Management

It is frequently difficult and time-consuming to manage manually filled-out forms. Firms can digitize those documents and produce searchable text using OCR and ICR.

  1. Increased Security

Document digitization improves security while reducing the number of staff members who have access to sensitive information. Additionally, it stops employees from unintentionally throwing confidential company documents into the trash.

  1. Backup of Data

OCR and ICR provide a minimally sized digital backup for documents that can be misplaced or damaged. In addition, searching through the digitized data is faster than manually looking in the storage area dedicated to documents.

Conclusion

OCR and ICR technologies have the capabilities to address the problems in today’s workplace. Many firms employ it to automate the procedure of data extraction from any type of document. The data is entered into the program, where it is securely kept for future data analysis. It is the most wanted solution for all businesses due to its accuracy. OCR and ICR algorithms efficiently extract data in a matter of seconds. It is easy to integrate these technologies with ones that are already in use. 

Numerous organizations frequently automate their routine tasks using OCR ICR software. The time-consuming manual data entry process is no longer necessary.  As a result, the employees can apply their abilities and skills to other tasks. It is important because later on, the knowledge aids in forecasting and improving understanding.

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