Data capture is the process of extracting information from paper or electronic documents and converting it into data for key systems. It’s where most organizations begin their information management and digital transformation journey.
Automated data capture solutions reduce manual data entry and help control the chaos of paper-based processes. Workforces can easily collect relevant data from multiple forms of content and use it for designated workflows.
How does data capture work in an enterprise information platform?
By employing and maintaining a single enterprise information platform with data capture features, organizations reduce costs, accelerate processes and improve customer service.
With connected systems, employees working from anywhere have access to accurate information by:
- Electronically identifying and classifying documents
- Capturing data from documents
- Ensuring users only see the information they need
- Indexing data for ease of search and retrieval
- Validating data
- Easily updating core systems with incoming information through integrations
This provides staff with the most up-to-date, accurate information when they need it, without redundancies inherent in working with multiple systems. Employees are able to focus on more high-level tasks and customer service.
When used alongside the platform’s content management and process automation and workflow capabilities, the capture process can be configured to occur at any point in a document’s lifecycle.
How does data capture benefit the whole enterprise?
Incorporating these automated capabilities into workflows offers fast, tangible benefits including:
Reduces handling of physical paper: In a remote work setting, digital documents are a must. This method of data processing eliminates the need to transport piles of documents around the office and between buildings, as well as storage, courier and file destruction costs.
Paperwork processes become simpler and easier by capturing documents where they originate, on a wide variety of devices, without the need to manually sort or insert separator pages prior to the scanning stage. Staff can use these tools to automatically sort and identify documents, and they can be configured to deliver electronic documents to designated recipients.
Speeds the capture of electronic documents: Using intelligent capture technology like Brainware results in an even faster and easier capture process.
Intelligent capture:
- Reads machine-printed characters, hand-printed characters, barcodes and marks like check boxes and filled circles
- Captures all file formats (like Word, Excel and images) automatically from email inboxes and file-sharing services
- Imports documents directly from most applications, further streamlining workflows
Eliminates manual data entry: Organizations reduce errors as well as the most tedious aspects of paperwork processing. That means employees won’t have to manually process business checks, or go through mail to extract information.
Even for a small team, reducing the manual data entry effort surrounding document processing lowers labor costs, accelerates business processes and improves customer service by ensuring employees have up-to-date information at their fingertips. Scaling these capabilities across a larger department or organization yields even better results.
