The concept of document capture or document scanning has
been around for some time but the ability to capture the data from a document
is a more recent development.
Businesses are now shifting away from manual data entry to
automated data capture. Manual data entry is time consuming, labour intensive,
slow and expensive. Automating information gathering is by far the preferred
option as it is fast, accurate and inexpensive. The speed at which information
can be fed into a system, for example, for invoicing purposes, can seriously
affect cash flow. The faster data is collected, the quicker the money will come
in. Data capture can also have an impact on product to market time and can help
you stay ahead of competitors.
One of the most popular ways of collecting data is to use
OCR (optical character recognition) which ‘reads’ and interprets information
contained in a document an integrates it into an information system. There are,
however, other means of capturing data such as the digital pen. This device
looks and feels much like a traditional ball point pen and is used in
conjunction with special paper which has been overlaid with a series of tiny
dots invisible to the eye. It is particularly effective for field workers who spend a lot of time form filling. As soon
as all the fields have been completed the data can be instantly uploaded to an
office IT System for processing, thus eliminating the need to manually input
the information which has been collected. The digital pen is used widely by
insurance companies, logistics companies, the NHS and the Police.
For further information about data capture and the various
solutions available, please contact the IPC Group on 08081 45 46 47 or click here
for a fast response quotation.