Does your business run on documents?

Every business has contracts, purchase orders (POs) and invoices, but what about all the other documents?

• Quotes
• Shipping Documents
• Delivery Notes / Proof of Delivery
• Consignment Notes
• Waybills
• Bills of lading
• Certificates of Origin
• Receipt Notes
• Packing lists
• Insurance Certificates
• Dangerous Goods Declarations
• Quality Control Checks
• Inspection Reports / Dimensional Inspection Reports
• Technical Specifications

Does each document require manual effort to process even though it is a digital document? 

Do your compliance processes require documents to be supplied? 

The activity to process each document generally includes:

🟢opening the document with an appropriate application

🟢finding data values in the contents

🟢using the information in combination with existing data held in computer applications

🟢determining the business action to be undertaken. 

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 in office environments, usually perform the work to process the documents. 

There has to be a 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 by staff. 

Image how many hours a team of say 5 staff use each week processing purchase orders from clients, extracting data and entering it into an ERP system. Is that a good use of their time?

In tightly integrated supply chains full EDI transmission is often used so that manual activity is not required. Not many industries have good quality EDI across the supply chain. 

In other situations, Process Automation can be achieved through the use “Document Understanding”. This uses sophisticated techniques including AI to extract the data for use in the processes. 

People are very good at viewing documents, understanding context and identifying the data required for processing. The documents are structured, partly structured or total free format. 

Process Automation can be supplemented by people to review / confirm information when confidence thresholds are not met, there can be significant processing benefits. 

Junior staff are normally taught how to perform the process and use the “WDWDLT” approach (“What Did We Do Last Time”). 

This recognises that the majority of business activity involves performing the same actions as have been followed before. The definition of a process which is repeatable. Often known as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). 

It is this same logic that is applied with Process Automation executing the “Document Understanding”. 

Automation offers a route to handle the routine business documents. 

With a growing number of documents arriving at a business each day, employing more and more staff to perform routine processing, is not a good business solution. 

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 with any growth in the volume of documents arriving. 

How many documents will your business process this week?

More than 100?

More than 1,000?

More than 10,000?