Invoice Scanning and Data Capture Explained

There are in existence a wide range of data capture and invoice scanning equipment that nowadays are commonplace to a number of commercial sectors. These may rely on differing devices depending on the type and use of the information that needs to be collected.

Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) is the identifying of predetermined data and recording it without the need for human involvement. These AIDC devices can include bar code machines, radio frequency identification devices RFID, OCR optical recognisers, magnetic strip readers, smart cards and biometric readers, which can identify iris patterns on the eye and facial features.

The markets for which such data capture devices are used is wide ranging. Scanning processes from livestock identification, digitising scanning documents and files, passport control and retail processing all include AIDC systems. These sectors regularly employ data capture machines that ensure a company's smooth and efficient operations, speed up customer processing and save space.

The main areas in which these machines are used are office environments where data from paper documents is processed onto databases or saved as files. There are a number of data capture devices that are used to manipulate different data sources.

OCR - print recognition systems
ICR - hand written recognition systems
OMR - optical mark recognition, such as surveys and exam questions
OBR - optical bar code recognition
BCR - business card recognition

The data that is acquired can be categorised into three sectors, structured documents such as insurance forms, tax documentation, questionnaires and test. Semi structured which comprises information such as invoices and purchase orders, and unstructured information in the form of letters, articles and contracts. Through these recognition systems all of these types of data and documentation can be converted to an electronic format, saved, transferred and interpreted as required.

The technology exists to make many dreaded clerical and administrative tasks easier and obsolete. The profusion of machines that once data has been captured will banish dreaded jobs like filing and archiving making office work a lot simpler.

Before you spend money on invoice scanning, make sure you have a look at Alex Hunt excellent free resource on Invoice Scanning, and Invoice Data Capture

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Invoice-Scanning-and-Data-Capture-Explained&id=4351760

Implementing a Data Capture System - Thin Or Thick Client?

Not Choosing Wisely When Deciding on a Thick or Thin Client Solution

Whenever I hear the phrase "Not choosing wisely" or some variation of that I am always reminded of the third Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail movie and the scene when the Knight that is guarding the Holy Grail in the cave says "He chose poorly". This was after the German colonel died when drinking the water from the wrong cup. In the world of client/server architecture, it is important to 'choose wisely' when you are determining if it will be the client or the server that handles the bulk of the workload. By client, we mean the application that runs on a personal computer or workstation and relies on a server to perform operations. While they share similarities, there are many differences between thick and thin clients. By the way, we refer to thick and thin as the hardware (e.g., how a PC communicates with the server), but the terms are also used to describe applications. In a nut shell, a thick client application is run from a central location or server while a thin client application can be run remotely from various locations like branch offices or military depots. And while the marketplace provides both thick and thin client data capture applications in various shapes and sizes knowing how to choose which one is right for your business and budget is critical.

Thin Clients

A thin client is designed to be especially small so that the bulk of the data processing occurs on the server. Although the term thin client often refers to software, it is increasingly used for the computers, such as network computers and Net PCs, which are designed to serve as the clients for client/server architectures. A thin client is a network computer which operates without the need for a hard disk drive. They act as a simple terminal to the server and require constant communication with the server as well. With a data capture system the actual capture of the document initially lives on the computer of the thin client, but is saved to the server. The thin client (web page) application can then instruct the server what to do to the document or what indexes to save. In areas of slow network response, the thin client software can be scheduled to send the captured documents to the server at certain times of the day or night when network traffic is light.

A thin client data capture solution may be right for you if you have branch offices or distributed remote locations and you want to be able to capture and process data at those locations rather than shipping the paperwork to a central processing center. In this case you can lower your costs and enhance your security (no lost papers in the mail) by scanning and capturing remotely. Additionally, by accessing the capture application through a Web browser, there is no software to install and configure at each user's computer, leading to easier scalability and a lower initial and ongoing technology investment. Both named user seat licenses and concurrent user licenses are available in the thin client marketplace but our advice is to find a concurrent user model, especially if you have several remote locations or branches.

Thick Clients

In contrast, a thick client (also called a fat client) is one that will perform the bulk of the processing in client/server applications. With data capture thick clients, there is no need for continuous server communications as mainly you are communicating archival storage information to the server. As in the case of a thin client, the term is often used to refer to software, but it is also used to describe the networked computer itself.

If your operations do not involve branches or distributed locations or you don't have the need for a lot of seats and want named user licenses then you would probably want to consider using a thick client data capture solution. Additionally, if your applications require multimedia components or are bandwidth intensive, you'll want to consider going with a thick client solution as well. One of the biggest advantages of thick clients rests in the nature of some operating systems and software being unable to run on thin clients effectively due to resource issues. Thick clients can handle these issues as they have their own resources.

At the end of the day, when choosing either a thin client or thick client data capture solution, you will need to consider if your business will capture and process documents remotely or centrally and where you want the bulk of your processing to take place. Like the knight in the Indiana Jones movie, we caution you to 'choose wisely'.

Look for our next article on Fourth of Five Key Data Capture Implementation Mistakes: Choosing Size over Flexibility.

UFC, Inc. is a Data Capture and Content Management Integration and Consulting company that is passionate about helping companies with their Data Capture and Content Management needs.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Implementing-a-Data-Capture-System---Thin-Or-Thick-Client?&id=3868415

Can Cheaply Outsourced Data Capture Still Be Of High Quality?

Data Capture, like any other process, is a necessary evil that just needs to be done. The reason it's necessary is because it helps your company to better understand statistics, surveys, feedback forms and many other kinds of documents. The reason it's evil is, if done by hand, data capture is extremely time consuming and extremely tedious.

So the next thought on the process is to outsource it. However, you may have some doubt about this which is perfectly natural, after all you are passing on data that could potentially be valuable and private, but also perhaps because you're unsure about the reliability of the partcular data capture service you are going to use.

The majority of professional data capture companies that are out there will have gone through safety and security regulations and / or will have excellent security on and around their buildings. After all, they have to as they will lose everything if the clients files have been stolen or destroyed. So if you have a lot of files to have captured then it might be a good suggestion to go and visit the company that you eventually choose to do the work and take a look around before you sign off on anything.

Then there is the matter of outsourcing. A lot of people wonder how professional data capture service providers can offer data capture at such a low price. This can be for a number of reasons. The first one is that the company may use highly sophisticated software to scan for data or to look for boxes that have been ticked or crossed etc. This of course speeds up the process and requires little manual labour so the costs for the company drop and so should the costs to you. The other reason could be that the company will outsource the work to a country where they can get the work done for a cheaper rate such as India or China. This is a very common practice in the data capture world and perhaps some of you will have already suspected that this is the way it is done.

At the end of the day, when you buy a piece of clothing it will inevitably say something like 'Made in India' and toys will often say 'Made in China' on them somewhere, so we live with this kind of outsourcing in our every aspect. But when it comes to data capture and the gathering of information in a language that may not seem familiar to someone from another country this may also become a concern to you. Most good data capture companies will check where they outsource their work to, but it is always best to double check. Talk to them candidly about it and they will be honest with you about it and tell you about the process.

But, as someone who has worked within the document scanning and data capture industry for quite a while, the results that come back from our outsourcing are always of the highest quality. The companies that data capture agencies outsource to convert the files as their bread and butter, their livelihood, so therefore know the industry inside out and could, arguably, do a better job than if it wasn't outsourced outside the country, purely because they're very experienced.

The only real way to see about reliability is to actively contact the companies and talk to them, ask for a sample of work to be done so you can see just how effective the work will be. When you do send the samples out to be converted, make them somewhat differing from one another so you can see how the company deal with different types of documents and text.

So in conclusion data capture can be done at a good price and still done well whether by the use of professional industry software or by outsourcing cheaply, but make sure to do a little research on the company yourself, find out as much information as you can about their outsourcing and software, even visit them, but most importantly have some samples mocked up for you. A physical render of what you can expect is the best way to tell quality so you don't get any nasty surprises.

Steve Wright is marketing manager for Pearl Scan Solutions, a UK based document scanning company offering a comprehensive data capture service for our clients throughout the UK. We use different methods for your data capture needs and always use the best resources possible to produce the best results.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-Cheaply-Outsourced-Data-Capture-Still-Be-Of-High-Quality?&id=5903524