Paperless is the way for us to go

DESPITE historical and regulatory challenges, South African companies are using ingenuity and innovation to convert to paperless systems.

Malcolm Hart, chief technical officer of the Johannesburg software company i1 Solutions, said insurers, healthcare companies and government departments were constrained by regulations, budget and legacy systems which meant they were still heavily dependent on paper for their day-to-day operations.

These paper-based processes were not only slow but expensive and opened up scope for human error. To meet the challenge, businesses were hooking up with distributed document capture solutions.

Distributed document capture streamlines the capture, recognition and classification of business documents and quickly and accurately extracts important information.

Using distributed data capture, organisations can capture documents where data enters an organisation, for example at the point where a customer signs off on a job or at the close of a sale or the signing off of a contract.

“Rather than relying on centralised scanning operations, companies are using the latest technology that turns mobile devices and network and personal scanners into secure, easy-to-use capture workstations,” Hart said.

A good distributed data capture solution, he said, would improve efficiency by automating three key areas:

Classification: The software should streamline document preparation tasks such as manual sorting of documents into classes before scanning. It would enable users to scan a stack of mixed documents that would be automatically sorted.

Data extraction: It must also be able to extract information from unstructured documents dynamically, or use templates for forms-based documents – eliminating wasteful, error-prone manual data entry.

Validation: Finally, it should also provide multiple methods to automatically check captured data to verify accuracy.

For example, IBM’s Datacap uses advanced cognitive computing technology to streamline management of documents. Using natural language processing, text analytics and machine learning technologies, these solutions automatically identify, classify and extract content from unstructured or highly variable documents that usually require manual intervention. This can help significantly reduce labour and paper costs.

In a distributed data capture environment, employees and customers can perform capture tasks with easy-to-use interfaces on familiar devices. For example, new customer on-boarding or new loan applications can be concluded inside a mobile app rather than the paperwork going to a data capture hub.

As a result, important documents and data are fed into business processes and analytics systems quickly and accurately. Pre-configured workflows can be used to automate processing. This, in turn, reduces costs while enhancing the business’s agility and efficiency.

Distributed data also helps reduce expenses by eliminating document shipping, paper handling and storage as well as decreasing manual data entry and the costs of indexing errors that cause lost or misrouted documents.

It also provides a dependable audit trail of who has captured the documents. Another potential benefit lies in better customer service. Customer-facing employees can process information quicker and more accurately, as well as easily access information electronically to answer customer inquiries.

Hart said the technology also brought business processes closer to a fully integrated digital reality.

For further information go to www.i1solutions.co.za or phone 011 017 6500.