What Is It?
Automated Data Entry, or eCapture, refers to the extraction of digital data from paper-based forms such as sales orders, insurance claims, time sheets, tax returns, credit card applications, traffic tickets, checks, surveys, warranty cards, and virtually any other type of printed form. This data can include "machine print" (typewriter, or computer-generated fonts), "handprint" (handwritten characters), "mark sense" (check boxes and bubbles), bar codes and signatures.

Who Is It For?
Any enterprise/organization that processes a large number of forms, including organizations such as state and local governmental agencies, insurance companies and banks.

Why Do I Need It?
Companies spend significant amounts of money on manual data entry. Consider:

• The typical enterprise relies on hundreds, if not thousands, of forms to operate as a successful entity.
• 83% of all documents are forms.
• $6 billion is spent annually on paper forms; as much as $360 billion is spent processing them.
• Data entry costs are high as all information must be entered and calculated manually
• Erroneous or partially filled forms often require reprocessing, and additional costs
• Companies spend 6-10% of revenues on documents (1/3 is for manual data entry for forms processing)
• Deploy forms to small, large, internal and external user communities
• Process, archive and dispose countless forms on an annual bases

Source: AIIM - The Association for Information and Image Management

As with most business documents, facilitating the document lifecycle of forms is important for legal and regulatory reasons. Archival, retrieval, retention and disposition requirements add further to the hard costs and inefficiency of paper forms and require additional considerations:

• Physical storage space-often warehouse-size-is necessary for archived forms
• Systems are necessary to track the location of archived forms and facilitate timely retrieval when necessary
• Expiration dates must be tracked and expired forms destroyed

How IAS Can Help?
IAS, with specific input from your staff, can develop the appropriate solution to increase the efficiency of your data extraction process.

What are the benefits of Automated Data Entry?
When companies use automated data entry they are replacing manual data entry. Benefits companies receive include:

• Reduced operating costs: Greatly reduce costs relating to paper form production, storage, distribution and obsolescence; reduce costs of client workstation administration by utilizing a thin client, Web browser based form client
• Increased productivity and responsiveness: Use a single consistent form design tool for all forms thereby reducing training and the learning curve for form designers. Reduce form design and maintenance time through wizard-like configuration and integration tools. Utilize form "intelligence" (e.g. defaults, calculations, database lookups, choice lists, etc.) to greatly reduce the manual typing necessary to fill forms. Reduce errors and the costs of reprocessing erroneous forms. Reduce form processing cycle times through electronic routing and messaging; greatly reduce bootlegged forms and the inefficiencies that result from inconsistent, inaccurate forms.
• Gained competitive advantage: Offer improved customer service through increased form user productivity and reduced cycle times; reduced operating costs (see above) to improve profit margins and/or make additional funds available to increase the effectiveness of other direct-return projects.

Other Benefits

A single consistent form design tool is used to create forms for multiple different deployment platforms

Integration of the design tool with document management systems streamlines collaboration of multi-person design teams

Form user productivity and accuracy are improved dramatically through:

• Database lookups
• Calculations
• Automatic formatting
• Choice lists
• Automatic error checking
• Automation can lead to a 50-90% cycle time reduction, an 80-90% drop in error rates, a 100% elimination of re-keying, and its resulting errors.
• Architecturally advanced solutions provide flexibility, adaptability and scalability for the diverse and ever-changing enterprise.
• Centralized Web-based deployment consolidates all forms to a single point of access, greatly easing the deployment of new forms and revisions by form designers and simplifying the search for forms by form users.
• Web-based deployment extends the reach of e-forms to include customers, suppliers, business partners and the public thereby supporting e-business initiatives while leveraging investment in corporate Internet/intranet infrastructure

See case studies on the use of Automated Data Entry >