OCR technology has made life easier. Popularized in the 1990s to digitize historic newspapers, it has undergone many improvements. With continuous developments, the technology has now reached a near-perfect accuracy level and is a great bet for all businesses to streamline their data extraction processes and automate business workflows.
OCR scanner recognizes characters from printed documents and then converts them into a digital format that is searchable and also easily editable, thus ideal for all paper-based industries.
Use Cases of OCR for Businesses
Converting scanned or printed documents into machine-readable format is a task of many businesses. And when there was no OCR technology, businesses have to retype or rewrite the data which was a tedious task and susceptible to human errors. With the OCR services, labor-intensive operations are now automated across the globe. The documents are indexed, the older texts are easily accessed, and the number plate is automatically recognized, all because of the OCR technology. Besides this, here are the use cases of OCR solutions for businesses.
- Superior Security
Paper documents can be easily damaged, misplaced, or stolen and it is really hard to secure them from any unapproved access. Cloud storage makes it easy for businesses to store data securely, giving access to those who are authorized identities and preventing the data from data breaches.
Whether it is a start-up or any well-renowned business, all prefer cloud storage rather than physical storage space. With cloud storage, companies can access data any time, anywhere on whatever smart device they want. Optical Character Recognition helps the companies not only recognize the data but also store it in the cloud so that the users can access, read, and edit it whenever they want.
- Information Retrieval
Another use case of the online character recognition technology is a “searchable PDF format”. Businesses that use the OCR engine can convert their paper documents and image PDF files into searchable files. Such digital PDF files have an overlay containing searchable texts that normal PDFs do not have. Thus, OCR acts as a digital system to search names, phrases, keywords, or any other required details from the document.
- Time Optimization
OCR is a great choice for all businesses as it helps them in data extraction and saves their precious time. With great accuracy, OCR solutions reduce human errors and also optimize the time required to complete a specific task. When the time is optimized, the productivity of the company increases which leads to making more profits or generating great revenue.
- Reducing Costs
Optical Character Recognition helps industries reduce costs to hire manpower for data entry purposes. The software is integrated into the system which extracts all the incoming information. This replaces the manual data entry process with a computerized system. The need to hire manpower to have clients’ requests is now being entertained by the OCR systems. Besides this, the technology also cut down the costs of printing, shipping, or copying the document as the data is stored in digital form rather than stocking it in the form of huge paper files. Moreover, OCR compliance prevents companies from paying heavy fines.
- Digital Identity Verification
Businesses need identity and Document verification to maintain a secure customer base and to stay compliant with the regulatory requirements. Online identity verification helps them to verify an individual and keep all the bad actors at a bay. And for that, the OCR technology is integrated into the system to extract the details of an individual automatically and verify them in no time.
- Automation
OCR screening first imports the hard copies of invoices into the system and then scans all the information from it. All the obtained information is then authenticated to check its accuracy as well as credibility. The slip is then classified and passed to the accounting system. This is how the whole system in any business is automated by first analyzing the document and then sending it to the relevant set.
Final Thoughts
Handling piles and piles of paper files is a tough task for any entity. This is where OCR technology comes to help. It is the best option for all the industries that want to make their premises paper-free. Besides this, it saves business time and resources and the productivity of employees is enhanced so that they can do those tasks which are really urgent and important. This as a result helps the company flourish and generate more profits. Thus, OCR is a great technology to refine business operations without the need to hire manpower.
Hi, I am Adam Smith, Admin Of TechSketcher, Creative blogger and Digital Marketer.