The novel coronavirus has disrupted life for everyone these days. Even if someone hasn’t been affected directly by the disease, the social consequences of the outbreak have impacted them.
According to RapidRating’s State of Supply Chain Survey, after COVID-19, only 29% of businesses remain fully operational with 57% of them being partially open. Naturally, the pandemic has changed the notion of a workplace for many people. People can no longer work side-by-side as they used to do.
Carrying out tasks manually, exchanging banknotes, files, and even invoices put workers at risk of catching the virus. To avoid this, many companies are minimizing contact between their employees and adopting a digital workplace.
That said, implementing a digital workplace can be extremely challenging when your current workflow requires manual interference. Intelligent data capture is one of the few technologies that eliminate manual tasks from the workflow. In this article, we will discuss the role of Intelligent Data Capture in a post-crisis workplace.
What Must Businesses Do to Create a Digital Workplace?
As the name implies, a digital workplace relies completely on technology. However, finding the right tools for your business is not easy. In general, businesses must act on the following guidelines to create a digital workplace.
Accelerating Digitization
Nowadays, sticking to manual procedures is not only inefficient but also a significant risk for the entire company. This is why companies need to ditch a paper-based workflow and move on to a digital document management system.
Remote Collaboration
Remote collaboration tools are fundamental to a digital workplace. Companies need to implement cloud-enabled solutions to help their teams work from home.
Workflow Automation
With traditional workflows becoming unsafe due to social distancing measures, companies must rely on automation even more. Smart information management tools are needed to automate the usual business processes. These systems enhance the productivity of distantly connected workflows and reduce the chance of errors.
How Can Intelligent Data Capture Help with This?
Intelligent Data Capture enables companies to capture data from scanned accurately. It can classify information and direct it to authorized users without manual intervention. In other words, intelligent data capture prevents unnecessary disruptions caused by manual procedures.
The Role of Intelligent Data Capture in a Post-Crisis Workplace
Intelligent data capture enables businesses to continue business operations, even when back-office operations are constrained. Here are some of the ways technology impacts businesses and workplaces around the globe:
1-Mail Forwarding
One of the reasons why so many businesses have been ground to a halt is that staff can no longer reach offices. As a result, these businesses can no longer forward supplier invoices to a third-party end-to-end invoice processing service.
Intelligent data capture allows companies to scan data from invoices and introduces them to their invoice approval workflow. All files containing data on approved invoices can be forwarded to managers via IDC-enabled invoice processing solutions. With the help of intelligent data capture, companies can pay their suppliers on time.
2-Cloud Accessibility
With back-offices constrained, businesses can no longer share information efficiently. Intelligent data capture allows employees to scan and share critical documents with the help of a cloud-enabled smart solution. Cloud-based AP automated solutions allow businesses to continue invoice payment and approval processes, despite lockdown and quarantine restrictions.
3-End Labor-Intensive Tasks
Businesses nowadays lack the manpower for labor-intensive tasks such as data entry, validation, exception handling, invoice approvals, and posting. Companies can make the most of their staff by using intelligent data capture. Intelligent data capture is not only more efficient at handling these labor-intensive tasks but also results in significantly fewer errors.
4-PDF Invoice Processing
In the absence of paper-based invoices, PDF invoices have become the norm. Businesses share them via e-mail attachments, and so their customers can process them digitally. Intelligent data capture can easily scan PDF invoices and help the business pay their suppliers in a timely manner.
Ready To Learn More: AIIM Report: Incorporating Intelligent Capture Into Your Digital Transformation Strategy
5-Invoice Approval in the Cloud
Work-from-home mandates have disrupted the paper-based approval workflows that many organizations rely upon. Keep your approvals moving by scanning your invoices to a secure cloud and a third party can facilitate digital and mobile approval with your purchasers, wherever they are located, based on your business rules.
6-Virtual Payments
By facilitating a digital format, intelligent data capture enables companies to make most of the virtual methods. Companies can pay their suppliers on time without sending their staff to cut checks. At the same time, they can earn cash-back rebates on money spent using a card. A virtual card carries out payments once the team uploads an approved invoice file to an automated AP solution.
7-Patient Demographic Form Processing
Identifying patients is crucial, but in the wake of a worldwide outbreak, obtaining accurate details of every patient is critical. By providing accurate information from manual forms, intelligent data capture extracts patient data for statistical analysis.
A smart IDC solution will not miss any detail regarding patients and generate exceptions for forms that are missing crucial information. With the help of data analysis, experts can identify the effect of the virus based on patient demographics.
Patient demographic form attributes
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Country, postal code, etc.
- Ethnicity
- Blood type
- Family doctor
- Allergies, diagnosis, family history, etc.
- Insurance provider
- Medical history
- Emergency contact information
8-Patient Form Processing
With COVID-19 spreading fast, it’s crucial to identify patients with the highest likelihood of having the infection. Processing patient forms can waste a significant amount of time. Intelligent data capture, coupled with an automated solution, can fast-track patient form processing and help health professionals treat patients without spending much time handling documentation.
An intelligent data capture solution can manage the following patient forms:
- Personal identification papers
- Insurance information
- Demographic data
- Readings from medical samples
- Travel history documents, etc.
Final Words
Document processing and data capture solutions are a fine combination of experts and technology. Amidst the turbulence of COVID-19, intelligent data capture can help companies rise beyond the challenges and continue their business amongst quarantine restrictions.
