What is Data Capture Software?

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition and is the technology that allows software to interpret machine printed text on scanned images.

Data Capture Software uses OCR technology to automate data entry tasks involving machine printed forms. When the forms all have the same format, simple Zone OCR can be employed to convert specific regions of the page to usable data. Advanced data extraction software is also able to locate common data elements on forms with many different formats. The most common example of this is Invoice Processing, but data extraction can be done with any type of document.

Data extraction software can also be used to:

• Read data from electronic documents like MS Word and Excel files or PDF files
• Recognize Handprint Data from forms using ICR
• Automatically sort and classify documents
• General purpose document digitization and OCR tasks

Who can benefit from data extraction software?

Any organization that must enter data in a database that comes from paper forms or electronic documents like Word, Excel and PDF files can get a very high return on investment by automating the data entry with data extraction software.

Depending on the type and volume of documents and data you have, the cost of the solution could range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. A simple project could justify a software purchase to save only a few days of data entry time. A complex project with many different types of documents and unstructured data could need to offset hundreds of data entry hours to justify the expense.

Organizations that have many separate departments that perform data entry from documents can share the budget for data extraction software by re-using it for other projects. Your current project may not be big enough to justify the expense, but when combined with one or two others it would be.

How much do Data Capture Software systems cost?

As mentioned above, the biggest factor in the price of the system is the complexity and volume of the documents and data being captured. The total cost of a data extraction solution also includes several other items:

• Time to install and configure the software
• Recognition templates must be created for each data field
• Data exports must be defined for each document template
• User and administrator training
• Labor required to verify the recognition results
• IT infrastructure and maintenance costs

If you have an IT staff that is familiar with document scanning and OCR applications, it is possible to do most of the configuration and maintenance in-house. If not then it is highly recommended that you use our Consulting Services to guide you through the setup process.

Contact Us to get a professional analysis of your project requirements and a full time and cost estimate.

What is the typical data entry workflow?

The process of converting a paper document to live data you can use is as follows:

• Paper is are prepped for scanning (unfolded, staples removed, etc.)
• Documents are scanned on a high-speed document scanner
• Scanned images are recognized with OCR
• Matching algorithms locate data elements within the text
• Fields that fail validation checks are presented to the operators for manual review and correction
• Once all errors are corrected, data is exported to final destination

How do I find out more?

• Overview of Data Capture Software software products
• View our FlexiCapture for Invoices Case Study
• Data Capture Software product catalog
• Compare All Document Scanning, OCR & Data Capture Systems
• Contact us to get a professional analysis and estimate for your project

Solutions for Simple Documents

Simple documents have data elements in the same location on every page and can be automated with Zonal OCR.

• All of our document scanning applications have Zone OCR capabilities
• SimpleIndex offers the most data extraction options among the low-cost desktop scanning applications
• We also offer solutions from Kodak, Kofax, Digitech Systems and OfficeGemini.
• Compare Features for all Data Capture Software side by side

Solutions for Complex Documents

Documents with many different possible layouts, unsorted documents that must be classfieid, or documents with tables and line item data that must be read.

• ABBYY FlexiCapture is the most robust general purpose OCR data capture application available.
• IRISXtract has preconfigured modules for accounts payable, human resources, healthcare, mailroom and other common configurations.
• SimpleIndex uses pattern matching (RegEx) to locate data on different documents at a fraction of the cost of enterprise data capture applications.

Solutions for Electronic Documents

Although all of our data extraction solutions can be configured to read data from electronic documents, only SimpleIndex does this without first converting the document to an image and performing OCR on it. SimpleIndex is able to use the original text in MS Office and PDF files and extract data from it with complex pattern matching algorithms. This process is lightning fast and 100% accurate, and SimpleIndex is a low-cost application that any business can afford.

Enterprise Data Capture

Large companies with massive document capture and data entry projects should use these enterprise solutions that are designed to handle high volume jobs, multiple departments and workflows.

• ABBYY FlexiCapture Distributed
• IRISXtract