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5 Intelligent Document Processing Use Cases

intelligent document processing

In today’s digital world, a huge part of our working lives is spent dealing with data. However, the biggest challenge facing most businesses and their employees is finding the quickest and most efficient way to extract this data. 

Especially when it’s trapped in a range of different digital and paper documents. 

This is where Intelligent Document Processing comes in. This is the system of converting unstructured or semi-structured data into digital information that can then be used to generate valuable insights. 

We increasingly hear this phrase, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) as these solutions are becoming more popular. 

But whilst it’s all well and good hearing the phrase more frequently and even hearing about the number of Intelligent Document Processing benefits, it’s much easier to understand the real positive impact IDP can have if you know how these solutions can be applied in the real world. 

That’s why we thought we’d pull together five examples of Intelligent Document Processing use cases. That way, you can see how these solutions can be applied in your business. 

This will help you to decide which Intelligent Document Processing solutions you’d like to implement to help automate your systems and make them more efficient. 

But before we jump in, let’s first start by looking at the different types of documents that organizations could be dealing with regularly.

The different types of documents you might need to process

Before we look at the Intelligent Document Processing use cases in more detail, it’s a good idea to understand the types of documents that different businesses might be using. 

Ultimately, the documents you deal with most frequently will largely depend on the type of business you have. For example, if you’re an accountant or you work in the accounting department, you might be dealing with large quantities of invoices, payslips, or receipts on a daily basis. 

But again, we’ll look at more examples like this when we look at Intelligent Document Processing use cases in the next section. 

For now, we’ve pulled together a list of some of the most common documents that need processing. These include: 

  • Forms or applications (paper or online) 
  • Invoices
  • Receipts 
  • Payslips 
  • Contracts 
  • ID cards or scanned proof of ID
  • Emails 
  • PDFs
  • Letters
  • Lists 
  • Medical documents 

As well as using specific documents, there may also be specific fields that your IDP solutions have to pick up on to do their job properly. 

So, for example, they may be extracting names, addresses, dates, or financial information depending on the nature of the document being processed. 

Examples of Intelligent Document Processing use cases

Moving on, as we said earlier, it can be much easier to understand IDP and its applications by looking at real-world examples. In this instance, we have chosen several Intelligent Document Processing use cases to look at. 

Use cases is a phrase used in technology and software circles to describe a usage scenario for a particular piece of software or solution. In this case, Intelligent Document Processing solutions. 

So below, we’ll look at in-depth examples of how Intelligent Document Processing can be used in different industries and departments to help streamline various business functions. 

We’ll also look at the types of documents that are being dealt with in these scenarios. 

So let’s not waste any more time. Here are five Intelligent Document Processing use cases that can help you determine how to use IDP in your own business:

1. Accounting and finance

We’ve briefly touched on accounting as an Intelligent Document Processing use case already in this guide, but we’re now going to look at this in more detail. 

Accounting and finance professionals, whether working in a dedicated accounting firm or the finance department of a bigger organization, will be processing a lot of sensitive information each day. 

In many cases, they will be responsible for: 

  • Managing a company’s finances
  • Managing payroll and ensuring all employees are paid 
  • Filing tax returns
  • Paying invoices 
  • Managing accounts payable 

Because of how this data is collected and used, accounting and finance professionals need an IDP solution that can quickly extract the key fields and information they need. 

This means quickly scanning bank statements, receipts, invoices, contracts, etc., to find the key facts and figures. 

By automating these processes, this frees up the professional’s time to dedicate to other important aspects of their job. For example, checking in on clients and offering them crucial financial advice and support.

2. Banking organizations 

Similar to the accounting industry, banking organizations have to process a lot of documents containing sensitive information such as names, addresses and account numbers. 

This is done as part of their daily responsibilities, which in many cases include: 

  • Personal finance management 
  • Paying invoices 
  • Dealing with financial applications such as credit cards and overdrafts
  • Credit disbursement
  • Maintaining financial records 

And in this digital world, this doesn’t just mean dealing with paper documents and face-to-face meetings. Online applications and requests mean that IDP solutions are needed to quickly extract, organize and process the financial documents and requests. 

What’s more, many of these banking transactions and applications require rigorous security checks to be able to authorize. As such, another task for banking professionals and their automated systems is recognizing scanned documents such as ID, utility bills, proof of income or digital signatures. 

By automating these otherwise time-consuming tasks and labour-intensive data entry, banking professionals can dedicate their time to more important tasks. This could be discussing a client’s financial requirements, assessing their financial circumstances or giving advice.

3. Insurance companies 

Whether setting up new insurance policies or dealing with claims, specialists in the insurance industry rely heavily on data and evidence. They also have to deal with a lot of claims and application forms. 

Some of the other key responsibilities they have are: 

  • Monitoring insurance claims
  • Processing new insurance claims
  • Investigating potentially fraudulent claims
  • Gathering evidence and proof, often through scanned documents and emails 
  • Managing administration tasks associated with each claim 
  • Updating databases and client records 

Again, the forms and documents associated with insurance can be given in person or submitted online. As such, insurance professionals need a quick and efficient way of extracting and organizing this data. 

What’s more, there is often a lot of back and forth between the company and the claimant. This usually takes place over email with lots of information being sent through digital documents. 

IDP is therefore crucial for capturing content quickly, pre-filling online forms and transferring data from one document format to another. 

And as with the previous use cases, automating these tasks frees up the time for the claims specialists to focus on more complex cases or disputes.

4. Medical institutions

Next on our list of Intelligent Document Processing use cases is the medical industry. For obvious reasons, quick and accurate document processing is absolutely crucial in medical institutions. 

This is why automated systems and machine learning have become important tools in the industry. These help doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to manage administrative tasks such as: 

  • Digitizing medical records 
  • Updating medical records 
  • Accessing patients notes 
  • Dealing with patient registrations 
  • Creating sick notes 
  • Managing prescriptions

This also helps to standardize the medical database as well as many medical practices. This makes it much easier for health care professionals to dedicate more of their time to diagnosing, treating and supporting their patients through tough times. 

5. Research and academic studies

Although it’s hard to imagine a time before the internet, there was a time when information was stored in textual and image formats. 

But now, with so much of our lives being conducted through the internet and with new ways of utilizing data, much of this information needs to be digitized and stored in a digital format. 

This has meant historians, political figures, doctors, writers, lawyers and anyone who wants to use these older archives had to begin translating this data. This meant scanning or manually entering data from old: 

  • Books 
  • Newspapers
  • Academic papers 
  • Diaries 
  • Maps 
  • Images 
  • Photographs 
  • Paintings 

This information can then be used in interesting and important ways. For example, by translating census’, bills of mortality, old newspaper entries, etc., we have been able to get insights into the past and how the world used to be centuries ago. 

This can then be compared with modern-day data through digital technologies. 

In this respect, Intelligent Document Processing has been incredibly important and a real-time saver. It has removed the need to enter this data manually, which can take hours, even days, to complete. 

In summary

It’s worth noting that this list of Intelligent Document Processing use cases is by no means exhaustive. Many other industries have benefited from IDP solutions. For example, HR teams, educational institutions, and more. 

That being said, from the use cases we’ve outlined above, you can already see just how Intelligent Document Processing can support businesses in a number of different ways. 

So if you’re considering implementing IDP solutions in your organization, there is undoubtedly a number of benefits you can gain from these tools.

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