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Manual document handling is prone to human error, time-consuming, and difficult to scale as the volume of documents grows. Employees often waste valuable time on administrative tasks instead of focusing on more important work, like sales and customer service. This inefficiency leads to a competitive disadvantage, leaves businesses unprepared for future growth, and creates a high dependency on manual labor that limits scalability and innovation.
Managing large volumes of documents - like invoices, purchase orders, and contracts - can overwhelm even the most efficient businesses. In times of skilled labor shortages, rising expectations for seamless customer service, and increasing regulatory complexity, relying on manual processes to handle document workflows creates more challenges than ever before.
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) offers a solution by automating these tasks, reducing errors, saving time, and enhancing operational efficiency. In this article, we’ll explore the key benefits of IDP and how it can transform your document management process.
1. Holistic Automation
Unlike traditional solutions, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) offers holistic automation that covers the entire document lifecycle - from the moment documents are received to their seamless transfer into ERP systems. While other tools like OCR and RPA may address parts of the process, IDP automates everything from data extraction and classification to validation and system integration. This end-to-end automation minimizes manual intervention and ensures that all critical steps in the workflow are handled efficiently and accurately.
End-to-end automation: Workist solves document processing with one holistic workflow
2. Time Savings & Enhanced Productivity
Manual document processing is a repetitive task that drains valuable time from more important business activities. IDP automates processes like data extraction, validation, and document handling, significantly reducing document processing time. According to a report by Nividous, businesses utilizing IDP can cut document processing time by up to 90%, helping organizations handle high document volumes more efficiently while freeing employees to focus on higher-value tasks. What used to take hours can now be completed in seconds, greatly enhancing productivity.
A great real life-example for this is Contorion, an e-commerce company specializing in tools and industrial supplies, used Workist’s AI-based IDP to automate order confirmation processing, saving 100 hours per week. This allowed their team to focus on strategic tasks, such as improving customer service and driving sales. You can watch their full story here.
3. Improved Customer Relationships
Manual document processing often slows down response times, leading to delays in customer service and frustration. IDP helps enhance customer relationships by automating key workflows, allowing employees to focus on delivering timely, personalized service. The time saved from automating tasks like order processing frees up employees to invest in customer engagement and support, improving overall satisfaction.
For example, CiS electronics automated their order entry process with IDP, freeing up their customer service team to engage directly with clients. "Our customer service employees, they should take care of communicating with the customer, providing customer service, being in close exchange with the customer, and they should not waste time manually entering orders into the system”, explains Martin Wöllner, Managing Director CSO at CiS. Watch their full story here.
4. Streamlined Data Extraction
One of the biggest challenges with manual document handling is extracting the right data from both structured and unstructured sources. Even other automation approaches, such as OCR solutions, struggle with this task, often requiring templates and predefined rules, which limit flexibility and increase the risk of errors. IDP significantly streamlines data extraction by automating the capture of key information from various documents, such as invoices, contracts, or purchase orders.
IDP solutions - especially when utilizing AI - can intuitively & intelligently comprehend and extract relevant data from diverse formats, reducing reliance on manual setup and significantly enhancing processing speed.
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Intuitive document understanding: Workist's AI is able to interpret documents of all layouts
5. Improved Data Accuracy
Manual document processing is prone to human error, especially when dealing with large volumes of documents. Mistakes in data entry can lead to costly downstream issues in business operations. IDP improves data accuracy by automating extraction and validation, significantly reducing the likelihood of errors in critical information.
Some IDP systems go a step further by validating extracted data against a company's master data, catching and correcting errors before they affect workflows or lead to costly consequences. When combined with AI and machine learning (ML), these solutions can even handle complex cases automatically, such as customers using their own article numbers.
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Precise capture through validation: Workist matches read out data with your master data.
6. Addressing Skilled Labor Shortages
The growing shortage of skilled labor poses a significant challenge for businesses, particularly in document-heavy industries like procurement and sales. With fewer hands available to manage essential but repetitive tasks, operational efficiency can quickly decline. IDP helps address this issue by automating tasks that would otherwise require manual intervention, allowing businesses to maintain productivity without needing to increase headcount.
By automating document processing, companies can reduce their dependency on skilled workers for administrative tasks and ensure that their teams are focused on more strategic activities that drive growth.
7. Scalability and Future-Proofing Growth
As businesses expand, the volume of documents increases, making manual document processing unsustainable. IDP offers a scalable solution, enabling companies to handle larger document volumes without adding manual workload. The skilled labor shortage, mentioned earlier, is likely to become more of an issue in the future, and businesses that adopt automation will gain a competitive advantage. Not leveraging these technologies means companies risk falling behind, as IDP solutions are essential for maintaining operational efficiency and remaining future-proof in the long run.
Conclusion
In an era where manual document processing is no longer sustainable, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) offers a holistic solution to automate workflows, reduce human error, and improve productivity. From saving time and enhancing customer relationships to addressing skilled labor shortages and ensuring scalability, IDP empowers businesses to operate more efficiently and future-proof their growth.
Companies like CiS electronics and Contorion have successfully implemented Workist’s IDP solution to tackle the challenges of document processing. By automating tasks such as order entry and document validation, Workist provides businesses with the tools to save time, reduce errors, and focus on what matters most—serving their customers and driving growth.
Workist’s AI is trained on millions of documents, enabling businesses to achieve a positive ROI from day one, without the need for templates or manual training. Features such as master data validation ensure the accuracy of extracted data by cross-referencing it with internal databases, helping to further minimize errors. Additionally, seamless ERP integration enables fast and smooth data transfer, ensuring that document workflows are fully automated from receipt to transfer into your business systems.
Workist’s IDP solution also grows alongside your business, making it a scalable investment for long-term success. Whether you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of documents, the automation capabilities can adapt to increasing demand without sacrificing efficiency. This scalability ensures that your business remains agile and competitive as it continues to evolve.
Explore how Workist can help your business benefit from automation by visiting our website or contacting us for a demo.
