The first step to
automating the processing of paper is throwing it in a scanner and indexing it.
Most companies that deal with paper invoices either have this technology or
want it. Scanning and manually indexing the image file produces a document and
metadata that is usually stored in some type of content management system. As
more departments hear about the scanning in AP, they will want to acquire
scanners and start processing that way.
The folks involved
with preparing paper and scanning grow comfortable with this paradigm. Depending
on the industry and type of document, the scanner and IT sides are more than
likely looking for ways to expand the scanning aspect of the solution vs.
requiring that vendors and form designers think about the many identification, character
recognition, and indexing issues to stream efficiency.
Instead of forcing
outside vendors and print shops to deal with issues of accuracy and formatting,
many scanners and managers are happy to keep certain personnel busy, thus
justifying their jobs and their departments.
What suffers with this
status quo mentality is the ECM solution. The ECM software can be very good,
however, it is only as good as the information coming in. This is the initial
configuration of documents and minimal descriptions associated with them. The
real power of ECM is force to lie dormant as learning and budgets grow to
realize better, more accurate solutions.
So, how to light a
fire under the very department that was created to solve the paper issues? As
you get comfortable with scanning, the issues of accuracy and automatically capturing
more information start to reveal themselves. More on this in the next blog…
