In the age of knowledge, the information adds value to a firm. Yet, organizations struggle to extract the necessary information, and eventually, most of it ends up being dark data due to the lack of the ability to elicit beneficial information. Any piece of valuable information comes along with unnecessary details. Extricating significant portions from other specifics is a challenge that businesses face every day. How does a company then filter this beneficial information and store it in a way that is most accessible and yet efficient in managing the storage costs? The answer lies with the Robotic Process Technology (RPA).
RPA has found its use across business processes, especially in Document Management, i.e., the organization and storage of documents. While there are various ways of managing documents, RPA has thus far been the most efficient one. As long as a process is automatable, RPA finds its use. Documentation entails repetitive tasks, and automating these processes makes accessibility easier and reduces storage costs substantially. RPA and Artificial Intelligence (AI) add the benefit of learning over time to a Document Management process. The software can identify complex problems, such as when the bills have not been paid. It can also eliminate old or irrelevant records and hence streamline the processes. RPA with the AI system can learn to understand documents and use predictive decision making.
Document processing comprises of various activities. Document identification is the process that enables the software to identify the type of the document, such as a machine-readable text form or handwritten and scanned document or an image. Every organization handles hundreds of reports each day that are in various formats. Some materials are in standard formats such as tax forms, immigration forms, etc., typically regulatory and compliance records. These documents are associated with the processes that are repetitive and can be easily automated. RPA can help organizations read, classify, and store these forms into structured data systems. Other documents may contain data embedded in the free text, such as paragraphs and bullet points such as legal bills and medical coding. The RPA tools, along with APIs such as OCR tools, can help extract them and eventually retrieve them to a more accessible and usable system. The RPA tools combined with OCR tools and Natural Language Processing (NPL) algorithms can achieve superior readability irrespective of the context and format with greater accuracy as they evolve.
Once the tools identify the data, it needs to be classified based on its function, such as invoices, trade bills, timecards, etc. After the classification of documents, the relevant information needs to be read and interpreted. Actions need to be performed based on conclusions such as data storage and actions like sending notifications.
Data management using RPA and other intelligent tools enables organizations to improve efficiency and accuracy and reduce workloads and costs. Since each organization deals with a plethora of data on any given day, processing, analyzing, extracting, validating, and storing may take over the human workforce’s time. RPA provides a feasible option for manual data handling and processing of inbound documents.
Organizations are using data to enhance customer experience, improve employee and process productivity, and enter new markets. Document Management helps businesses achieve a competitive advantage through higher efficiency. Using information to provide analytics is made possible with bots taking over the repetitive tasks previously performed manually. To carry out any beneficial analysis, the automation of document processing has become critical.
RPA manages massive amounts of data from virtually any internal or external system. It helps organizations manage repetitive and labor-intensive tasks, switch data between applications conveniently, trouble-free downloading and uploading of files, effortless analysis and extraction of data, and prevention of frauds through easy monitoring of data, users and activities. And eventually, Document Management with RPA allows businesses to do green.
