A Comprehensive Look at Intelligent Document Processing Use-cases Across Diverse Industries

Intelligent Document Processing takes advantage of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning along with OCR and Computer Vision to help various paper-intensive industries digitize their business. The use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for highly-accurate data extraction is revolutionizing how businesses operate in 2022. 

In this article, we discuss multiple IDP use-cases to demonstrate just how effective this technology is. 

If you are interested in learning more about Intelligent Document Processing, before you get to its use-cases, read this article -

Overview of Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and its Benefits

Since you’re ready, let’s jump right into it:-

1. Lending/Banking

Banking and lending is an industry that is paper-first by nature. Countless documents and forms are filled up and signed on a daily basis for the most foundational processes – opening an account, or a loan application. 

With the use of intelligent data processing software, the following key tasks can be easily automated:-

• Generating customer profiles to assess the level of risk by extracting and processing data from forms and documents with IDP. Risk scores based on this data help process loan applications efficiently.
• Basic functions like Loan and Mortgage documents, account opening and closure, processing cheques, etc. can be processed easily, and the extracted data is set up to automatically update across systems of the entire institution.
• With the use of artificial intelligence and high-quality/accurate data extraction, intelligent software makes it possible to detect potential frauds using inbuilt algorithms for fraud detection.
• Decision-making is assisted beautifully by processing the data from banking annual reports, providing useful, meaningful insights about chosen parameters.

2. Insurance

Insurance is another paper-heavy industry that can use intelligent data processing software quite well to automate daily clerical tasks end-to-end. 

Right from getting insurance forms filled to signing the claims settlement, a lot can be streamlined with IDP:-

• Forms processing is prone to errors when handled manually. Insurance companies benefit greatly from intelligent, automated processing of insurance forms. Intelligent data processing software can also be integrated with Cloud, providing flexibility to centralize the database.
• Collating data is made less erroneous and more precise, accurate and organized with the help of intelligent data processing.
• Assessment of questionnaires for claim determination is made less time-consuming by automating the process of data extraction and analysis to help professionals determine the true claim value.
• It is possible to automate customer communications regarding policy updates by setting up a Seattle dedicated server with policy and contacts – this saves a lot of time and reduces chances of forgetting to send policy reminders.
• Invoice creation is simpler than ever by integrating the data extracted from an intelligent data processor into the ncumbent ERP from any source.

The insurance industry requires high-accuracy data to function properly; a single error can create a massive loss of time and resources. IDP has the potential to drive accuracy into the whole mix.

3. Logistics

Logistics is another industry needing a lot of paperwork – invoices, inventory lists, fuel bills, fleet insurance documents, etc. 

If manpower is redirected to the more strategy-oriented tasks by automating clerical paperwork, high efficiencies can be achieved:-

• Logistics companies deal with a load of shipping documents that can be automated for processing, data extraction, and analysis for speedy operations
• Through intelligent data processing, you can also automate customs documents management by extracting required data and attributing it to specific travelers, keeping track of items, etc.
• Logistics companies have been using intelligent data processing to extract data from packaging lists to digitize it and collate it with respective digital consignment case folders to upload to the centralized database.
• Supply-chain companies need to deal with a lot of fuel bills while managing fleets – intelligent data processing helps get the bills digitized and logged into the system for accounts processing
• Automate data extraction from invoices to save as Excel sheets or to be uploaded to the centralized database for further reporting
• Intelligent data processing also helps streamline driver payments by keeping a track of miles, details of drivers’ bank accounts, pick-up & drop-off locations, etc.

In addition to processing documents, artificial intelligence has much more to offer to logistics companies.

4. Real Estate

The sensitivity of the documents involved in the real estate industry makes it necessary to process them efficiently. 

Property deeds, loan documents, identity verifiers, etc. – a lot needs to be authenticated before any process can begin:-

• Intelligent data processing helps understand property contracts (for example, rentals or leases) better by extracting data from existing contracts and analyzing them for accuracy, and checking whether the data is recent and relevant or not
• Intelligent data processing takes care of keeping the property-related data updated across company systems by intelligently assessing rental, lease, sale, loans and mortgages, new property listing, or any other kinds of property contracts
• It is important to keep things as transparent as possible in real estate. Using intelligent data processing helps keep data segregated, organized, updated, and always accessible, making it easier for the organization to function efficiently
• Artificial intelligence helps to assimilate the trends in real estate based on the data collected, creating predictive and forecasting reports for the decision-makers to plan better growth and expansion strategies

Real estate is a very time-dependent industry – from processing loans to the issuance of a deed, from transferring property possession to completing registry, everything takes its own time - Intelligent data processing helps keep a track of progress.

5. Healthcare

Ever since the advent of digitalization, a lot of healthcare paperwork is being uploaded to computers.

In addition to the reduction in new paperwork and direct entry to incumbent ERPs instead. Intelligent document processing has been of great help here in healthcare:-

• The paper-heavy process of patient onboarding today is being delegated to intelligent document processing systems for extracting, organizing, and storing patient health details, test reports, previous records, health history, etc. Artificial intelligence helps to append the right information to the right patients
• In profiling the credentials of healthcare practitioners and caregivers, intelligent document processing helps in compressing details into a more comprehensible format and employing artificial intelligence to analyze, categorize, and cohort this data
• Medical bills are now being processed using intelligent document processing to account for the accuracy of the operation. Additionally, the software helps in coordinating with billing across various departments like diagnostics, prescriptions, consultation, etc.
• Digitalization has encouraged patient data to be stored electronically. Intelligent document processing software helps create electronic records of patients by precision and accuracy in data extraction from physical files and test reports
• Miscellaneous paperwork revolving around hospital operations (inventory, ambulance fleet, etc.) also needs to be digitized, which can be handled easily by intelligent document processing software

6. Law

If there is any industry that is actually completely dependent on paperwork, it is the legal industry. The problem is, with so many documents, it becomes hard to sift through them to extract the right information.

Intelligent document processing can transform the legal industry in the following ways:-

• One of the aspects of legal is to handle and manage contracts. Using intelligent document processing and artificial intelligence, it is possible to extract data from contracts based on specific points, and execute contracts between two parties.
• Intelligent document processing also organizes legal documents, and allows recall of information based on key-values or points specified by the user in the form of metadata.
• Digitalization of cases is made simple and accurate with the help of intelligent data processing. By creating summaries and identifiers, intelligent document processing helps the speedy review of specific cases.
• Intelligent document processing also provides role-based authorization and access to digitized information by storing it on Cloud ECM with secure encryption protocols, making it simpler to practice legal information protection.
• Automate the extraction of key data from legal documents of mergers and acquisitions using intelligent document processing. It also helps in quickly summarizing the key points using a feature called Natural Language Processing, or NLP.

7. Manufacturing

The manufacturing industry has perhaps the most varied kinds of documents out of all, and managing them can be quite a pain without the power of intelligent automation. 

Some of the use cases where intelligent document processing can be successfully applied in the manufacturing industry are as follows:-

• Extracting information from invoices, arranging the data in neat arrays of specified templates for further processing becomes efficient, accurate, and less time-consuming with intelligent data processing.
• Intelligent data processing also facilitates interdepartmental coordination by extracting data from paper order forms, organizing it into digitized templates, and forwarding the information to the concerned departments for further processing, without involving any human.
• Any manufacturing unit needs to perform quality checks on all its products according to prescribed standards. Intelligent document processing helps in extracting data from these hard-copy documents, structure them according to the prescribed quality and assurance procedures to keep the information cohesive and accessible at all times
• Intelligent data processing can be used to automatically absorb data from orders received over various channels – fax, mail, or email. The software then incorporates this data into the ERP as per the rules and protocol specified by the administrator

The manufacturing industry needs to automate not just their core processes, but also the deskwork as far as possible to derive maximum efficiency from operations.

8. Media

Contrary to what most people believe, the media industry actually has a lot of documents coming through every day. 

Employee rosters, paper records for stories, printed material for archives – there is a lot that needs sorting. Intelligent data processing helps streamline all these operations:-

• Considering that media houses have many sources of information and data, intelligent documents processing uses Robotic Process Automation and artificial intelligence to gather data, group it according to specified parameters, execute encryption, and set up automatic mail to respective recipients.
• Archiving paper records is better done using intelligent document processing by automatically ingesting hard data and storing it on the enterprise database, making is easily accessible by categorizing it
• Where contracts, legal documents, identification documents, etc. are concerned, intelligent document processing uses cross-verification and complex algorithms to verify the content contained in the documents and check for any anomalies

Even though media today is mostly electronic, paperwork is still involved which makes things time-consuming and inefficient. This problem can be solved by intelligently processing data.

9. Human Resource

Human Resources is another paper-intensive industry that relies heavily on the printed matter for processing. This needs to change – and intelligent data processing can help.

Here’s how it can be done:-

• Resume screening and candidate profiling can be concluded in a breeze with intelligent data processing by programming it to extract key-value pairs from documents
• Intelligent data processing also helps in keeping employee data updated by automatically extracting details from new joiners or archiving information about the ones who have quit
• Employee onboarding is made easy by automatically handling the documentation processes like emailing initiation documents, extracting employee information from joining forms submitted, and more

10. Government

Government departments are fraught with paperwork that needs to be organized and sorted through in order to make it usable. 

Here is how intelligent document processing helps:-

• Results from public and government surveys are made even more effective using intelligent data processing to analyze and report the results highlighting the key factors.
• Application verification and processing – for example, in the case of RFPs or tender applications – can be automated for data extraction and processing for higher efficiencies.
• Intelligent software can be put to good use analyzing permit applications and sending out approvals or rejections.

If you’re looking to automate document processing for your business, here’s a good reference to start with - What to look for in a Document Processing Software