6 ways Ephesoft speeds up data entry for Infor solution

In a world that is becoming hyper-digital, paper documentation is a subversion. The larger the enterprises grow, and the more customers and partners they have, the bigger the pile of documents. Physical documentation is a roadblock to digital transformation too, which is essential to optimal resource utilization and to keep up with the competition. Attempts to send and receive documents electronically via electronic document interchange (EDI) interfaces often fail due to lack of partner support.

To help enterprises clear the digital transformation roadblock, Infor and Ephesoft have partnered to develop IDM Capture, an intelligent document processing (IDP) solution powered by Ephesoft. IDM Capture extends the functionality of Infor Document Management (IDM). Leveraging AI and machine learning, IDM Capture can extract meaningful data from scanned documents, emails, faxes, folders, and cloud storage and feed it to Infor M3, CloudSuite, Infor PLM for Fashion, or any other Infor solution.

In this blog post, let’s examine the reasons why enterprises should automate their document capturing processes with IDM Capture.

It’s no secret that AP departments struggle with paper documents more than any other department in an enterprise. According to Ardent Partners’ Accounts Payable Metrics that Matter in 2021 report, 60% of the AP professionals are concerned about the lengthy invoice and payment approval times. The report further states the restrictions on in-person procedures effected by the COVID-19 pandemic as a cause. The survey found that 31% feel they are dealing with too much paper.

IDM Capture automates the document processing from capturing to transformation in a five-step process.

Figure 1. The five-step IDM Capture process: Capture > Classify > Extract > Validate > Deliver

IDM Capture can capture documents from many sources and can be trained to acquire information from new sources. Human resources documentation, mailroom processing, claims processing, and records digitization functions too can benefit from IDM Capture. In one success story, Fortude consultants trained IDM Capture to capture data from tech packs for a leading fashion brand. The captured data was then fed into Infor PLM for Fashion.

48% of accounts payable professionals in Ardent Partners 2021 study feel that AP functions are affected by the high percentage of exceptions. An exception can include incorrect data on a line item, discount level, total due, or company details, often due to human error. Exceptions can occur in any kind of documentation, but they affect AP departments more, delaying the process and impacting the relationship with the supplier.

IDM Capture incorporates a fuzzy database lookup to make sure that partner information such as ID, address, and account number is correctly populated. As IDM Capture can identity exceptions even before a business user looks at the document, AP professionals do not have to manually compare different information sources to identify discrepancies. If any exception needs human intervention, IDM Capture notifies the user.

According to IOFM AP Benchmarking Study, the cost per invoice can range from USD 8.78 to 1.77, depending on the degree of automation, while other studies show the cost to process invoices can be even higher.

Enterprises can prevent poor utilization of AP professionals by handing over tedious document processing tasks to IDM Capture. Accounting staff, instead, can spend time on tasks that require human expertise and innovation.

Figure 2: IOFM AP Benchmarking Study – Annualcost per invoice

Source: AP Benchmarking Study