This blog post talks about a solution that takes on the Direc Business Technologies, Inc. initiative to create meaningful add-ons and offering to clients. As an entry to the SEEDx Development Challenge 2020, we introduce to you a simplified yet innovative tool to ease the tedious manual recording of voluminous supplier invoices, the eDOC.
The growth of technology has paved the way for various innovations. With the digitization of information, increasing numbers of companies are taking advantage of the benefits of digital tools. It has been essential in transforming their process into a complete success.
Advanced technology helps in developing automated processes in different industries especially in manufacturing. Erik Reinert believes that the geopolitical success of rich nations over the last several hundred years has been to create a high-quality manufacturing sector to develop national wealth and power (Reinert, n.d., as cited in Roosevelt Institute, 2011). By utilizing technology, costs and time expended for operations are reduced. The resources saved can then be redirected to focus on other tasks that result to improved efficiency in business processes like in billing, tracking metrics, collecting customer data, and monitoring certain processes.
According to Ciara Conlon, most people in business, not only in manufacturing, are well aware of the multitude of business benefits to be gained from having more productive employees as well as from more efficient production lines. Productivity and efficiency benefits are obvious and widely felt when implemented in a business environment because it results increase profit, low operational costs, reducing employee burnout, optimizing resources, improve competitiveness and increase engagement (Conlon, 2019).
Solution Demo Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKkblqXRDMU
Submission Details
Solution Name:
eDOC
Solution Description:
To save time and money, we then decided to develop a system called "eDOC" utilizing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that converts hardcopy material to digital copies.
eDOC accesses the data with ease, simplifies data entry, creates simple text searches, saves space, and avoids errors caused by manual data encoding in SAP Business One. eDoc reads hard and soft copies of image formats from mobile phones, document scanner hardware, and snipping tools. For more uncomplicated data handling, eDoc also offers drag-and-drop features to identify new bills, and stores and uses the information to remotely process A/P Invoice, A/P Down Payment Invoice and A/P Reserve Invoice, and Outgoing Payments. The system provides a step-by-step solution wizard to determine the right module, information to be captured, and payment recommendations. eDOC has the capability to learn layouts, recognize most, if not all, data for processing, and continuously improve its reading mechanics.
At the back end, eDoc will connect to the SAP Cloud Foundry to convert the scanned document to digital text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and post it directly in SAP Business One.
Solution Use Case
Real Customer Use-Case
Persona Identified
Pain Points
The following are few of the many challenges the eDOC aims to minimize/resolve:
Solution Details
UX Technology Used
Platform Technology Used
Integration Technology Used
Industry Focus
The Project is aimed mostly for companies that receives and transacts a large number of supplier invoices but with little manpower to do the job. This can also be marketed to organizations such as accounting firms and BPO’s that offers outsourced accounts payable processing, helping then to gain efficiency in services and accuracy of data.
Road Map
Envisioning the eDOC to be a complete and easy tool that will have the following additional features:
Moreover, as the demands of customers increase, the eDOC is developed to be flexible enough to adapt to the changes the future would bring.
Partner
Country
Team Name
Team Members
Conclusion:
Technology could be the pivotal difference between winning companies and the surviving ones. eDoc, utilizing OCR technology, will surely help any company who looks to advance the efficiency of its operations. With better allocation of resources, you can assure that you are a step ahead in gearing towards success.
References:
(Reinert, n.d., as cited in Roosevelt Institute, 2011). Six Reasons Manufacturing is Central to the Economy. https://rooseveltinstitute.org/six-reasons-manufacturing-central-economy/
(Conlon, 2019). 11 Reasons Why Productivity Should be on your Business Agenda. https://ciaraconlon.com/2018/11-reasons-productivity-business-agenda/
The growth of technology has paved the way for various innovations. With the digitization of information, increasing numbers of companies are taking advantage of the benefits of digital tools. It has been essential in transforming their process into a complete success.
Advanced technology helps in developing automated processes in different industries especially in manufacturing. Erik Reinert believes that the geopolitical success of rich nations over the last several hundred years has been to create a high-quality manufacturing sector to develop national wealth and power (Reinert, n.d., as cited in Roosevelt Institute, 2011). By utilizing technology, costs and time expended for operations are reduced. The resources saved can then be redirected to focus on other tasks that result to improved efficiency in business processes like in billing, tracking metrics, collecting customer data, and monitoring certain processes.
According to Ciara Conlon, most people in business, not only in manufacturing, are well aware of the multitude of business benefits to be gained from having more productive employees as well as from more efficient production lines. Productivity and efficiency benefits are obvious and widely felt when implemented in a business environment because it results increase profit, low operational costs, reducing employee burnout, optimizing resources, improve competitiveness and increase engagement (Conlon, 2019).
Solution Demo Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKkblqXRDMU
Submission Details
Solution Name:
eDOC
Solution Description:
To save time and money, we then decided to develop a system called "eDOC" utilizing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that converts hardcopy material to digital copies.
eDOC accesses the data with ease, simplifies data entry, creates simple text searches, saves space, and avoids errors caused by manual data encoding in SAP Business One. eDoc reads hard and soft copies of image formats from mobile phones, document scanner hardware, and snipping tools. For more uncomplicated data handling, eDoc also offers drag-and-drop features to identify new bills, and stores and uses the information to remotely process A/P Invoice, A/P Down Payment Invoice and A/P Reserve Invoice, and Outgoing Payments. The system provides a step-by-step solution wizard to determine the right module, information to be captured, and payment recommendations. eDOC has the capability to learn layouts, recognize most, if not all, data for processing, and continuously improve its reading mechanics.
At the back end, eDoc will connect to the SAP Cloud Foundry to convert the scanned document to digital text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and post it directly in SAP Business One.
Solution Use Case
Real Customer Use-Case
ACCOUNTING STAFF
- An Accounts Payable staff receives, files and records supplier invoices
- An Accounts Payable staff records issuances of checks/cash/bank transfers as payment to the supplier
OTHER EMPLOYEES (SALES AGENTS, CONSULTANTS, SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES, BPO STAFF)
- A sales agent, consultant or service representative files and submits receipts for reimbursements and/or liquidation of expenses for cash advances.
- A BPO staff records Supplier Invoices for a customer
Persona Identified
Pain Points
The following are few of the many challenges the eDOC aims to minimize/resolve:
- Time consuming process of manual recording of invoices
- High labor cos
- High storage cost
- Manual routing
- Manual classification and review of each invoice
- Multiple handling of the same invoice
- Losses and mishandling of documents
- Manual errors that cause delays in approval and loss
Solution Details
- Recognizes multiple soft-copy format types: JPEG/JPG, PNG, TIFF
- Precise posting of payables and disbursements directly into the books
- Provides a sleek and simple interface that increases user efficiency and lessens mistakes brought by complicated data entry
- Offers drag and drop-down capabilities in assigning parts and images of invoice layouts to standard and user defined fields
- Serves as a wizard that guides users in the process one step at a time
- Reduce the need to map data before a user can process document
- Ensures three-way matching for payment processing by uploading all related documents – e.g. Suppliers delivery receipt and sales invoice
- Precise posting of invoices into the books and real-time reflection on the accounts payable aging
- Select module (A /P Invoice, A/P Down Payment Invoice and A/P Reserve Invoice) to post into
- Process payments which is also posted directly as Outgoing Payments
UX Technology Used
- Bootstrap Framework
- HTML
- JavaScript
- ASP razor
Platform Technology Used
- C#
- NET
- MVC
Integration Technology Used
- SAP DI API / Service layer
Industry Focus
The Project is aimed mostly for companies that receives and transacts a large number of supplier invoices but with little manpower to do the job. This can also be marketed to organizations such as accounting firms and BPO’s that offers outsourced accounts payable processing, helping then to gain efficiency in services and accuracy of data.
Road Map
Envisioning the eDOC to be a complete and easy tool that will have the following additional features:
- Accommodate more file types
- User interface to access list of invoice layouts recognized/fed into the database
- Automatic capture of items up to row/line level
Moreover, as the demands of customers increase, the eDOC is developed to be flexible enough to adapt to the changes the future would bring.
Partner
- Direc Business Technologies, Inc. (EBM partner of Mustard Seeds Corporation)
Country
- Philippines
Team Name
- ClusterInno
Team Members
- Joy Huelgas
- Dianne Louise Grayda
- Nicole Angelo Orate
- Janella Rosales
- Sherlock Michael Baretto
- Jerico Angelo Bautista
- Dennis Nitullano
Conclusion:
Technology could be the pivotal difference between winning companies and the surviving ones. eDoc, utilizing OCR technology, will surely help any company who looks to advance the efficiency of its operations. With better allocation of resources, you can assure that you are a step ahead in gearing towards success.
References:
(Reinert, n.d., as cited in Roosevelt Institute, 2011). Six Reasons Manufacturing is Central to the Economy. https://rooseveltinstitute.org/six-reasons-manufacturing-central-economy/
(Conlon, 2019). 11 Reasons Why Productivity Should be on your Business Agenda. https://ciaraconlon.com/2018/11-reasons-productivity-business-agenda/
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