A Solution For Better Handling of Invoices

January 16th, 2018

Invoice
scanning
: Our solution to better handling of invoices

Invoices play a huge role in most businesses’ experiences with paper documents and have done for a very long
time. These documents need to be stored and accessed for future reference. But what comes with this? The
more paper we end up having, the more disorganised the whole thing becomes, even in the best kept and most
ingeniously designed of filing systems. Though we’ve been handling paper for as long as we can remember,
it’s getting to a point where it’s becoming more of a hindrance than it is an aid. This is why we devised a
system that will make it much easier and quicker to access your documents when you need them. This process
is invoice scanning and invoice data capture and involves the scanning and digitising of your invoices to
PDF and other accessible formats. It all starts with the invoice itself, a document that most people should
be familiar with. Below is a typical example:

The areas highlighted in red have been done so for a number of reasons;

  • This is some of the more important data when it comes to searching for and retrieving invoices.
  • These areas are where would typically target when it comes to indexing your files to make them easy to
    find.

Which brings us onto the next question…

What’s invoice indexing?

Invoice indexing is the process of marking invoices by certain pieces of information to make them easier to
search and find in a digital document management system. Typical examples of this information are:

  • Invoice Number
  • Date of Invoice
  • Name of the company invoiced
  • Salesperson / Sales Team
  • PO Number

However, it is not limited to this. If you wanted the value of the sale instead, this can also be indexed. On
top of this we also offer a service called OCR.

What’s
OCR
and how will it help searching invoices?

OCR or Optical Character Recognition, is a process that is completed right after the scanning is done and
makes the entire document text-searchable. This means that we wouldn’t just be capturing the important data,
but also other things you’ve chosen not to index such as the product purchase, part numbers, quantities,
delivery type and anything else that is on your invoices. This can help narrow down invoices when you’ve
done a general search and a lot of results have been returned.

Making Search and Retrieval of Invoices Even Simpler Than Easy

A lot of companies who offer similar services will offer all invoices in a PDF format and leave you to search
for them via Windows Explorer. That’s fine, but it doesn’t give you a system that’s as simple and as
streamlined as it could be and, if you’re going to have your invoices scanned and digitised, it’s best to do
it right first time. So what makes our system stand out? This is our innovative search and retrieval
software
Halogen:

halogen-invoices halogen-index-area

This is Halogen’s selection area. As you can see it has all of the options listed above enabling us to search
the required fields for specific information. The search can either be done by clicking the arrow to access
the drop down menu and scrolling through the selections, or by starting to type in the criteria and letting
the rest be filled in by the software. For example, if you started searching for ‘Mar’ in ‘Salesperson’, it
would autofill to the next selection which in this instance would be ‘Mark Pearson.’All criteria can be
filled before doing a search. You can also use the OCR panel for extended searching or it can be used on its
own to search via a text search. In this particular instance we are going to search for the above invoice
but we only know the Company Name and we want to know which Salesperson made the sale, the date of sale and
the exact quantity it was for. There are many instances you’ll come across on a daily basis where it can be
useful especially, in this instance, if you file your invoices by date rather than by Company Name.

acme-halogen

The documents found are displayed at the bottom of the software with all indexed criteria on display. In this
instance only one invoice appeared but if there were 10 invoices in the system for this particular company,
all would display on the bottom ‘shelf’ and would be selectable.

When compared to rummaging through hundreds, if not thousands, of invoices the potential in this simple but
innovative system is there for all to see and will save considerable time, resources and money in both the
short and long term.

That’s not all! With most invoice and document scanning orders with Pearl Scan, Halogen is completely free of
charge. How can you turn that down? If you would like some more information on the invoice scanning service
we provide including invoice data capture, invoice indexing, OCR processing or Halogen services we have to
offer, please browse our website to see our full
range of scanning services or
get in touch today. For a free, no obligation quote complete the online form by
following the relevant links below.

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