4 Advantages of Cloud-Based, Automated Forms Processing

For organizations like insurance companies, government agencies, and more, extracting client or constituent data from a growing stack of forms is just another day in the office. Yet manually processing paper and electronic forms is not only time-consuming, but also prone to human error and resource depletion.

Most business applications don’t have this sort of native functionality. Custom-development in many platforms is no picnic either, and the buy vs build argument is always top-of-mind. Many companies have already recognized significant ROI running server-based automated data collection from forms, so it seems clear that a cloud-based solution will only add value. Here are four advantages that build a strong business case for offering Accusoft’s forms processing as a cloud-delivered service. We’d love to get your take on the matter, too.

1. Remote Access to Forms Processing from Mobile Devices

Banking is a perfect example of an industry which has been transformed by processing documents remotely. Although many transactions are sent by wire transfer and direct deposit, a 2018 PYMTS.com survey found that 64 percent of B2B payments are still made by check and about 23 percent of consumer payments.

For businesses and individuals looking to accelerate the process of getting check funds into their account, the ability to capture information from a physical check to deposit money is a great convenience. Take mobile capture scenario, including OCRing form field names and ICRing handwritten inputs to other scenarios involving mobile employees, customers, patients, or constituents.

Let’s say a police officer, paramedic, or other first-responder gathers information at the scene of a car accident. If they can gather details from all parties, including witnesses after an accident, it would likely save a lot of follow-up leg work even hours or days after the fact. In addition, situations which require forms to be filled out in a foreign language can also be streamlined without a translator.

This scenario could allow parties to fill out a physical form, which can then be captured by a mobile phone or tablet camera, uploaded via the cloud, and then data could flow right into a policing database system. The flexibility of cloud-based SDK architecture can make extending form-capture functionality to mobile devices or remote users a reality.

2. Reducing Human Error and Speeding Data Collection

The process of manually keying in form data in itself is prone to error when an employee is working in an office. Let’s say a physiotherapist is working with a patient in their home or school environment. They manually collect information about a patient’s recovery progress and medications they may be taking during a session.

Instead of collecting forms and entering information between patients, scanning and processing the form will save time and reduce errors as practitioners juggle multiple patients throughout a day. This could exponentially reduce the propensity for error through OCR and ICR.

3. Reduce Cost and Keep Pace with the Latest Versions

Now that the cloud has “come of age, you’ll likely have seen many statistics about how businesses that have increased their reliance on public cloud services by a factor of five-times over in just five years.

Two of the reasons that cloud services are so popular are cost containment and vendor-managed upgrades, patches, and fixes. Accusoft’s FormSuite for Structured Forms is a mature SDK solution as a licensed product, though delivering structured forms processing via the cloud could enable usage-based pricing, so our customers would pay only for the value they realize from our solution.

4. Ease of Integration with Business Applications

The growth of the cloud has also led to the standardization of APIs which make more SaaS applications easier to integrate through plug-ins and APIs which are built with C#. These are but a handful of structured data applications which are fed data extracted from forms in a variety of industries including, but not limited to:

• Human Capital Management
  • Benefits forms
  • Vacation requests
  • Employment applications
• Accounts Payable
  • Invoices
  • Purchase request forms
  • Permits and licenses
  • Application forms
  • Checks
  • Surveys
• Legal
  • Contracts
  • Subpoenas
  • Warrants

Automated forms processing is a great way to save time, money, and increase accuracy. Interoperability with critical business applications is an unquestionable advantage. Would you like to streamline data collection in the cloud with ease?

If you can you envision some potential use cases of cloud-based automated forms processing in your organization, please take our survey. Let us know of any advantages which you think we missed, or functionality you would need to have to make it worth your investment.

Share your thoughts in our brief online survey here.