When it comes to improving back office efficiency, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) has been one of the cutting-edge technologies that is broadly implemented across industries. OCR automates daily administrative tasks by scanning, parsing, and converting documents into digital text that can be easily managed in computers. However, the traditional OCR has many constraints in reading the data and requires heavy model training. As technology advances, AI (Artificial Intelligence) emerges as a superpower in enhancing OCR’s proficiency. AI-Powered OCR has greater capability in its data processing.
What are the differences between traditional OCR and AI-powered OCR? Which one is ideal for your needs? Let’s find out!
Traditional OCR
Traditional OCR automatically retrieves information based on the specific set of rules it was built on. Due to its high reliance on the predefined model, it is not very effective at recognizing handwriting or any variations. When dealing with non-standard documents, several stages of setup are also required. This includes defining data fields and manually marking the areas for each data point, which can be time-consuming.
Despite these limitations, traditional OCR has a high level of accuracy for extracting data from documents with consistent layouts and designs, such as printed books and payment proofs. This tool is suitable for companies that work with structured documents, but is not ideal for firms that need to handle diverse types of documents.
Pros: ✅Relatively cheap ✅Good for structured documents
Cons: ❗Poor adaptability ❗Limited document support
AI-Powered OCR
With AI-Powered OCR, effortlessly extract key details from any type of document. AI offers the next generation of OCR that is flexibly adapting to different documents without the need for complex training. Not only does it identify characters, but AI also fuels OCR to read content with context and intelligently map it to the relevant key pairs. From raw data to structured data, in just seconds. Forget spending hours manually inputting various documents from different merchants—everything can now be processed automatically using this one single OCR tool.
AI-based OCR comes with powerful skills and features for more optimal automation. Deliver the extraction results to another platform you currently use, saving you multiple steps for faster task completion. Continuous learning and adaptability also help this advanced OCR model constantly update its pattern recognition, allowing it to handle a variety of documents.
Pros: ✅Scalable capacity ✅Broad document coverage
Cons: ❗High upfront cost❗Ongoing maintenance
Choose the right OCR model for your business needs
Selecting the best-fitting OCR is very important, not only to ensure it is worth the money, but also for the effective goals accomplishment you aim for when using the tool. Ask your team these several questions before deciding OCR implementation:
- What objective do you want to achieve by integrating the OCR tool?
- Does the OCR tool have great features and is it easy to use?
- How accurate and fast is its processing?
- Do the OCR features provide the effective support you need to achieve your goals?
- Does the cost of implementing this OCR fit within your financial plan?
Fintelite’s OCR is a powerful solution designed to meet a wide range of document processing needs. It efficiently extracts key details from any document you input, delivering ready-to-use datasets with speed and precision. With seamless integration, experience ease in transferring the processed data to accounting software like Xero, Jurnal, or QuickBooks. Get 30 days free access, or book a demo to see how our OCR solution is the perfect fit for your use case.
