We work with our clients to find the best solutions for their business needs. Recently, I helped a client to use OCR (optical character recognition) to keep track of the shipping tickets, suggesting the software from ChronoScan as the best option.
The client, a company which supplies heavy construction materials and ships quarry aggregates, generated around 75,000 tickets a year and were struggling to search through them when they needed to submit their tax returns. In layman’s terms, OCR uses the computer to read a scan of the document, then using the information within it in different areas of the business, such as populating forms.
Benefits of using OCR include:
- Auditing, to allow easy access to documents
- Autonomous digitisation of documents
- Digital search to locate gaps in documentation, making it quicker to resolve
- Removes the need for the paper-based tickets and provides digital storage
- Integration with any version of Navision (Classic and RTC), allowing users to attach/link the document to purchase orders, sales quotes, invoices etc.
- Can be set up to process different documents
Using Chronoscan OCR
At CBIZ, we recommended the client used Chronoscan, which has OCR. I tried it myself first, and found it easy to navigate and simple to use. Within a few hours I put together setup of what I wanted the software to do.
I asked it to ‘read in’ a pdf containing around 50 tickets and split them into individual documents named after the ticket number. This batch runs were being done manually, although an automation option was available on the advanced licence.
Chronoscan answered all of my questions when I contacted them, and the advice they gave, along with some test licences, greatly helped with polishing and automating the processing.
Once the system was set up, the scanner could send multiple pdf documents filled with the shipping tickets, which were then read one by one, separated into individual documents and saved into another folder.
This folder could then be used in NAV to link the tickets to the relevant shipment and invoice, and a report generated to check the folder for missing tickets and allow for investigation. Within the first month of using Chronoscan, the client had 35,000 tickets scanned and processed through OCR.
We can use OCR in various ways to support our clients in reaching their goals. Using Chronoscan to help the shipping business was simple, as the OCR was only reading the ticket numbers, but it can read more than one field, which increases functionality.
Personally, I can’t wait for the next OCR project!
For more information, please visit https://cbiz.co.uk/solutions/chronoscan-ocr-for-dynamics/
