Automated forms
It’s a method meant for automation of data processing, which became possible due to use of pre-defined templates and configurations. Under a template in this context we understand a map of the document, where all data field locations within the form or document are shown. In comparison with the manual data entry process, automatic form input systems are more efficient and help minimize mistakes, which arise during manual data processing.
Different types of recognition methods are used with automatic form input systems, for example: optical mark reading (OMR) for check/mark sense boxes, optical character recognition (OCR) for machine print, bar code recognition (BCR) for barcodes, and intelligent character recognition (ICR) for hand print.
Nowadays, Forms Processing isn’t just a basic capture of the data. First of all, forms processing encompasses a recognition process and helps manage the complete life cycle of documents starting from document scanning to data extraction, and often to delivery into a back-end system.
Sometimes, the described process may also include processing or generation of well formatted results through calculations and analysis. If hundreds or thousands of images should be processed every day, an automated forms processing system can be extremely valuable.