What is Intelligent Document Processing - (IDP)?

How does Intelligent Document Processing work?

Extract and organize information from complex content in any document format

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solutions transform unstructured and semi-structured information into usable data. Business data is at the heart of digital transformation; unfortunately, 80% of all business data is embedded in unstructured formats like business documents, emails, images and PDF documents.

Intelligent document processing is the next generation of automation, able to capture, extract, and process data from a variety of document formats. It uses AI technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), Computer Vision, deep learning and machine learning (ML) to classify, categorize, and extract relevant information, and validate the extracted data.

Pre-Processing

Binarization • Noise Reduction • Deskewing • and more

Intelligent Document Classification

NLP • Unsupervised Learning • Supervised Learning • OCR • Google Vision

Data Extraction

NLP • Deep Learning • ML • OCR • Google Vision • Handwriting

Domain Specific Validation

Fuzzy Logic • RegEx • Rules • Scripts

Enhanced Validation

RPA

Human-in-the-Loop Validation

Supervised Learning

Your data is a goldmine

IDP makes any and all data accessible for business processing

The amount of data found in enterprises is growing.

By 2025, IDC predicts worldwide data to exceed 175 zettabytes. With most of this information locked in emails, text, PDFs, and scanned documents—think for a moment of the volume of data in email alone—it poses a real barrier to automation and digital transformation.

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) converts unstructured data

Both unstructured and semi-structured data can be converted into structured, usable information, providing end-to-end automation to document-centric business processes.
Without IDP-like solutions, RPA-automation processes will require knowledge workers to read documents and extract data. IDP is key to unlocking the value of RPA.

RPA needs intelligence, and AI needs automation to scale.

Together, IDP and RPA provide a simple yet effective tool to automate enterprise business processes. Like RPA, IDP tools are completely non-invasive, integration-friendly, and are widely applicable across industries and business functions.

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) provides:

Direct cost savings. Reduces expenses by dramatically cutting costs to process large volumes of data
Higher straight through processing (STP). Minimize the need for knowledge workers to manually process documents
Ease of use. Allows businesses to get set up faster and automate more processes
Process efficiency. Enables end-to-end automation of document-centric processes
Accuracy uplift. See immediate significant increases in data accuracy with the use of AI
Strategic goal boost. Automated data processing supports business goals like improving customer experience

What are the benefits of combining IDP with RPA?

Empower business users to automate any business process that involves documents, by themselves

IDP is an essential ingredient of intelligent automation. Automation can reach only so far as data is available to work with. With standard RPA systems, setting up data extraction to run automations is often a separate 3rd party project, which adds ongoing costs as well as fragile integration points.

Effectively extracting data and structuring information is the gateway to automating the lion’s share of business processes that today rely on manual inputs and intervention. Embedding Intelligent Document Processing within the RPA platform is what enables business users to automate processes end-to-end. When IDP and RPA live together in the same platform, you have the biggest pieces of the automation puzzle working in sync, effortlessly.

Start processing data. Fast.

Integrated, RPA-native IDP tools are easy to set up, often 5-10x faster than other approaches

Lower your processing costs

AI-driven IDP + RPA improves straight-through processing (STP) by continuously learning from human feedback

Business user friendly

Built-in IDP makes it easy to get started with pre-packaged use cases to choose from for the most common document processing scenarios

Enterprise-level automation

Tie your IDP software into other areas of the business to realize a fully integrated RPA system without the need for expensive upgrades

Powerful for developers

Enhance document extraction by modifying your AI workflows with the ability to add custom logic (Python scripting)

Process any document

Accelerate digital transformation by combining the power of IDP that can handle structured and unstructured documents in almost any format with automation

Secure and reliable document handling

Quickly scale document processing operations and regulatize data capture to extract data needed to get the job done

Self-improving document processing

Built-in AI allows for increased return on investment over time as IDP bots continuously learn and improve

Plug-and-play data capture tools

Access a larger toolset such as specialized OCR technology to support unique use cases

Extraction use case library

Embedded IDP within enterprise RPA software can come ready with preset extraction packages to apply right away to the most common document processing scenarios

Where Can You Apply IDP?

Intelligent Document Processing software is ready to extract and organize data across industries and business functions, right out of the box.

Decipher scribbles / difficult content

Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) is the next level of OCR, applying AI to better identify glyphs and other textual elements that are difficult to read.

Streamline supply chain

Use IDP to process barcodes, manifests, invoices, and more, for rapid supply chain operations from orders through accounts payable processes.

Digitize paper documents

Use IDP document scanning to convert paper-based documents into machine-readable file formats (PDF, Microsoft Word, etc.) with searchable text for optimal performance.

Assemble documents and reports

Automate document creation by pulling from different data sources and using document templates to produce in-depth reports, complex legal documents, and much more.

Extract the right information

Intelligent capture solutions seamlessly pull the information you want from documents for further processing, storage, and use in other applications.

Manage documents and data

Store and organize documents for easy retrieval or archiving and automate record retention requirements compliance.

Additional Resources

See how IQ Bot processes mortgage applications, end to end

Watch how IQ Bot works to automate extremely document-heavy mortgage application processing. See how IQ Bot learns what to do to eliminate tedious and error-prone manual work to process mortgage applications.

Discover Document Automation

IDP Vendor Guide

How To Select The Right Intelligent Data Capture Software