Data extraction has become increasingly important as the quantity of semi and unstructured data has grown dramatically. Since structured data is machine-readable, it can be analyzed and processed more precisely than other data types. Companies can use data extraction automation tools to extract information from many sources. Businesses may save resources by automating data extraction. They can also eliminate manual errors, enhance data-driven decision-making procedures, and relieve employees of mind-numbing routine tasks.
What is Data Extraction?
Converting semi or unstructured data into structured data is known as data extraction. Structured data gives businesses valuable insights that may be used for analytics and reporting. Data extraction aids in the consolidation, processing, and refinement of data to be stored in a centralized area for analysis and documentation.
What is Data Extraction Automation?
Data extraction automation refers to the process of using technology and software solutions to automatically extract data from various sources, such as documents, websites, databases, or emails, without the need for manual intervention. It involves the use of advanced technologies like optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) to extract relevant information and transform it into structured data for further analysis and processing.
Technologies Used in Data Extraction Automation:
Optical Character Recognition (OCR):
OCR technology is a key component of data extraction automation. It allows the software to recognize and extract text from images, scanned documents, or PDF files. OCR algorithms convert the scanned or image-based text into machine-readable characters, enabling the extraction of data from unstructured sources.
Natural Language Processing (NLP):
NLP technology enables the software to understand and interpret human language, including textual data. It helps in extracting and categorizing relevant information from unstructured text documents by analyzing grammar, syntax, and context. NLP techniques are particularly useful for data extraction from sources like emails, customer feedback, or social media posts.
Machine Learning (ML):
Machine learning algorithms play a crucial role in data extraction automation. ML models are trained on large datasets to learn patterns, rules, and relationships within the data. These models can then be used to automatically extract and classify data from new and unseen documents. ML algorithms can adapt and improve over time as they process more data, leading to enhanced extraction accuracy.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
AI encompasses a broader range of technologies, including machine learning and NLP, that enable software systems to perform intelligent tasks and mimic human intelligence. AI-powered data extraction automation solutions can understand unstructured data, learn from experience, make decisions, and improve performance over time. AI enables more sophisticated and context-aware data extraction, improving accuracy and efficiency.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA):
RPA technology automates repetitive tasks by mimicking human actions on computer systems. In data extraction automation, RPA can be used to automate the manual steps involved in data extraction, such as opening documents, navigating through applications, and copying/pasting data. RPA enhances the efficiency of the overall data extraction process by eliminating manual effort.
Benefits of Data Extraction Automation
The following are the top benefits of data extraction automation for organizations:
Making Better Decisions:
Users can extract useful data from unstructured data sources via data extraction.
Cost Savings:
Manual methods are expensive. A Fortune 500 company is expected to process numerous invoices just for accounts payable. These are invoices from smaller vendors that the company gets outside its Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system.
Reduced manual errors:
By automating the data extraction procedure, the structured data obtained will contain fewer errors, resulting in more accurate business reports. Data extraction automation, according to Irislink, may prevent 80% of such errors by giving more accurate data.
More efficient processes:
Data entering by hand takes longer and is more prone to errors. Companies would save time by not having to re-enter data, and they would be able to extract data quicker due to auto-extracting data.
Employee motivation:
Data extraction technology would relieve employees of this tedious and repeated manual process, allowing them to focus on their primary responsibilities. This also helps them be more efficient and productive by eliminating distractions.
Data extraction automation for various industries
Companies can use data extraction to import data from files, credentials, and photos into their systems. Let’s look at a few data extraction use cases in various industries:
1. Commercial data extraction automation for real estate
Real estate investors examine past sales data for certain properties and then compare these to similar properties on several characteristics to determine the investment potential. Before comparing, most property managers gather historical data from multiple document kinds and categorize it in a standardized manner. On the other hand, manual extraction is prone to a variety of errors, leading to inaccurate data sets and estimates.
Advantages of Automation:
- Automated data extraction helps expedite sales comparisons by extracting past sales data from various non-standard property documents.
- Standard fields like property, building, and adjustment data can be easily extracted.
2. Document processing in logistics
Logistics service providers manually feed updates to the TMS or ERP by extracting and analyzing large amounts of data from bills of ladings, invoices, and other documents. Commodity merchants, food producers, shippers, and logistics companies must process hundreds of Bills of Lading every day. This method is subject to errors and delays because it is carried out manually.
Advantages of Data extraction Automation:
- Bills of lading and other logistics papers are processed in real-time by automated data extraction technology, which ensures accuracy of over 99 percent.
- Process shipping information, purchase information, and any supplementary information for less money, faster time of processing, and error-free results.
3. For property managers, rental application and agreement parsing
You may find your desk or email inbox filled with applications for properties you handle as a property manager. It might be time-consuming to sift through all the documentation to find the main information that varies from application to application. Such credentials are extremely valuable, and the confidential material must be handled with extreme caution.
Advantages of Automation:
- Data extraction automation gives you the required information in a variety of forms, or you can use Sheets integrations to get the data you need.
- Data extraction software extracts variations across rental apps and sends them to where you need them.
4. Processing of accounts payable
A huge percentage of invoices are now sent in Pdf versions. However, because businesses issue and receive hundreds of invoices every day, automated accounts payable systems are necessary to relieve the burden of human entry and speed up, improve accuracy, and eliminate errors in the payable workflow system.
Advantages of Automation:
- The fine-grained data figures inside the digital bills are located and extracted using data extraction automation.
- If a company receives hundreds of invoices from numerous vendors, automated data extraction can help to streamline these bills in diverse forms and produce error-free reports.
How can your firm achieve end-to-end data extraction automation?
The necessity to automating the process of data extraction is evident due to the availability of high-performance systems and the potential automation benefits. An initial data extraction project that yields significant results in a short period can persuade management to automate other operations, resulting in a significant improvement in the company’s productivity.
Starting with high-volume, complicated documents and the most advanced processing processes, where off-the-shelf solutions are available. The metrics to watch are the present cost of data extraction, the current cost of document processing at an advanced level, and the availability of data extraction options.
We have solutions for all of these categories at KlearStack. To learn more schedule a demo with our automation experts today!
