Document Processing in Retail:
The Benefits of Adopting a Modern IDP

Automation in retail is booming — even small retailers are automating tasks as part of their end-to-end approach. As automation becomes increasingly prevalent, retail is using innovations in automation at each step in the supply chain. Warehouse tasks, distribution, and inventory management are all opportunities for automating tasks and improving profitability.

As the age of automation progresses, more and more retailers are using innovative technologies for paperless document management. One of the most effective ways to use automation in retail is through intelligent document processing (IDP) — an AI-based approach to document processing that can save time while improving accuracy.

For a long-term solution to document processing, IDP is quickly becoming used by businesses across industries. Let’s take a look at how IDP is helping retailers improve their positive margins, and why IDP is becoming an integral part of retail businesses. 

Does automation mean less accuracy? 

In automation, there is often a misconception that time saved will sacrifice accuracy. After all, the human mind is more complex and efficient than any AI program, right? 

Not necessarily — especially when it comes to rote and repetitive tasks. When you’re processing documents, a holistic evaluation will quickly find that accuracy is compromised when people are tired of working. 

Human errors increase when people get burnt out, burnout leads to low morale, and low morale can cost your business productivity and even employees. Automated tasks can help to avoid these risks to the accuracy of your document processing while keeping your employees happy. 

Of course, there is still a need for in-person employees to operate within a retail environment. Team members can use their expertise to creatively address problems, in a way a machine never could. Retail is also full of customer-facing employees who need to interact with the clientele — and no AI can do this like a human can. 

How automation saves time in retail 

There are many areas in document processing that can benefit from automation. Even steps in the process that seemingly must be done by hand are quickly being automated. Pre-processing documents, as well as handling and sorting documents after processing, are opportunities for automation. With AI-based automation powering your most repetitive tasks, you can move documents without sacrificing accuracy or employee productivity. 

Before deploying an automated solution to retail issues, consider all the advantages of humans in a retail environment. That being said, AI-based machine learning is prevalent in document processing — and for good reason. When you automate document processing with self-teaching IDP, you can improve accuracy and efficiency, all at the same time.

Benefits of adopting a modern IDP in retail

Within the world of retail, there are plenty of ways in which an IDP can improve profit margins and streamline production. IDP is an intelligent solution that is simple to implement, and easy to oversee — in contrast with traditional template-based technology or manual processing, both of which require frustrating, rote work. 

Let’s look at some of the significant use cases for IDP in retail — and why they’re gaining traction so fast. 

• Managing your inventory.  Large and small retailers alike need an accurate inventory management system. Inventory records help to keep track of finances and products, but extensive inventories can quickly become a hassle for manual documentation. IDP is a secure solution that allows you to organize, process, and store inventory documents with an intelligent data entry system. You can switch to paperless inventory management, without compromising security.
  
• Bills of lading (and purchase orders). Many types of retail forms can be efficiently and accurately processed using IDP technology. Bills of lading and purchase orders require a high degree of precision in the documentation. Still, traditional optical character recognition (OCR) technology can only process identically structured documents using a single template. IDP allows you to process semi-structured bills of lading and purchase orders with a solution that gets more accurate over time.
  
• Managing internal documents. Retail businesses must manage many other internal documents, from HR forms to onboarding and offboarding documents. These forms require a high degree of accuracy and security. With IDP, your business can keep track of documents with a paperless solution that can generate and populate forms using machine learning (ML).
  
• Keeping a unified system. Organizing large amounts of data is a significant (and often overlooked) benefit of IDP. Because IDP helps businesses with sorting, processing, and filing documents, it provides a centralized platform for managing company data. From invoices to receipts, bills of lading, and HR documents, IDP can learn where to route and store your important information. 

Growing profit margins with Rossum

At Rossum, our goal is to help you to automate your document processing to be more efficient and more accurate than ever before. Rossum is a trusted, highly secure IDP solution, with cloud-based AI-driven processing. With our highly adaptable AI neural engine, your business can process your incoming invoices with pinpoint accuracy that improves over time. 

If it’s time to update your retail business, contact us for a demonstration or to learn about the difference between Rossum and other IDP solutions for yourself.