Conexiom Blog

What is Document Automation?

Written by Conexiom Marketing | January 17, 2024

Despite ongoing digital transformation initiatives, many companies still struggle with a flood of invoices, orders, receipts, and more. Manual document handling hampers productivity and leaves your company vulnerable to expensive errors and delays.

With document automation software, you can automate the deluge of documents and streamline your workflow without asking your stakeholders to change a thing.

Read on to discover how embracing this technology can optimize your document management and usher in a new era of productivity, accuracy, and savings.

What is Document Automation?

Document automation, also known as document assembly or document generation, replaces the time-consuming tasks involved in the manual generation, handling, and storage of documents with a fast, accurate, and easy software system. Effective document automation is an established technology with a proven history of success. 

Conexiom has spent over two decades building and refining our unique sales order document automation solution. Our platform combines advanced machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) software with your business logic to transform sales order, and AP invoice, processing into an EDI-like transaction. 

The result is a paperless back office environment where emailed invoices and sales orders are intelligently processed by computers with 100% accuracy and unparalleled speed, freeing up employees to focus on value-added jobs instead of rote, repetitive tasks.

Key Aspects of Document Automation

Let’s break down exactly what happens when the system creates, handles and stores documents:

  1. Data Collection/Intake: The system auto-detects relevant documents like purchase orders or invoices sent by email. 
  2. Document Processing: ML and deep learning algorithms identify and contextualize data fields and extract the necessary data with 100% accuracy. Documents that have been seen before are automatically recognized and templates help interpret first-time documents.
  3. Integrations: A record of the information is created and pushed to a system of record, such as your ERP. 
  4. Data Analysis: The software uses reference tables, business rules, and business logic to define how and where data is delivered. This allows smooth data exchange and collaboration between your various applications and processes.
  5. Data Transformation: The automation solution transforms the data into a format that your system of record can use. 

Document Automation in Order Management 

The vast improvements that can be achieved in order management offer a particularly strong example of the benefits of document automation. 

The technology can significantly enhance the efficiency of creating, processing, and tracking orders and more effectively handling the associated documentation. 

For example, order confirmation traditionally consists of manually generating and sending confirmations. With document automation, your systems can automatically create and dispatch confirmation emails as soon as an order is placed, satisfying your customers with a lightning-fast and 100% accurate response.

Advanced software can also use these order details to automatically produce invoices and receipts, ensuring accuracy and an accelerated billing process.

 

Werner Electric Supply used Conexiom’s document automation solution to transform its order management. With an inventory of over 24,000 SKUs, the electrical wholesaler needed a solution to accelerate its order cycle time with complete accuracy. Conexiom has helped Werner save approximately 6,263 hours per year.

 

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The best document automation solution can also be pivotal in ensuring compliance. 

You can trust it to automatically generate and organize the compliance documents required for each order. This means you can rest assured that your company is adhering to regulatory requirements without inefficient and error-prone manual intervention.

With document automation, you can also upgrade your tracking capabilities. 

Shipping notifications and tracking information can be created and distributed automatically, allowing your systems to inform your customers about their orders in real-time, increasing their satisfaction.

Document Automation in Accounts Payable

When it comes to accounts payable, the automation of invoice creation and processing is a straightforward and streamlined process. 

Software solutions can automatically capture and extract all the relevant data from incoming invoices, including invoice numbers, dates, vendor information, and line item details, eliminating the need for tedious manual data entry. 

The system can then automatically route the extracted invoice data through predefined approval workflows, guaranteeing that the appropriate team members can review and authorize the invoices in a timely manner.

Following approval, the software automatically creates or updates entries in your accounting system, maintaining the accuracy and integrity of your financial records. 

Automation can also make document storage and retrieval easier and more reliable. 

Having your documents automatically archived in a centralized and searchable repository means it’s simple to access and audit historical invoices whenever needed, guaranteeing compliance and providing complete visibility into your financial transactions.

Automation lets you accelerate the entire accounts payable cycle.

Ohio-based Woodhill Supply partnered with Conexiom to successfully automate their entire AP process, helping them expand despite labor constraints. 

 

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See How Conexiom Can Automate Your Document Handling

Document automation makes your company easy to do business with, enabling you to build frictionless and enduring relationships with customers and suppliers.

Say goodbye to manual document handling and look forward to:

  • 100% accuracy
  • Increased productivity
  • Automated paperwork
  • Decreased payroll hours
  • Lightning-fast response times
  • More employees available for value-added tasks
  • Real, measurable improvements to your bottom line

If you’re ready to transform your document handling into a simple, streamlined process, Conexiom is ready to help. We’ll work closely with your team to custom-design a solution that meets your specific needs. 

Request a demo and see how Conexiom can automate your document handling.