Atlas Products’ OCR. (Optical
Character Recognition)
Following is a description based on the OCR solution as installed at two sites. This software and procedure has been custom designed for these
clients. In the background the system interfaces with the client’s
accounting software. These clients are buying authorities for a number of members.
In summary the OCR solution provides a quick and easy data entry system
for suppliers' invoices. Additionally it provides the client’s
member with a graphicalrepresentation (through the web portal) of the
invoices which the members can then view. Typically one person can process
twelve thousand invoices monthly.
There are five parts to the OCR process.
- Designer – the user
takes a document and defines zones/areas within this document. The zones
are read by the OCR engine to pick up information.
These zones will contain document related items such as Invoice number,
date, person to whom the document is going, the goods total, VAT or sales tax amount
and finally the invoice total (goods total plus tax).
- Scan – the user
scans in the invoices once they have selected a supplier with whom to associate
the invoice.
- Recognition – the user runs the OCR engine. This
reads the information from the invoice from the zones defined at the
Designer stage.
- Validation –the user checks the OCR'ed information. The information read from the
Recognition stage is taken into the Validation system.
- Viewer – the user
is set to view the information they have validated.
Designer
When a new supplier joins the client’s catalog they
are added to the accounts system. The Atlas system then reads the information
from the accounts system. A new supplier is added to the Designer by scanning
in the invoice and then defining the zones. Here the user clicks on the
blue nodes and then with the mouse positions the green box over the appropriate
place on the invoice.
See figure 1 below. Note here the user in defining
the area where the invoice number will be. This process is repeated for
the invoice date, member, goods amount, Vat or sales tax amount and the total.
Figure
1. Screen shot of the Designer.
Scan
Figure 2. The Scan application.
Once a supplier is set up through Designer, invoices
can be scanned through the system. The user selects a "new batch" then
scans the invoices relating to that supplier. Once, finished the user closes the batch. Many suppliers can be scanned for a given batch.
Recognition
In the recognition stage the zones are read and the information is taken
from the invoice. Again once finished the batch is closed.
Figure 3. The Recognition stage.
Validation
Once a batch is recognized it progresses to validation. Here the
information read from the Recognition stage is collected. Users have the opportunity to check the OCR'd information with respect to the information
on the invoice.
Figure 4. The Validation
application.
Viewer.
The Viewer application allows the user to view the documents inputted
to the system. The Viewer offers searches by supplier and member.
Figure 5. The Viewer application.
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