Data entry is a time-consuming and monotonous task that requires trained and specialized professionals. As businesses grow, they will probably need more resources to execute data entry tasks, however, hiring a team of data entry experts can be expensive. Often, data comes in large quantities that are not organized and may even be inaccurate. The best way to streamline your data process is to start by simplifying your processes and using automation and tools to execute data entry tasks.
Streamlining data entry not only makes the task easier but also ensures the task is completed more efficiently and that the data is more useful. In this guide, we will look at the various challenges in data entry, understand how an efficient data entry process can help businesses, and look at strategies to streamline the entire process.
Data entry, as mundane as it may seem, plays a crucial role in the smooth operation of many businesses. However, there are numerous challenges in this seemingly simple task that could potentially hamper productivity and efficiency if not addressed appropriately.
Data needs to be retrieved from images, papers, documents, files, and even large digital data sets. Understanding, sorting, and selecting data is a task that takes a lot of time and effort. Businesses that deal with a lot of data may lose focus on their core business functions to try and get the most out of data.
Manual data entry is often a menial routine task that requires personnel to comb through mountains of data. The more data there is, the higher the chances of errors during entry. Even if your teams go through two terabytes of data, if the results are inaccurate, the data isn’t of much use.
Having repeated that data is crucial to businesses, it isn’t necessarily a core business function. Deploying resources, time, and effort to get good data can take away attention to the core business functions. Businesses should be able to access data and focus on marketing, product innovation, and growth.
Data has become easier to access, and businesses sometimes make the mistake of trying to sort through huge amounts of data, instead of streamlining their processes to get better quality data. This can completely derail a business from its true objectives.
Data has become crucial to almost all businesses, whether it is customer behavior data, employee performance, or marketing performance data, it is essential. This means that there is more pressure on data entry teams to deliver usable, accurate data, promptly. The very nature of data entry can make teams feel overworked, overwhelmed, and unduly pressured. This will lead to more errors, less productivity, and a disengaged team.
Streamlining data entry processes offers businesses clear advantages. Let’s look at some of the advantages:
Before you can start to streamline your data entry process you need to understand what areas need improvement. Analyzing the process will usually reveal obvious errors in the approach. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Once you have understood what your process lacks, you need to implement strategies to streamline your data entry processes:
This includes computer systems, and specialized software that helps organize, track, and manage information and media. The best tools offer version control, access control, and collaboration tools. Top-tier DMS tools also offer template-based extraction and optical character recognition (OCR).
Automation and machine learning are vital in creating an efficient data entry process. Using powerful algorithms and techniques allows for efficient extraction of data from different file types and sources. The data will also be easier to sort and organize. Here are a few components of data entry automation:
You may want to create a custom solution that fits your business and process requirements. However, numerous pre-trained solutions are trained on a range of data and tasks. These pre-trained APIs tend to be easy to integrate for common document processing tasks.
Computer vision and image recognition use neural networks to identify objects, places, people, and recognize image patterns. The right tools will also be able to detect defects. Most of these systems are integrated into vast data sets which allows for a wider range of recognition.
NLP allows the extraction of structured data from unstructured or semi-structured text data. Machines understand human language and extract structured data. Some industries that would benefit from this are healthcare, legal, customer service, and any other industry that needs to comb through large volumes of textual data.
Every business must choose data entry software that fits its requirements and can execute the desired functions. First ask yourself if you need web-based data entry, on-premises data entry, mobile data entry, or voice-recognition data entry. Once you know that, here are a few tips for choosing the right software:
It is vital to have systems, tools, and processes; it is also important to ensure your team has the right knowledge, knows how to use the tools, and is up to date with the latest methods. Ensuring the data processing team is up to date will allow for increased productivity and efficiency.
Before you can start evaluating the quality of the data that is being processed, you need to set clear goals and objectives. This needs to be communicated clearly to the data entry team using effective communication channels.
Streamlining the data entry process can have several advantages for a business. By cleaning up data discrepancies, we make your data more useful and crucial for decision making.
We use AI-drive tools and practices like OCR and RPA to automate data entry for our clients. We also leverage advanced spreadsheet software and robust data management systems for nuanced outputs.
The first step to do this is resource management. When your internal resources are already overworked and buried with administrative chores, they are likely to make mistakes. Hire a professional service provider and ensure they conduct regular staff training. Ask them for periodic performance audits and ensure they incorporate automation tools to reduce data discrepancies.
When you partner with an external service provider, staff training is one less thing to worry about. Your service provider will take care of this on your behalf. If you still deem it to be mandatory, you can always ask your outsourcing partner to arrange these sessions with our in-house representatives at regular intervals.
The common challenges include staff resistance to AI-powered tools and processes, delays in implementation, the cost associated thereof, and ensuring compliance to international data entry protocols.
Armed with this information you could choose to implement these strategies after tweaking them to suit your business needs. On the other hand, you could choose to outsource tedious data entry tasks to seasoned professionals who already have the knowledge and infrastructure to implement these data entry strategies. Outsourcing data entry not only reduces workload, it's also the most cost-efficient alternative as it provides tailored resources and services. Employees can focus on core business objectives and improve their productivity. Equipped with so many benefits, outsourcing is an easy, go-to solution for most businesses seeking to optimize their operations.