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Questions to Ask When Considering Adding Smart OCR Automated Data Capture Into Your Software

“Big data” is a hot-button issue in today’s business world. The rise of the internet and data processing technologies have given way to innovative ways of capturing, processing, storing, and using data to the advantage of your business. According to a report from Evans Data Corporation, more than six million developers worldwide are currently working on big data and advanced analytics projects. Hiring employees for data entry has been commonplace for decades but comes with many downsides. It’s extremely time-consuming, expensive, and is prone to manual entry errors. With the range of options available to businesses today, many have turned…

Xtracta Data Engine2018-02-19

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Why New Zealand becoming Australia’s Data Centre Hub can help save our planet

Authored By: Jonathan Spence Data and the internet are becoming ever more critical to the planet’s residents. Even the smallest rural villages in Kenya or India are likely using data services on a daily basis; services whose importance can often be placed far ahead of electricity or even sanitation. The rise of the likes of M-Pesa in what many in the developed world would (arrogantly) consider backwaters is testament to the power of communications and information to transform the lives of all. No matter whether its an SMS message, financial transaction, email, complex business process or cat video, almost all…

Jonathan Spence2017-11-29

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Six AP problems that automation can solve

In his outstanding book “Automate This”, author Christopher Steiner tells the story to Thomas Petterfy, a virtual unknown who single-handedly revolutionised the stock trading industry and became one of the richest men on the planet in the process. Petterfy was not a trader, nor did he have a degree or experience in finance. Rather, he was a computer programmer with a visionary sense for identifying inefficiencies and developing ways to solve them. Petterfty developed an automated system for share trading so accurate and efficient that within a decade it had completely redefined the stock market. Pits filled with screaming traders…

Bishal Gauli2017-11-16

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Five benefits of Data Extraction and Automation for SME’s

Businesses face many challenges in the modern business environment. Now more than ever, business leaders need to be constantly on lookout for more effective ways of managing jobs. By staying stagnant and not improving processes over time, will mean both short and long term growth will be affected. You may be thinking “We have done it this way for the last 10 years, why should we change now?” By evaluating your business continuously and investing in more efficient processes such as data Automation and extraction, your staff can spend more time on value added activities rather than lengthy, repetitive tasks.…

Xtracta Data Engine2017-04-05

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Is Technology Replacing Bookkeeping?

Accounting automation -it’s a term that has been bouncing around the accounting and bookkeeping industry for the past few years. Automation allows accountants and bookkeepers to spend less time on the manual labour they have traditionally spent a majority of their roles on. That sounds ideal, however there has been discussion within the industry that automation is a tool that will replace accountants completely. And it’s partly true. Automation reduces the amount of time spent on manual tasks, for example data extraction, such as ABM Billfeeds, a service that is offered to all customers of ABM’s accounting software. This service…

Xtracta Data Engine2017-04-04

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Scanning Tips

Document scanning is often given little thought or consideration. A bit of planning and knowledge about how to approach it can really help the outcomes and make the process faster and more hassle free. Scanner Choice There are a huge number of scanners available on the market. Some are dedicated single function scanners while other are part of a multi-function device with a scanning function alongside printing and copying. When making the choice of what scanner you want to use the three main factors affecting your decision are: Volume of documents you wish to process Your desired image quality level…

Xtracta Data Engine2016-09-21

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“Efficienize” your Business

Authored By: Jonathan Spence I'll start by admitting it, efficienize is NOT a word. Yes I know, but without those who promote new words how will they ever be accepted into a language?! In any case I thought I would do a quick search to see what the linguists had to say on the subject matter and they were very much adamant that indeed it is not yet a word even though its use is arguably spreading. In one of the forums where they were discussing this, a user suggested a better word to use: Kaizen. Kaizen or 改善 (for…

Jonathan Spence2016-01-21

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Uber & Driverless Cars – Changing Your World

Authored By: Jonathan Spence There are two big stories in the personal transport news these days, Uber (and of course its compatriots in the ride-sharing space like Lyft) & Driverless cars. Each is in itself quite an amazing proposition. Let's start with Uber. On the surface it looks like a win-win for both sides; the passenger and the driver. For the passenger it's an exceedingly easy service to use providing a known fare value, easy payment and potentially reduced prices for otherwise expensive taxi travel. On the driver side it "democratises" (I really dislike that term!) the ability for people…

Jonathan Spence2015-11-29

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Coming Soon: Skynet – an explanation about AI

Authored By: Jonathan Spence "I'll be back" - the infamous words of arguably the most famous & bad-ass cyborg around. Arnold Schwarzenegger does seem to be making a move back to acting after a stint "governating" California so those words could arguably hold true! For those who don't know, cyborg is a word to describe a robot which includes both biological and mechanical components, in the Terminator's case he was a robot on the inside with skin on the outside. Now I know you may be asking, how is this relevant to an Xtracta orientated post but stick with me!…

Jonathan Spence2014-04-29

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Disaster Recovery & Data Loss Prevention

Authored By: Jonathan Spence Data protection, both physical and digital are key parts to protecting a business, organization or even an individual from loss of critical information. All too often when talking to a variety of organizations, I find little thought is given to the various scenarios that could occur and in such cases, what action plan would be implemented. A term you will be reading throughout this blog is "what-if" - it's something that sits at the heart of my decision making in this area. Being analytical and considering rare scenarios can open your thinking to new ideas and…

Jonathan Spence2013-11-29