There’s probably a process in your business that everyone hates.
Maybe invoices get emailed around for approval.
Maybe someone enters the same information into two different systems.
Maybe finding a customer record requires opening six folders and asking three people.
Or maybe there’s an entire room full of filing cabinets that everyone has collectively agreed not to talk about.
Did you know Applied Innovation can help with all of that?
Yup. We do automation.
That’s where business process automation comes in. And before you picture robots roaming the office and taking everyone’s jobs, let’s talk about what we actually mean.
Wait. What does Applied automate?
When we talk about automation, we’re really talking about taking repetitive, manual processes and finding a better way to do them.
Sometimes that means automating a workflow.
Sometimes it means making documents easier to find and manage.
Sometimes software can handle repetitive tasks between systems.
Sometimes AI can read a document and pull information from it.
And sometimes?
We just need to get rid of the paper first.
Applied Innovation’s automation solutions generally fall into a few major areas.
Document Workflow: Get it where it needs to go
Think about a document that enters your organization.
An invoice. A purchase order. An employee form. A contract. An application.
What happens next?
Does someone email it?
Print it?
Enter information from it into another system?
Send a reminder?
Ask someone if they approved it yet?
Workflow automation helps take care of what happens next.
Instead of relying on emails, sticky notes, and someone remembering step four, documents and information can automatically move through an established process, from capture and review to approval and storage.
Less chasing.
Less manual entry.
Fewer opportunities for something to disappear into the great email abyss.
Document Management: Find the thing when you need the thing
Of course, automating where documents go only helps if you can actually find them later.
That’s where document management comes in.
Instead of information living across filing cabinets, shared drives, desktops, inboxes, and folders called “FINAL FINAL USE THIS ONE,” a document content solution gives organizations a centralized way to securely store, organize, search for, and manage their information.
That means the right people can get to the documents they need without spending half their afternoon figuring out where someone saved them.
Because “I know it’s in here somewhere” probably shouldn’t be your document management strategy.
RPA: Let software do the copy-paste work
Then there’s Robotic Process Automation, or RPA.
It sounds much more futuristic than it usually looks.
No office robots.
RPA uses software to perform repetitive, rules-based digital tasks that employees would otherwise have to do manually.
Think:
Log in → get this information → enter it over here → update that field → send a notification → repeat.
If someone is spending hours moving predictable information between systems, creating routine reports, or completing the same series of clicks over and over again, RPA may be able to take some of that work off their plate.
Your employees can do it.
IDP: When the document does some of the work
Now we add a little intelligence.
Intelligent Document Processing, or IDP, uses technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand documents and extract useful information from them.
Instead of an employee opening an invoice and manually typing the vendor name, invoice number, date, and total into another system, IDP can identify and capture that information automatically.
And it isn’t limited to invoices.
Forms, purchase orders, and other business documents can all contain information your employees are currently reading, identifying, and entering by hand.
IDP helps turn the information trapped inside a document into information your systems can actually use.
Which means less typing, fewer errors, and more time for work that requires an actual human brain.
Backfile Scanning: About that room full of paper...
And then there are the boxes.
So. Many. Boxes.
Employee records.
Customer files.
Invoices.
Contracts.
Student records.
Years of documents stored because somebody, at some point, said:
“We should probably keep this.”
Applied Innovation’s Backfile Scanning services can convert physical records into organized, searchable digital files.
That can make information easier to find and manage while freeing up physical storage space and helping organizations apply more consistent document retention and security practices.
And perhaps most importantly:
You can finally reclaim the room.
You don’t have to automate everything
This might be the biggest misconception about automation.
You don’t need to walk into the conversation knowing whether you need RPA, IDP, Document Workflow, or something else.
And you definitely don’t need to say:
“We would like to automate our entire company, please.”
Please don’t.
Start with the annoying thing.
What work is repetitive?
Where do things get stuck?
What are employees constantly following up on?
Where are people entering the same information more than once?
What takes 20 minutes that feels like it should take two?
What process gets an immediate groan when you mention it?
Start there.
Because the technology isn’t really the point.
The problem you’re trying to solve is.
Sometimes the answer might be workflow automation.
Sometimes it’s better document management.
Sometimes it’s RPA or IDP.
Sometimes it’s scanning 200 boxes of paper.
And sometimes it’s a combination of several of them.
So, did you know?
Applied Innovation offers business process automation solutions.
Document Workflow? Yup.
Document Management? Sure do.
Robotic Process Automation? Absolutely.
Intelligent Document Processing? You bet.
Backfile Scanning? Bring on the boxes.
And that weird manual process your team has been doing since 2007 because “that’s just how we do it”?
Yeah. We should probably talk about that one, too.
Because automation isn’t really about replacing people with technology.
It’s about looking at the work people are doing every day and asking a much better question:
Does it actually have to be done this way?
Sometimes the answer is no.
If there’s a process your team dreads, chases, copies, re-enters, or works around every day, let’s talk about it. We’ll help you figure out whether automation can make it simpler and you don’t need to know which technology you need before the conversation starts.
Let’s find the annoying thing and make it easier.
What? You didn’t know Applied did that?