How to increase accounting performance with AI?
Tags: ai, api, accounting, ocr
Published: 2023-03-21 16:01:58

*Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions are progressively used in business to automate tedious tasks and increase productivity. To capitalize on this game-changing technology, companies must determine how to optimize their use of AI in order to unlock its full potential.*

Accounting professionals often face significant challenges that hinder their progress and productivity. In this article, we'll discuss how AI-powered solutions can help solve them.

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## **What makes traditional accounting challenging?**

Traditional accounting practices involve handling large amounts of data such as invoices, receipts, purchase orders, and bank statements, on a daily basis. Manually processing and entering information into accounting systems can be time-consuming and prone to human error, leading to inefficiencies, delays, and inaccuracies in financial reporting.


![Accountants face a high volume of paperwork every single day](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n8hr85wtfyihkc9j8cm1.jpg)

The challenges remain when using bookkeeping software and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) without data entry automation.

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## **Why Accounting Department should consider using AI Technology?**

AI has the potential to significantly improve productivity in data extraction processes by automating workflows through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.

With this AI-powered solution, you can extract data from documents and input it directly into accounting systems, significantly reducing the time and effort required to manage financial records.

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## **What is [Optical Character Recognition](https://www.edenai.co/technologies/ocr-document-parsing?referral=ocr-accounting)?**

Optical Character Recognition, often referred to as OCR, allows users to extract text data from images or documents and convert them into a machine-readable format.


![OCR result on Eden AI](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mnz3bnzf5ggju4f0y7so.png)

OCR works by analyzing the pixels in an image or document and recognizing patterns that correspond to text characters. Once the characters are recognized, OCR can convert them into a digital text format that can be easily searched, edited, or stored in a database.

In some specific applications, OCR technology also leverages Natural Language Processing (NPL) to identify the structure of text data, allowing for high accuracy even for documents with complex layouts or handwritten information. This is particularly useful for accounting departments, as OCR technology can extract information from invoices, receipts, financial records, online orders, and more.

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## **Advantages of using OCR technology in accounting**

### **1. Faster Data Entry**

With the ability to read text from scanned documents/images and automatically populate accounting systems with accurate data, OCR can help reduce the time spent on manual data entry tasks and increase productivity.

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### **2. Improved data accuracy**

OCR technology can help reduce errors caused by manual data entry, such as typos and transpositions. It ensures that the data entered is accurate, minimizing the risk of costly mistakes.

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### **3. Better Document Management**

OCR solution can help accounting departments manage their documents more efficiently by digitizing them. This reduces the risk of lost or misplaced documents and makes it easier to retrieve them when needed.

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### **4. Standardized Data**

OCR technology can extract data in a standardized format, which simplifies the process of analyzing and comparing financial information.

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## **What OCR technologies should you upgrade to?**

There are several OCR technologies available that accountants can leverage to automate data entry and analysis. Here are some popular options:

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### **1. [Receipt Parsing](http://www.edenai.co/feature/ocr-receipt?referral=ocr-accounting)**

![Data Extraction from Receipt](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/xz0tkpymmk0oxn3fve1s.png)

Receipt Parser can extract data, such as vendor name, date, amount, merchant name, and payment method from receipts. This technology can be leveraged to automate the process of entering expense data into accounting systems, helping manage expenses more efficiently.

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### **2. [Invoice Parsing](http://www.edenai.co/feature/ocr-invoice?referral=ocr-accounting)**

![Data Extraction from Invoice](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pxtdpiewway75ooenf37.png)

Invoice Parsing refers to the process of extracting data from invoices, including invoice number, date, and amount due. Invoice Parser can help automate the process of accounts payable, reducing the time and effort required for data entry.

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### **3. [Table Parsing](http://www.edenai.co/feature/ocr-table?referral=ocr-accounting)**


![Data Extraction from Table](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/2e3o5a25kk0ttk6ibweg.png)

Table Parsing can recognize the structure of tables in documents such as balance sheets, income statements, etc. By extracting data accurately and in a standardized format, Table Parsing makes it easier to analyze and compare financial information.

**[Try these APIs on Eden AI](https://app.edenai.run/user/register?referral=ocr-accounting)**

## **How to use OCR technology**

To implement these technologies, the easiest and most efficient way is to get ready-to-use services on the market. They are made available in the form of APIs.

There are many OCR APIs on the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Before choosing an OCR API, you should consider factors such as cost, accuracy, language support, and integration options with other tools and software. Their performances may also vary between each other. This particularly depends on your data (language, image quality, etc.).

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Eden AI aggregates the best AI APIs engines on the market, allowing you to test multiple AI APIs within a single launch.

Find out more about providers on the market based on your specific needs:

[Best Table Parsing APIs in 2023](https://www.notion.so/e40304275fe04f329846ad5658e54e6c)

[Top 10 OCR Invoice Parser APIs](https://www.edenai.co/post/top-10-ocr-invoice-parser-api?referral=ocr-accounting)

[Top 10 OCR Receipt Parser APIs](https://www.edenai.co/post/top-10-ocr-receipt-parser-api?referral=ocr-accounting)

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Now, we will cover the basic steps of using Invoice Parsing API to capture and convert an invoice image on [Eden AI’s Application](https://app.edenai.run/user/register?referral=ocr-accounting).

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### **Step 1: Create an account on Eden AI - get your API key for free**

To perform Invoice Parsing, you'll need to create an account on Eden AI for free. Then, you will be able to get your **API key** directly from the homepage with $10 credits offered by Eden AI.


![Get your API key for FREE on Eden AI](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4in997wow79x2k0n45og.png)

**[Get your API key for FREE](https://app.edenai.run/user/register?referral=ocr-accounting)**

### **Step 2: Capture and Upload Invoice Image**

![https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6412d758293e3d16fb33209f_Capture%20and%20Upload%20Invoice%20Image%20-%20accounting.png](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6412d758293e3d16fb33209f_Capture%20and%20Upload%20Invoice%20Image%20-%20accounting.png)

The first step is to capture an image of the invoice and upload it to the application. This can be done using a scanner. Our Live Testing also allows you to scan an image directly from your telephone.

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### **Step 3: Convert Invoice image to text**

![https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6411cdc83463ecd9df00c331_Frame%2018.png](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6411cdc83463ecd9df00c331_Frame%2018.png)

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Once the image has been uploaded, Invoice Parsing automatically converts the image to text, in a structured format.

The technology will first use advanced image recognition algorithms to identify the text data within the image. Then, with the help of NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology, the API will be able to identify the structure of data, in this case the invoice structure, in order to extract the data accurately.

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### **Step 4: Process the JSON result for further analysis**

![https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6411ce167879a8360258f8f5_Frame%2010.png](https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/61e7d259b7746e3f63f0b6be/6411ce167879a8360258f8f5_Frame%2010.png)

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With Eden AI’s App, you will also have a ready-to-copy JSON format that can be easily imported into your accounting software or other systems.

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Overall, using Document Parsing APIs to capture and convert invoice images into JSON files can be a powerful tool for automating data entry and reducing manual data entry errors. By following these simple steps, even beginners in accounting can leverage the benefits of OCR technology 😉

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## **Why choose Eden AI to manage your OCR APIs**

‍Companies and developers from a wide range of industries (Social Media, Retail, Health, Finances, Law, etc.) use Eden AI’s unique API to easily integrate Parsing tasks in their cloud-based applications, without having to build their own solutions.

Eden AI offers multiple AI APIs on its platform amongst several technologies: Receipt Parser, Passport/Identity Parser, Named Entity Recognition, Syntax Analysis, Summarization, Data Anonymization, and so forth.

We want our users to have access to multiple Document Parsing engines and manage them in one place so they can reach high performance, optimize cost and cover all their needs. There are many reasons for using multiple APIs :

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![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ic5uuoa14duh239kju63.gif)

### **Fallback provider is the ABCs**

You need to set up a provider API that is requested if and only if the main Document Parsing API does not perform well (or is down). Let's be worry-free and certain that the results are always accurate!

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### **Performance optimization**

After the testing phase, you will be able to build a mapping of providers’ performance based on the criteria you have chosen (languages, fields, etc.). Each data that you need to process will then be sent to the best Parsing API.

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### **Cost - Performance ratio optimization**

You can choose the cheapest Document Parsing provider that performs well for your data.

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### **Combine multiple AI APIs**

This approach is required if you look for extremely high accuracy. The combination leads to higher costs but allows your AI service to be safe and accurate because Document Parsing APIs will validate and invalidate each other for each field of your invoice or receipt.

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You can see Eden AI documentation [here](https://docs.edenai.co/reference/ocr_custom_document_parsing_async_create?referral=ocr-accounting).

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**[Create your Account on Eden AI](https://app.edenai.run/user/register?referral=ocr-accounting)**