Altas Products’s OCR. (Optical
Character Recognition)
The following is a description of the OCR as installed in two sites. This software and procedure has been tailored for these
clients. In the background the system interfaces with the client’s
accounting software. These clients are buying powers for a number of members.
In summary the OCR solution provides a quick and easy data entry system
for supplier’s invoices. Additionally it provides the client’s
member with a pictorial (through the web portal) representation of the
invoices which the members can then view. Typically one person can process
twelve thousand invoices per month.
There are five parts to the OCR process.
- Designer – here the user
takes a document and defines zones/areas within this document. The zones
are read by the OCR engine to pick up information from the document.
These zones will contain document related items such as Invoice number,
date, person to whom the document is going to, the goods total, vat amount
and finally the invoice total (good total plus vat).
- Scan – here the user
scans in the invoices once they have selected a supplier to associate
the invoice to.
- Recognition – here the user runs OCR engine. This engine
reads the information from the invoice from the zones defined in the
designer.
- Validation – here
the user checks the OCRed information. The information read from the
Recognition stage is taken into the validation system.
- Viewer – here the user
is about to view the information that they have validated.
Designer
When a new a supplier joins the client’s catalogue 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, Good amount, Vat Amount and the total amount.
Figure
1. Shows a screen shot of the designer.
Scan
Figure 2. Show the Scanning application.
Once a supplier is designed, invoices
can be scanned through the system. The user selects new batch and then
scans the invoices with respect to that supplier. Once, finished the user
will close the batch. They can scan many suppliers 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. Show
the recognition stage.
Validation
Once a batch is recognized it goes on to validation. Here the
information read from the recognition stage is picked up. The users have
a chance to check the OCRed information with respect to the information
on the Invoice. As the user moves through the fields see figure 4 below.
The green boxes will come up on the image.
Figure 4. Shows the validation
application.
Viewer.
The viewer application allows the user to view the documents inputted
to the system. The user searches by supplier and member.
Figure 5. Show
the viewer application.
So whatever sector you operate in, we’ve got
something for you.
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