concept of optical character recognition software, pile of paper documents being turned into digital data (laptop with progress bar) vector illustration on mesh background
The more sophisticated form of optical character recognition, known as intelligent character recognition, or ICR, is gaining popularity. ICR apps are now widely used for document verification and scanning across a wide range of industries worldwide. All it is is a clever extension of OCR with more targeted features.
By using the handwriting of authorized employees, senior executives, or those in charge of data entry and processing management, ICR technology helps businesses to recognize a variety of handwriting styles and fonts to verify the authenticity of forms, agreements, and other records.
It operates more accurately and is able to detect even the smallest similarity in writing styles. ICR is unquestionably very helpful for sectors that need to do a lot of paper-based work, such as conducting surveys and gathering data on specific products or events from the sample population.
What is the Difference Between OCR and ICR?
While they operate differently, both technologies function similarly in terms of document validation. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) differ in a few ways.
- The OCR model turns a document’s imprinted content into plain text by capturing, extracting, and converting it all. ICR verifies the authority of scanned documents by looking at the handwriting. OCR is unable to identify a document’s writing style, in contrast to ICR.
- OCR is unable to recognize multiple complex fonts in the same way that ICR can, and ICR usually scans every character in a document, whereas OCR does not.
- While ICR is usually used for data entry and authority confirmation, banks and other large corporations typically use OCR for identity verification.
- ICR technology is more expensive than OCR due to its extensive and detailed functions.
To put it simply, an ICR app functions more precisely and is more akin to an extension of OCR.
Despite the fact that they are too different in features and goals to be truly compared to one another. All of this boils down to your needs. The lack of a systematic ICR app cannot be justified if data or feedback from the random sample population is constantly required.
Role of Intelligent Character Recognition App in Businesses
Intelligent Character Recognition technology can be advantageous to business entities across various industries in various scenarios.
For example, a company wants to expand the range of products it offers, but before making any decisions, it wants to get feedback from the public. To that end, the marketing team puts out questionnaires in public and private spaces to conduct a survey.
An ICR app can verify that multiple questionnaires were not completed by the same person in order to assess the validity of the data that has been gathered. Such ploys undermine all efforts and distort the outcome, which is best avoided altogether.
Similar to this, it is employed in the corporate and banking sectors to verify that the individual named on paper approved and acknowledged each transaction, agreement, reform, or contract before it was implemented.
Things to be Remembered Before Deploying Intelligent Character Recognition App
Forms, including data entry, must be structured to ensure that the application software recognizes them optimally.
Customized templates for recognition ought to be available for each field across all form types.
It is important to design specific data exports for form templates.
How do Intelligent Character Recognition Apps Function?
It is necessary to avoid overwriting and to ensure that the documents to be scanned are not bent, ripped, or unstapled.
Once the records have gone through an extraordinarily fast scanner, the ICR app verifies them.
A number known as the confidence value is assigned to each character in the written work.
Characters with lower confidence levels do not pass successful verification. Results are sent to the relevant authority after all modifications have been made, and they are also kept in the back office.
The ICR app has a lot of potential for EPM because it can verify the legitimacy of the entire process of data entry, collection, and processing. It scans all characters except for OCR. It can work with complex fonts and learn countless handwriting styles, yielding accurate and timely results.
