Data capture – what are the disadvantages of keyboard data entry?

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The most common form of inputting data is by manually entering details using a keyboard. The data can be copied from any kind of document, for example, invoices or forms and the original can be both handwritten and typed.

There are, however, several inherent problems in keyboard data entry which in today’s fiercely competitive business environment, make it a far less cost effective and attractive solution. The first consideration is that it is very labour intensive and human resources can be costly. Secondly, it is time consuming and delays can occur in processing data if it takes a long time to manually input the information required to begin a transaction. This can result in late payment, late delivery and ultimately cash flow issues. Thirdly, mistakes can be made. If data is entered incorrectly either by misreading words or not being able to interpret handwriting, the consequences again can result in delays, errors in calculation and poor customer service all of which can have serious business implications.

For all the reasons above, companies are now looking to technology, i.e. data capture solutions, to process important business data as it has now been proven to be more reliable and more cost effective. Solutions such as Scanners and OCR, Barcodes and the Digital Pen are now widely available and the application of each of these will be discussed in more detail in future blogs.

For further information on data capture solutions, please call The IPC Group on 08081 45 46 47.

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