Data entry allows organizations to develop databases containing information relevant to their customers, products, and operations. High-quality digitization, characterized by databases with quality structured data, is the driving force behind better decision making, process automation, and machine learning.
However, for data to be valuable, it often needs to be aggregated, cleaned, and enriched. Most organizations and workers apply data entry in day-to-day work, but there’s a lot more to it than simply transferring information into a unified digital format. Data entry services can be used to complete this work without the management burden of an in-house or crowdsourced team.
Here are some of the ways industries use data entry services:
Finance
Data entry is the foundation of good bookkeeping and accounting, and it’s key to achieving consistent and sustainable financial practices. For example, many businesses have piles of invoices, purchase orders, and other transactional documents in unstructured PDF format or paper documentation. To keep a complete and accurate record of finances, it’s necessary to input the information in such documents into a database.
For example, if a bank wants to expedite loan applications from clients, data entry services would help them process handwritten applications and verify printed bank statements faster.
Learn how one financial services company outsourced document transcription and improved turnaround time from days to just minutes with 99% accuracy.
Healthcare
Specialized data transcription and cleansing services are critical in the healthcare sector, where errors can mean the difference between health and illness. Doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and others who work in the healthcare field need top-quality data entry services to ensure the integrity of printed or scanned health records. Any data entry services tasked with medical transcription must also fully understand healthcare terminology and be able to guarantee confidentiality and compliance with regulations that protect personally identifiable information, such as a patient’s medical history.
Many healthcare practices maintain thousands of paper pages of detailed health histories that must be transcribed for easier accessibility and to make them more useful to practitioners and patients. In the UK, for example, the average general practitioner has hundreds of thousands of pages of medical records, which must be scanned and archived according to the strict standards laid out by the British healthcare sector.
Legal
The legal sector is undergoing a rapid transformation, thanks to the digital age and mass digitization of existing paper documents into electronic form. For example, data entry and the digitization of information have given rise to electronic discovery. However, to litigate and rule on complex cases, legal practitioners must gather documents and evidence that are decades old, and they must have easy access to the right information.
Similarly, criminal lawyers working on highly complicated cases often end up working through paper trails spanning multiple decades. Conveyancers might find themselves dealing with property-related documents from long before the era of computers and digitization.
Naturally, the need for accuracy in legal transcriptions is paramount. There’s no room for data inconsistencies and errors in things like transcriptions of discovery interviews, hearing outcomes, or court proceedings.
Learn how a data entry service helped Heretik develop software to streamline and automate legal contract review.
Transportation
Companies in the transportation sector face a growing need for data entry for many of the reasons we’ve covered, along with some unique challenges. Among the most significant is the need to simplify the management, collection, and shipment of goods by digitizing data that is included in unstructured, paper documents such as receipts, inventories, and bills of lading. Global supply chains depend on the efficiency of these processes which are improved by using digitized, structured information.
One unique use case where accurate data entry is critical is pilot logbooks. Aircraft pilots depend on the integrity of their logbooks to establish accountability and advance their careers. Pilots maintain these logbooks manually, particularly independent pilots.
A pilot logbook contains every flight a pilot has flown, including flight time, number of landings, and instruments the pilot used during approaches. Pilots also log simulator time, which help fulfill training requirements. Yet, many human resources managers in aviation consider logbook inconsistencies to be one of the most common sources of problems when screening applicants. Data entry for pilot logbooks is a common use case.
Customer service
Customer service is a primary driver of purchase decisions, alongside product and pricing. But it’s only possible to provide good customer service if a business can quickly access relevant and accurate customer, purchase, and inventory information.
The role of data entry in improving customer service doesn’t stop at the customer support department. The digitization of mailed warranty registrations, customer support calls, and repair invoices also ease research and development, thus providing companies across every industry access to insights that can help improve their product and service offerings.
Learn how one event planning and management company used data entry services to research and compile current online data to enrich their database and improve user experience for their customers.