Introduction
We know that Odoo serves as an ERP platform aimed at simplifying organizational operations. In any organization, managing a plethora of documents including bills and invoices can be quite challenging, often leading to misplaced or overlooked files. However, with the introduction of new features, our document management has become more streamlined. We can now easily organize documents into categories and quickly locate them using the Document Module in Odoo.
With just a single click, all documents can be uploaded to Odoo. Whether individual files or grouped documents, Odoo offers the flexibility to organize them efficiently. Moreover, this feature is enhanced with AI capabilities to seamlessly match document fields with Odoo's database.
About OCR
OCR, short for Optical Character Recognition, plays a crucial role in converting various types of documents – including scanned papers, PDFs, and images – into editable and searchable formats. By transforming text within documents into machine-readable form, OCR simplifies tasks such as document management, data entry, translation, and accessibility services for visually impaired individuals.
Importance Of OCR in business
Document management holds significant importance in business operations, especially in accounting. Documents serve as evidence for all financial transactions, including credits and debits with other companies. Thus, it's essential to safeguard bills, invoices, and other records. However, manually updating these documents can be time-consuming. The Document Module provides a centralized platform to manage all documents efficiently.
Document Module
steps to update a scanned document through the Document module in Odoo
1. Navigate to the Document module and upload the scanned document which containing bills, invoices, or other relevant paperwork. Odoo accepts various image formats for easy uploading.
2. Once the document is uploaded, activate the necessary action associated with it. For example, if the document needs to generate a customer invoice, activate the "Create Customer Invoice" action.
3. Upon activating the action, the document will undergo an automatic digitization process. This process is powered by AI and extracts all relevant details from the document. Once the digitization is complete, all details about the customer invoice will be updated.
4. If any changes are made or if additional details need to be fetched, users can click the refresh button. This triggers the AI to update the document with the latest information.
5. After the digitization process, review the details extracted from the document. Users can edit some details if necessary. This ensures that all information is accurate and up-to-date.
Digitization Through Accountings
Accounting>>Configuration>> settings>>Digitization
Users can configure document digitization settings for vendor bills and customer invoices based on their requirements. Additionally, documents can be updated directly through the upload button in vendor bills.
Benefits of OCR in Odoo
- Automatic partner matching based on the document information in the created vendor or customer invoices.
- Improved matching between purchase orders and bills in Odoo.
- Easy document search and retrieval within the Document Module.
- Grouping of documents based on their purpose enhances organization and accessibility.
Conclusion
The integration of OCR technology into Odoo's Document Module revolutionizes document management for businesses. By leveraging AI-driven digitization, users can seamlessly convert scanned documents into editable and searchable formats. However, it's crucial to verify whether your Odoo version has access to this OCR technology. OCR is mainly available in the Enterprise version with certain free credits to use but need to buy some credits to use it for an advance purpose. Either way, OCR technology proves to be an incredibly beneficial feature, effectively preventing the waste of time associated with manual document processing.