What are the advantages of data capture?
Data capture has many uses and is being used more and more and there is obviously a good reason for this, so what are the advantages of data capture?
Data capture is used to collect information from forms people fill out, such as surveys, feedback forms, and application forms, to get a good idea of people’s opinions, thoughts, and credentials quickly and without the hassle of doing it manually. . This, of course, saves you time, resources, and gets you the information you need quickly. Often companies that do this type of capture will also send their results in a clean format to make it easier to review and evaluate the results. They could come back as graphics for yes or no questions, for example, or bar illustrations for checkboxes, which can make life considerably easier and can make them usable in presentations if needed.
Data capture can also be automated by specialist capture companies using their specially developed software to capture information anywhere on the sheet that data needs to be captured from. This is possible for most font types and general fonts from the last hundred years should be able to be entered relatively easily, however handwriting is often a problem for data capture software and will need to be entered by hand . This will most likely cost more due to the added time, however this is an essential process if you need handwritten data that has been completed.
For the most part, data capture can be completed very quickly also if most of the forms were filled out using checkboxes or multiple choice questions because data capture companies can usually specify the exact areas that the software needs to capture. and this process can be completed quite a bit faster after the initial scan considering the number of your forms.
For the most part, data capture software can detect different languages, so for example if you have a form that was filled in both English and Welsh sections, the software should have no problem extracting both languages if it is capable. .
So speed is a major asset in the advantages of data capture, but there is also the cost aspect. Because much of the capture can be automated, again depending on how much of your form is handwritten and how much is multiple choice, this is a process that can usually be completed fairly quickly, meaning the cost should be less for you, meaning the overall cost and convenience of comparing to a staff member who completes the work or a professional firm that completes the work much faster and presents it in a more presentable format will most likely end up as a lower cost to the latter, in terms of both the time consumed by your staff member and the monetary cost to you.
