Form Recognition

The Form Recognition Tool allows you to train OnRamp to recognize the location of relevant information on received forms and process them.

Once setup, this form recognition can be used to:

  • Receive vendor invoices

  • Enter customer receipts

  • Add vendor packing slips

  • Add internal and signed bills of lading

  • Scan OnRamp generated work orders after order completion

You can find the Form Recognition screens under the General > Form Recognition folder.

Form Recognition Setup

The form recognition setup items should be performed in the following order:

The setup is as follows:

  1. Your IT team needs to create folders on your server where your files are received.

  2. The folders and other factors need to be specified in OnRamp on the Business Info [S1824].

  3. Once the factors are updated, create the form model, enter the Form KeysClosed Form keys are static text (i.e., text that doesn't change between documents) that determine what client, vendor, or internal unit the file belongs to and what form type it is: invoice, receipt, bill of lading, etc. Example of form keys: Client name, tax number, phone number, address. Not form keys: dates, invoice numbers, packing slip numbers., and upload between 3 and 10 received PDF files per entity, per form type.

    Note: Scanned Work Orders do not require a form model.

    Document keys are static values that OnRamp uses when scanning received documents to differentiate which entity and what type of document was received. To ensure your documents are processed correctly, it is recommended that you add 3 or more keys per form model.

    Once OnRamp scans a received document it checks the database to see what form models contain those specific, static, values.

    When it finds a match, it will assign the static value a target match score.

    OnRamp then searches the entered form models. After comparing form models to find the highest match score, OnRamp creates the database record for the matched entity and document type. It then adds a copy of the PDF to the database record.

    For example: 

    You have a vendor, ABC, that is sending you PDF files containing their packing slips and invoices. To ensure these are processed correctly with Form Recognition, you must set up the following Document Keys:

    On the Packing Slip form model type:

    Description Key
    Tax_Number 123456789HTE
    Phone_Number 555-999-8866
    Packing_Slip Packing Slip

    On the Invoices form model type:

    Description Key
    Tax_Number 123456789HTE
    Phone_Number 555-999-8866
    Invoice Invoice

    In the above example, when receiving a new PDF file, OnRamp determines the entity by the tax and phone numbers, in this case vendor ABC.

    Since both values point to the same entity, OnRamp searches for the next key and creates a record of that type for the vendor with a copy of the PDF file added.

    • If OnRamp finds 'Invoice' it creates a voucher invoice for the vendor.

    • If OnRamp finds 'Packing Slip', it creates a packing slip.

    As you can see above, certain keys must be unique for each form model. If a model contains the word invoice, but the packing slip also mentions invoice, then this form will generate an error and, as such, will not be processed correctly.

  4. With the models set up, you are ready to set up the form labelling tool, or FLTOOL.

  5. Use your web browser to access the Form Labelling Tool to label the various relevant fields per form model and train the tool to recognize the static values.

  6. Once the form labelling has been done and OnRamp is trained to recognize the forms, the only thing left to do is process the received forms.

When OnRamp processes the documents, it will add the files to the relevant screens and reports and delete the imported files that were placed in the folder from step 1.

Documents can be manually processed on Process Documents [S4250].

You can review the processed documents on the Form Recognition Log [S4248] screen.

Notes

  • The form recognition process works best with PDF files, however it can process image files if the labelled areas are perfectly lined up on every image.

  • Labels, receipts, or bills of lading must be a single document per PDF file.

  • Multi-page invoices saved as a single PDF document can be mapped and imported.
  • When vendors or clients update their form design you must update the labelling in the form recognition app.
  • You can also scan work orders into OnRamp. Use Manage Scanned WO Files [S4265] to review and process the work orders.