What is Bill Parsing?
Bill parsing, invoice parsing, data parsing, and automated invoice data entry are terms used to explain the process of using technology to upload invoice details into a system (albeit this can be done via painstaking manual processes or automation).
Nearly every company needs to process invoices, and most still tackle this tedious, painstaking task via manual or semi-manual processes. Organizations commonly undertake parsing technology to keep their finance and accounting systems up to date with their expenses.
Forward-thinking companies are likely to already know that this technology saves both time and money to input data and that it is an effective way to eradicate input errors incurred with its manual collection.
The Basics of Parsing
Parsing simply means ‘to break up data and then collect and store it’. The technology collects data to be extracted and converted into a new format that is easier to read and analyze.
Parsing uses an application of user-specified business rules to collect and validate mass data. It then transforms data so a specific software can understand it. And it’s commonly used when information is passed between one software to another.
What Does It Do?
Consider a corporate electricity bill. (See picture below.)
Most utility bills have similar information, e.g., they will have a 1: Company name and address, 2: bill date and due date, 3: consumption data, 4: charges break down data, 5: important messages, and 6: payment details. A utility bill parser splits these data inputs into separate data columns, allowing them to be read by other systems like Accounts Payable software.
What Companies Offer Parsing Services?
Bill Identity is one company that has been delivering ‘Utility Bill Parsing’ to some of the biggest companies across the world for over 5 years. Ranging from large organizations, trade partners, and energy brokers. This service has helped to reduce the administrative burden of Bid’s clients.
How Can Bid Help?
Bid’s solution can help in four key ways:
- Lower internal costs to serve – incurred when managing utility spend.
- Reduce the resources required to collect and manually load billing and meter data, thereby allowing additional time to focus on other cost-saving activities.
- Increases data accuracy, fewer errors, and duplicate entries increase efficiencies in forecasting and budget management.
- Improve insights to drive sound data-driven decisions.
Utility Bill Parsing in Action
Parsing is already used by businesses to reduce headcount, increase customer experience and gain a competitive edge over the competition:
A utility comparison site uses Bid’s Utility Bill Parsing to compare customer’s electricity contracts. The parsing solution reduces customer acquisition costs by removing the manual data uploading required by their Customer Service team. They are improving the customer experience and reducing the number of drop-offs and long processing times.
