Our large scanning department receives documents from a variety of sources, including clients, suppliers, and others. We then standardize these documents by converting them into either electronic invoices or standardized PDF invoices. These are then uploaded to a web host, which transfers them to ABBYY for optical character recognition. Once converted to text, we extract relevant data from the invoices and transform it into an XML format. Finally, the XML data is sent to another service platform for further processing by a different provider. This provider reconstructs the invoices in a more consistent and detailed format.
ABBYY's interface is user-friendly after mastering the basics, and ABBYY University serves as a comprehensive knowledge base like Wikipedia. While updates sometimes require updates to the University as well, ABBYY does a great job of keeping it relevant and current.
The fast learning function was impressive, but we pushed it beyond its intended use. Despite using the software for an unintended purpose, the ABBYY team provided exceptional support that ultimately enabled the software to handle our needs. The OCR and overall document reading capabilities were excellent. Any issues we encountered stemmed from the supplier or the invoices themselves, not from ABBYY. Overall, ABBYY's product and its AI integrations are truly outstanding.
It handles our multilingual invoices well, recognizing Hindi, English, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese. However, it struggles with international invoices that switch languages, like those starting in Chinese and ending in French. The blank area between languages confuses ABBYY's fast learning system, which focuses on character recognition. Unlike machine learning, fast learning can't adapt to the presence of multiple languages and struggles to differentiate between them. This limitation was anticipated when we implemented the system.
ABBYY's recent updates have been incredibly beneficial. The OCR accuracy has noticeably improved, allowing us to extract more data from documents and break down fields into even the smallest details. This granularity, down to individual notes on invoices, has been a game-changer.
The pre-trained AI extraction models have significantly improved our invoice processing efficiency. Previously, our data entry team could only manage around 150-200 invoices per person per day, which created a bottleneck when we were receiving 500-600 invoices daily. Now, with the AI handling the processing, we can effortlessly manage a much higher volume, closer to 2,000 invoices per day.
ABBYY has saved us around 85 percent of our time.
While ABBYY's straight-through processing initially appealed to us, we recently observed minor accuracy issues in the results. This suggests that our use case might be pushing ABBYY Vantage to its limits, as no one has likely used it for such a demanding task before.
ABBYY stands out for its collaborative approach. When we encountered issues or identified growth opportunities, they were receptive to our ideas, even implementing some of them into the product. This is evident in the recent Oceana sector updates, where many of our suggestions were incorporated. This responsiveness demonstrates that ABBYY truly values customer feedback.
While I understand that ABBYY eventually addressed the communication issue and apologized for it, the initial lack of response was frustrating. A simple explanation at the beginning could have prevented the whole problem. In my opinion, clear communication is the most important aspect of any service. Even if a company has a less-than-perfect product, I, as a customer, have chosen them for a reason. That's why I believe the best thing a supplier can do is prioritize communication, even if it's just automated responses acknowledging receipt of a message and providing an estimated response time. This is where ABBYY initially fell short, but things improved significantly once a director got involved.
The lack of patch update notifications creates a blind spot. Without them, we're unaware of new patches and can't proactively check if our code is compatible, potentially leading to issues down the line.
I have been using ABBYY Vantage for eight months.
ABBYY is stable, I'd rate it a nine out of ten, but there's still room for growth to improve both the company and its product.
I would rate ABBYY's scalability ten out of ten.
Before switching to ABBYY, we relied on a software solution developed internally by our own team.
Our initial deployment went smoothly thanks to excellent coordination and a well-structured plan. The clear separation between our development and production environments further ensured a successful rollout.
Our deployment typically takes a few weeks, even for large clients with heavy ABBYY processing. One such client was up and running in under a month. Our lengthy deployment was an exception and unrelated to ABBYY's performance.
I would rate ABBYY nine out of ten.
Our organization has 12 ABBYY users, including developers, project managers, and general administrative staff.
Our target market isn't limited to a particular industry; rather, we focus on serving large-scale enterprise businesses, with a primary focus on the biggest players.
It doesn't require any maintenance from our side.
ABBYY offers competitive pricing and flexibility in their lease agreements. To help you decide, they'll provide a trial period and even generate a dummy invoice showing the estimated cost.
I recommend ABBYY for large businesses and enterprise users, rather than just any document processing unit. It caters to high-end users who need the advanced features it offers.