Enhanced functions of freee AI OCR Significantly reduce input work required for scanner storage of electronic book storage method | Press Release | corp.freee.co.jp
■ Serious value summary (what I want to tell you in this announcement)・ We have strengthened the AI OCR function of freee and prepared it for the upper plan. ・ It is now possible to automatically guess the issuer of the receipt.In addition, we will add an automatic invoice reading function required for payment operations around March. ・ Since the search requirements of the Electronic Bookkeeping Law have been cleared, scanner saving is possible simply by using the enhanced OCR. You can greatly simplify the input work of
freee Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Daisuke Sasaki, hereinafter "freee") has released an enhanced version of OCR = Optical Character Recognition = optical character recognition * and will provide it to the upper plan of freee accounting. I did. Considering the response to the revision of the Electronic Bookkeeping Law and the preparation for the introduction of the invoice system in October 2023, it is inevitable that the efficiency of back office operations will be improved by digitization. Therefore, AI OCR, which omits input work, is becoming more important as one of the options, and freee is now offering an enhanced OCR that clears the search requirements of the electronic book storage method in the upper plan. did. * OCR is a technology that converts handwritten or printed document characters into digital information that can be used by a computer by taking a picture or scanning it with a digital camera. Necessary information such as application items can be extracted and automatically entered, reducing manual input.
▼ What you can do with enhanced OCR
-It is now possible to automatically guess the issuer of the receipt.
Traditional OCR could automatically guess dates, amounts, and accounts, but not the issuer. In the revision of the Electronic Bookkeeping Law that came into effect in January 2022, it is necessary to enter the issuer in addition to the date and amount, and if you are using conventional OCR, some manual input will occur. It will end up being. However, with the enhanced OCR, when it comes to saving receipts to the scanner, uploading them to a file box can almost automate the filling of necessary items, greatly simplifying the input work. It will be offered with individual premium plan and corporate basic plan or higher.
・ Invoices required for payment operations can also be read and automatically entered by OCR.
When you upload the invoice required for payment operations, the required information will be automatically entered. If you apply for a payment request with freee accounting, the company name read from the invoice and the business partner registered in freee accounting will be automatically matched. For users, the work such as input is simplified, the application work for payment requests becomes extremely easy, and the work burden not only for accounting staff but also for sales staff can be reduced. Around March 2022, it will be offered with a corporate professional plan or higher.
Invoice reading items
Dates, accounts, amounts, due dates, payees, and withholding taxes are read in the enhanced OCR. These are the search requirements for the electronic bookkeeping method, so with enhanced OCR, scanner storage for the electronic bookkeeping method is extremely easy and can be approached completely paperless.
▼ Background of OCR function enhancement
Behind the enhancement of OCR functions by freee is the fact that the environment for making paperless is becoming easier due to the amendment of the Electronic Bookkeeping Law, and the invoice system introduced in October 2023, which is less than 30,000 yen. Voucher storage of transactions may be mandatory. In particular, when introducing the invoice system, it is estimated that about 80 million copies of taxable purchases of less than 30,000 yen will be saved on paper for invoices among all users of freee accounting. This is an estimate that the amount of paper stored will increase by an average of 53 sheets per month for corporations and nearly 30 sheets per month for sole proprietors. It will be a big burden for small business workers who are doing it themselves. The importance of making paperless is increasing, but even if we say that we will make paperless, we cannot complete it unless we meet the requirements of the Electronic Bookkeeping Law. Therefore, with the enhanced OCR provided this time, we have made it possible to read all the search requirements of the electronic bookkeeping method. Just by using it, you can easily and easily proceed to paperless input. The role of AI OCR is becoming more important as an option in terms of how to promote digitization and reduce the workload. We hope that you will take advantage of the enhanced OCR to achieve complete paperless operations and increase productivity. * Freee is estimated from the number of taxable purchase transactions (total of corporations and sole proprietors) registered in freee accounting for one year in 2020.
▼ About the OCR engine used for payment operations
The OCR used in freee's payment operations is a sweep engine. As a result of evaluating the OCR engine, we have adopted sweep for the following reasons.・ OCR accuracy (98.5% -according to a survey by sweep. Also supports handwritten characters) ・ Processing speed Target: 93 users of sweep service users Survey of users who have used multiple products: Invoice of the company Answered by reading multiple products and answering the product with the fastest processing speed Result: 88 out of 93 companies answered with sweep as the first place (including the same rate) ・ Convenience that can be used immediately without prior settings such as coordinates and keywords ・ sweep Please refer to here for the company https://sweeep.ai/ * We use freee's original AI OCR except for payment operations.
