How do you get Highly Accurate Data Entry?

How do you get key data from 10,000 forms and have less than three errors? What is the secret to achieving High Accuracy Data Entry? Highly accurate Data Entry has progressed beyond merely transcribing data from paper to digital format. Much of the data is still collected on paper – surveys, opinion polls, customer loyalty forms, medical claims, and application forms. This data, to be effectively utilized, needs to be converted to digital. The need is not only to transcribe this data but also to achieve close to 100% accuracy in converting data from paper to digital format. 

Data Accuracy is the parameter of data quality based on relevance and reliability. It measures how closely the data is true to its value. It is the critical part of the data entry framework. 

Organizations’ many small and big business decisions are based on processed data. Also, one of the major hardships that organizations go through regularly is accurate data entry and speed, irrespective of their size. Errors in data processing could result in wrong decisions in an organization. Consequences will ultimately be seen on operational costs and cash flow in the business. 

In the case of a large volume of data, it is obvious to worry about achieving the highest possible accurate data entry. Dealing with heaps of data daily and bringing accuracy is a strategic task. 

The effectiveness of an organization’s planning, budgeting, forecasting, and many other such activities depends on the accuracy of the data. Irrelevant or faulty data can interrupt the entire working system of the organization. With the following enumerated reasons, you can understand the importance of data accuracy: 

1. Improve productivity
   Quality data lets companies determine where the processes lag to increase productivity. From an employee’s performance sheet to complex processes, you can better analyze how resources can be utilized. It will bring improved productivity to your business.  
2. Stay competitive with the right decisions 
   With accurate and reliable data, an organization can forecast and plan accordingly to grow and stay competitive in the market. It is one of the tools to beat your competition.
   
3. Increased Value
   Inaccurate data in an organization’s database can negatively affect its value. Bygone information like past-due can make a company appear less profitable or unproductive. It impacts a business negatively, and financing may become an issue in the future. Therefore, keeping accurate records and updating them regularly, almost daily, is imperative to boost a businesses’ value.  
   
4. Increased Margins/Revenues 
   Accurate data helps you know the areas or departments where you can reduce your costs, ultimately increasing your revenues.
   
5. Improved Marketing Strategy 
   Accurate data processing helps a business to make the right marketing strategies and you can efficiently market your products in the right market. As the sales improve in your business, it will help in your company’s growth.
   
6. Time-Saving 
   With outsourced data entry services, you can save your time as you get well-processed and managed data, and you need not spend time reviewing for errors.
   

• Lack of Data standardization 
  Data inaccuracy may be the result of a lack of data standardization. For example, European companies follow DD/MM/YY format, and the American companies MM/DD/YY format.
  

• Data Movement  
  When data gets transferred from one system or database to another, it is data movement. If the connection gets disrupted during transfer, it may corrupt data. It can be handled very well by experienced data entry service providers. 

• Data Decay 
  Data is dynamic. Time-bound changes can become discrepancies with the passing time as they don’t get represented in the records, for example, personal details of the employees, residence details, marital status, contact numbers of clients, etc. 

• Inaccurate Values  
  It is the result of wrong value input or typographical error. If an incorrect value was entered by mistake and never changed, it would be a big issue.  

• Manual data entry 
  A manual data entry system in an organization is one of the most common reasons for data inaccuracy. There are high chances of mistakes.
  

When you give a person the daunting task of keying the data from thousands of forms, you depend only on the human skill level and human attention span. However, if you double key the same data and then use compare programs, you can check and correct any errors made. This is the same reason why many sites will require you to key your email address two times into the online form. They are using the two data sets that you have keyed. They compare one set against the other- if both are identical, they accept your input. 

What if you further built-in intelligence into the data fields so that data key errors could be further prevented? Here is a simple example: you know a month data field cannot have the number 13- so when designing your data screens, you can prevent the possibility of the operator ever entering 13 in the month field. You could take the same logic and create the field for the business rules unique to the client- a field can be only numeric and is limited to numbers 1 through 7. For example, it can be only five if the response under another field is 2. You get the idea; by combining database rules programming and data entry, you mix technology with the data entry effort to get the highly accurate data entry you require. 

Here are some tactics to improve data entry accuracy while capturing data: 

• Find the source rendering to inaccuracies 
  Realizing the reason behind data inaccuracy is the first step to increasing the data accuracy and then plugging the gap. It will lead to high data accuracy. As mentioned, common causes of data inaccuracy include data movement from one system/database to another, mistaken values, or time-bound changes.  

• Set data entry accuracy goals 
  Setting up accuracy goals is important to achieve accurate data entry. It is required to perform mechanical tasks as per expectations. Especially if there is a large database, achieving high accuracy goals can be challenging. 

• Deploy an independent Internal Quality team
  An internal quality team can be a fixture in organizations to enhance efficiencies and achieve data entry accuracy as they keep a check on the work done by the teams. Senior management can count on the insights delivered by the Internal Quality team. 

• Avoid overloading your team 
  Ensure that you do not overload your team with data entry work. It may lead to increased chances of errors. It is better to make additions to your data entry processing team and delegate the work. 

• Provide training to staff 
  Make sure you make your team understand how data entry accuracy can harm/support your company’s growth. A data entry operator may not need specific educational qualifications or work experience, but it requires skills that you can provide during your data entry training sessions.  

• Outsource to experienced professionals  
  As the volume of data increases, organizations need to build a robust model, and they may seek help to complete data entry tasks with high accuracy. An outsourcing company can assist you. They can hire and train resources specifically for data entry and let you focus on your core business. 

• Leverage Technology – Automation 
  BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing) providers have emerged as specialists in data entry, offering automation technology. BPOs can efficiently perform colossal data entry projects using automation solutions without losing quality.
  

1. Lower the Operational Costs  
   Data outsourcing needs a large team and office space to accomplish data entry tasks within an organization. It involves infrastructure expenses besides salaries. Outsourcing to data entry service providers can help save your funds and resources that can be utilized for other business purposes.
   
2. High efficiency through data management  
   Handling massive data with other essential tasks in a business is challenging. Your efficient outsourcing partner can simply help achieve better data management with accuracy. And you will have readily available and indexed data to make decisions.
   
3. Better Quality 
   Outsourcing data entry tasks to an experienced partner can provide you with high-quality data as they have trained and experienced staff to process data without errors. You can simply achieve quality goals.
   
4. Fast turnaround 
   Data entry service outsourcing companies can complete the tasks within the set time limit without compromising accuracy.
   
5. Security  
   Professionals know how valuable the data of a business is. Therefore, leading Data Entry Service providers keep working on their security measures with the latest technology.
   
6. Focus on core functionality  
   An outsourcing partner can help you focus on your core business activities instead of worrying about your data entry accuracy. Let yourself dedicate more to your business.

High Accuracy Data Entry solutions for large datasets require managing and successfully executing the effort-driven workflow and the keying of 100% accurate data, which is aided by database programming and correctly setting up the data validation rules. Utilizing software validation combined with double key entry and comparing data entry, ARDEM achieves 99.97% or higher accuracy in data entry for many of its clients. 

ARDEM provides technology-based services, including data entry services, data capture services, forms processing, document scanning, and document processing services. 

Applications for ARDEM services include: Survey Data Entry, Indexing Large Format Drawings, Medical Record Scanning, Medical Claims Processing, Mailing List Data Entry, Data Entry from Customer Loyalty Cards, Customer Service Survey Data Entry ARDEM provides data entry services to clients in New York, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida, Ohio, Missouri Wisconsin, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and across other states and in Canada. For more information, contact us today at ARDEM Incorporated. 

ARDEM provides Business Process Outsourcing and Business Process Automation Services to established companies to help them improve operational Efficiency and Reduce Costs. For more information, please reach out to us at pricing@ardem.com or call us at 908-359-2600.