Access 97 / OCR option possibilities

[ivan]

I have developed an Access 97 order entry program specific to my business.
Due to the merchandise sold, the orders require a lot of custom information
(size dimensions, color combos, material, imprint info etc.). All of my
orders are taken at the customers location, then bought back to my location
and entered. My problem (a good one) is that I can take a hundred orders at
a time, from a hundred different customers. So this means that I sit at the
customers location, spend 7 hours reviewing or writing orders with
customers, then have to re-enter most of the data into the Access database
for billing purposes. As an example, yesterday I received 74 orders, that I
will now spend 5 hours re-handling, re-entering and generating statements
for. Not a fun way to spend a day.

It occurs to me that I have a few solutions.
A) I could hire someone to re-enter the orders (I am not prepared for this
financial option yet).

B) I could bring a laptop and portable printer to the sales site and enter
right there. The negative to this is that it would still be double work,
first filling out a paper form and then hand-entering the data (I can not
dispense with the paper form since many customers come with it prefilled in,
or it is used as a worksheet, plus I want a copy of the custom data in their
handwriting). This would greatly slow down the sales process at the POS.

C) I could bring a laptop, portable printer and portable OCR equipment. This
would allow me to just scan the paper order form info into Access, with the
data going to the appropriate fields. This would save me mega-time and
postage (since I can generate the statements right there for the customer.)
Not sure if this is a viable option, in terms of current accuracy of
equipment and software, time required to scan and import data for each
customer, etc. I have many customers on line waiting to place orders (dont
want to lose them to boredom while waiting their turn). I could always do a
visual on the imported data and correct any import mistakes at the time of
import.

If "C" is a viable option, I have no idea where and how to start... ie.
portable scanners available, the best software to get the data into Access,
the procedure for importing, is there a way to import directly?, etc.
Actually I do have an idea where to start... this newsgroup ; )

Any ideas or OCR info would be greatly appreciated.

TIA,

Ivan

[MeadeR]

I've worked on OCR/ICR projects for some time - and it would be costly
and difficult to incorporate the process - especially since you'll
have multiple people with various ways of spelling involved. Could it
be done - yes - would it save you time/money - probably not.

You may want to consider providing a web based order system for your
customers - since it sounds as if some of them pre-fill the info in -
they could then print the form out, etc. and then you can use the
laptop/tablet approach for the remainder of your customers.

You may also want to look at the IBM site - they had a product at one
point that resembled a notepad - with paper - where you write on the
paper and the underlying tablet computer would pick up the
information.

Depending on the size of your company and the number of 'paper' orders
- you may want to consider an off-site data entry firm - you would
transmit the image and they would return the data in a flat file
format.

"ivan" <in**@achieva.us> wrote in message news:<TT*********************@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv. net>...

I have developed an Access 97 order entry program specific to my business.
Due to the merchandise sold, the orders require a lot of custom information
(size dimensions, color combos, material, imprint info etc.). All of my
orders are taken at the customers location, then bought back to my location
and entered. My problem (a good one) is that I can take a hundred orders at
a time, from a hundred different customers. So this means that I sit at the
customers location, spend 7 hours reviewing or writing orders with
customers, then have to re-enter most of the data into the Access database
for billing purposes. As an example, yesterday I received 74 orders, that I
will now spend 5 hours re-handling, re-entering and generating statements
for. Not a fun way to spend a day.

It occurs to me that I have a few solutions.
A) I could hire someone to re-enter the orders (I am not prepared for this
financial option yet).

B) I could bring a laptop and portable printer to the sales site and enter
right there. The negative to this is that it would still be double work,
first filling out a paper form and then hand-entering the data (I can not
dispense with the paper form since many customers come with it prefilled in,
or it is used as a worksheet, plus I want a copy of the custom data in their
handwriting). This would greatly slow down the sales process at the POS.

C) I could bring a laptop, portable printer and portable OCR equipment. This
would allow me to just scan the paper order form info into Access, with the
data going to the appropriate fields. This would save me mega-time and
postage (since I can generate the statements right there for the customer.)
Not sure if this is a viable option, in terms of current accuracy of
equipment and software, time required to scan and import data for each
customer, etc. I have many customers on line waiting to place orders (dont
want to lose them to boredom while waiting their turn). I could always do a
visual on the imported data and correct any import mistakes at the time of
import.

If "C" is a viable option, I have no idea where and how to start... ie.
portable scanners available, the best software to get the data into Access,
the procedure for importing, is there a way to import directly?, etc.
Actually I do have an idea where to start... this newsgroup ; )

Any ideas or OCR info would be greatly appreciated.

TIA,

Ivan