Ephesoft is Selected as a Winner in HousingWire 2019 Tech100 Awards
Ephesoft has been gaining momentum year after year in the financial services and mortgage industry by providing innovative and efficient solutions to customers. This week, Ephsoft was awarded as a top 100 technology winner by HousingWire.
According to HousingWire, their awards and criteria for winning are getting more competitive, as they received over 270 nominations in 2019. The winners were evaluated on being the most innovative and impactful solutions to the housing market.
This year, Ephesoft was nominated for launching its new hybrid cloud solution called Ephesoft Cloud HyperExtender. Ephesoft Transact, our core platform, with add-on Cloud HyperExtender seamlessly integrates cloud processing capacity for mortgage and underwriting documents with both new and existing cloud or on-premises deployments. This ensures consistent performance at times of peak demand while minimizing upfront investment while promoting fast response times and customer satisfaction.
“After working with the Ephesoft team on their beta version of Cloud HyperExtender, we’re feeling really optimistic about our early results,” said a financial services product specialist of a large Ephesoft customer that processes a high volume of mortgages and loans. “The Cloud HyperExtender was able to handle as much load as we could throw at it, which is a really great insurance policy for the ebbs and flows of our daily volume. We use Ephesoft Transact both internally for our employees, and externally for our customers. By offloading a chunk of our workflow to Cloud HyperExtender, we’ll be able to solve new business problems without having to worry about resources.”
How Ephesoft helps the industry innovate
Ephesoft’s flagship content capture and data discovery platform streamlines and automates high-touch, manual and content-heavy processes, accelerating the speed and accuracy of processing while reducing operational costs. Ephesoft helps mortgage originators, insurers and other financial services organizations automate their document-driven processes through patented, supervised machine learning technology. The Ephesoft Transact platform, which initiates key loan and business processes, removes the burdensome task of manually compiling, organizing and arranging mortgage documents. Over 60 lending institutions and secondary market insurers leverage Ephesoft to mitigate risks from human error, streamline workflow and reduce costs associated with processing loan packets.
Large banks or mortgage lenders that process a high volume of documents can benefit from Ephesoft Transact with Ephesoft’s new Cloud HyperExtender by bridging the gap during peak processing loads, saving valuable time and money. Organizations can optimize their existing on-premises or cloud systems by increasing processing up to 2,500 pages per minute in the cloud, while only paying for what they use – without adding servers, maintenance or labor costs. Processing loans, taxes, invoices and other critical data is secure and consistently fast, enhancing customer satisfaction. Ephesoft uses patented supervised machine learning technology to help its customers overcome document ingestion, classification and extraction challenges of manual data entry, slow response times and costly labor.
Ephesoft’s modern thin client architecture and Web Service OpenAPIs allow the platform to perform smart document capture into your existing Loan Origination System (LOS), Servicing and Web solutions as well as other back-office software.
With some loans exceeding 1,000 pages and hundreds of document types, manual classification of these documents is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Ephesoft identifies, classifies and organizes loans faster and more accurately than any human. In fact, customers report the ability to process at over 20 times the speed of manual human classification. No barcode separator sheets are needed for document identification, unlike other systems.
The key to manufacturing a zero-defect loan is often locked away in the data in the documents. Manual data entry from these documents is slow, error-prone and expensive. Ephesoft’s mortgage data extraction can identify, extract and validate hundreds of key fields within a package in a fraction of the time and cost of manual data entry. During loan classification and data extraction, validation is available for documents that fall below configurable confidence thresholds. If any documents or data fields are below the threshold, users can interface with the process to append results. Extracted data can easily be normalized and sent to your LOS, allowing endless data population and validation options.
Announcing Ephesoft Transact 2019.1
Ephesoft Transact is a leading enterprise content capture and data discovery platform designed to make customer documents and data easily accessible and usable. Not only is this latest version ready and stacked with new value-added features, but you may have noticed a new naming convention. Moving forward, Ephesoft Transact versions will be named by year, followed by what quarter they are released. The change is to help our customers keep up with the latest versions and make it easier to track updates.
On to the good stuff – what’s new to this release and why should I update to the latest version? Here are six highlighted features:
Ephesoft Cloud HyperExtender – This first-of-its-kind, add-on, hybrid solution bridges the gap between on-premise and cloud, so customers can gain over 1,000% processing speed by delegating the OCR function into the cloud, which is the most resource-intensive step in the capture process. This hybrid solution can only be used with Ephesoft Transact 2019.1.
The Cloud HyperExtender is ideal for companies and organizations with demand peaks in their business operations, which stress the infrastructure for document intelligence caused by either unpredictable or predictable seasonal volumes. Examples include retailers’ invoices and credit card applications during Cyber Monday and other shopping holidays; tax firms’ form processing during tax season; mortgage lender applications or loans during prime real estate seasons; and insurance company claims after a natural disaster.
eText Processing – eText processing increases the accuracy of text extraction in this version of Ephesoft Transact. The functionality leverages electronic text layers present in (some) programmatically generated PDFs, which ultimately results in 100% accuracy for text extraction. Because this capability yields 100% accuracy, customers will experience overall lower validation levels and lower human touch points (usually there are other document types that don’t have text layers), which save time and lower costs.
Batch Completion Popup – With Ephesoft Transact 2019.1, operators now have easier access to the relevant batch information when completing a manual audit log. A popup dialog provides a variety of data to the user at the end of a batch being scanned, thereby improving productivity and reducing compliance costs.
Batch.XML Changes - Changes to the Batch.XML document format enhance the code maintainability and provide additional audit data collected during the processing of batches. These capabilities reduce TCO and increase the level of process visibility and auditability.
Expedited Export – The name, Expedited Export, gives a clear idea of what this feature entails: accelerated document processing. Customers can select one, multiple or all documents ready for export, without having to wait for all the documents in a batch to be completed. This enables greater flexibility and ensures that documents are processed as soon as possible, helping to achieve and maintain SLAs.
Enhanced Machine Learning – Ephesoft Transact 2019.1 introduces even smarter machine learning algorithm models for invoicing. English, German and French are supported, and it focuses on improved and faster learning of header information. The Enhanced Machine Learning Plugin enables validation screen corrections, creates on-the-fly corrective actions, and works in tandem with the system’s core machine learning algorithm. Customers will benefit from the enhancement because the system will be more accurate and require less human activity.
Learn more:
Ephesoft Cloud HyperExtender - Break the Capture Speed Barrier
APAC Partner Spotlights: Forging the Path to Partner Success and Growth
Ephesoft’s reseller partners are an essential and growing part of our global ecosystem to deliver Ephesoft solutions to customers. Recently, there’s been an uptick in both customer and partner activity throughout the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, with organisations realising the need to automate their content capture and data discovery processes. As a marketer, I wanted to better understand this shift to digital transformation and why our partner community is successful and what drives them to offer and implement Ephesoft’s platform. As a result, our Ephesoft channel sales team enthusiastically introduced me to several partners so I could learn more.
Partner: MicroGenesis
MicroGenesis, a leading solution provider that specializes in Application Lifecycle Management, DevOps, Systems Engineering and Document Management, became an Ephesoft partner in October 2017 after thoroughly researching a variety of OCR solutions. MicroGenesis has over a decade of experience in the Document Capture space and has handled many major implementations both in India and abroad.
MicroGenesis focuses on Manufacturing, IT/ITES, Automotive, Aerospace, BFSI, Pharma & Life Science and Service Industries, such as Transportation, Logistics, Real Estate and any others that have high document volumes. Additionally, they are partners with some of the leading RPA developers like Automation Anywhere and UiPath, which use tools like Ephesoft to onboard data into RPA solutions. Most customers use enterprise content capture to classify, extract and export data into ERP or line of business systems.
When Ephesoft’s Vice President of the region reached out to them, they quickly understood the value of the solution. MicroGenesis sells Ephesoft as its own solution, or along-side their in-house document management solution – so they are both a customer and a partner.
“Ephesoft is one of the fastest-growing areas of our business, and as an Ephesoft partner, we find great value, which translates to an improved market reach. Our Ephesoft expertise sets us apart from our competition and allows us to serve our customers better. Being an Ephesoft reseller partner, we gain visibility with Ephesoft employees and new customer opportunities,” said Santy Nelson, Business Head at MicroGenesis. He explained that Ephesoft’s open source technology along with the ease of use, adoption and integrations are what customers are looking for. “The UI/UX is a lot better than competitive solutions and the learning curve is much faster for end users.”
Partner: MITS
With a deep commitment to customer success, MITS joined Ephesoft’s reseller partner program several months ago. Through colleagues and competitors, they had often heard of Ephesoft, but it wasn’t until recently that they took a deeper look at Ephesoft’s content capture and data discovery platform.
“Ephesoft’s solution is customer-focused and the pricing is competitive,” said Richard Ong
Director Business Development at MITS. “The sales and support teams at Ephesoft are responsive, efficient and professional. They understand the local market and provide good support to the partners.”
MITS’ customer base is increasingly transitioning to the cloud, which is another benefit of being partners with Ephesoft. They find that banks and other financial services are a bit more conservative due to compliance. They also focus on all major ECM solutions, especially IBM and FileNet. “With collaborative technology partners like Ephesoft, we are able to find the best solution for our customers that fit their business requirements.”
Partner: Informotion
With a heavy focus and market share in government and healthcare, Informotion offers a strategic and consultative approach to content management systems and complementary technology, such as Ephesoft, across the enterprise. Informotion is based in Australia but has offices in the US and the UK. Capturing information once, and moving it efficiently and seamlessly through an organisation, makes everyone’s day easier along the way. Good system design drives adoption, as compliance happens fluidly and naturally, without the user interrupting their critical tasks to act as a records manager. The company uses Ephesoft to capture data for accounts payable, human resources, payroll, personnel files and contracts.
Informotion previously used a competitive system for onboarding documents into content management systems but switched to Ephesoft after discovering the synergy of technology and partnership value. “Working with Ephesoft gives us an easy path to introduce an innovative, end-to-end solution to the time consuming and costly challenge of manual, paper-based content capture that many of our customers experience,” said Deb Dwyer, General Manager at Informotion, a global Platinum reseller based in Australia. “They are on the forefront of cloud technology, which aligns with both Informotion and the market’s direction at the right price. Ephesoft’s technology is an easy way for customers to capture, classify, extract and export data into their TRIM / Content Manager system. We’ve already done several joint events which were well attended and positioned us with similar forward-thinking, industry leaders.”
While these are just three of many partners in the region, Ephesoft partners are expanding their technology breadth and solution offerings to help their customers become more efficient and productive, whether on-premise or in the cloud. They welcome new clients and continue to drive innovative, efficient and cost-effective solutions.
The Modern Pedigree of Software: Best-of-Breed Solutions Rise to the Top
IT projects are not a simple matter. It takes time, budget, project teams, demos, vetting, RFPs, executive buy-in, implementation, deployment, change management and a slew of other challenges and processes. For years, the idea of using best-of-breed software solutions has been debated against using one integrated, enterprise application that can handle most requirements.
According to PC Magazine, best-of-breed systems are “the best product of its type. Organizations often purchase software from different vendors in order to obtain the best-of-breed for each application area.” The overarching idea is that while there are tremendous benefits for having departmental or function-based, specialized software, integrating it with other systems can often be cumbersome. The reverse thought process is that ERP or enterprise applications don’t have integration challenges, but they also don’t address all of the requirements and functionality that best-of-breed systems possess. It comes down to using one software vendor, or many vendors.
However, the fear of best-of-breed solution being able to integrate well with other systems is a thing of the past. With the growing demand for technology standardization and modernization, Web Services OpenAPIs, like Swagger and others, are enabling smooth interoperability. Middleware can now bridge gaps between different platforms, either on-premise, cloud or a hybrid alternative so organizations can select the best products to meet all of their requirements throughout the enterprise.
Cloud-based best-of-breed solutions have been gaining rapid adoption as companies recognize the many benefits. Cloud technology offers faster, flexible, scalable and lower cost solutions. Again, using standardized Web Services OpenAPIs to easily connect to other systems, it alleviates any apprehension of difficult integrations. Other benefits include reduced risk, faster deployment, on-demand updates and fixes, and it eliminates the need to purchase hardware, servers, storage, security, network infrastructure and maintenance.
One of the by-products of best-of-breed solutions is that we are seeing reseller, channel, OEM and technology partners emerging and adapting to support this shift in IT purchases:
- Enterprise workflow software products like Nintex, K2 and Microsoft Flow are experiencing major growth as organizations are looking for tailored solutions throughout their company.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors like Blue Prism and UiPath both use their technology to create digital, robotic workforces that improve specific processes, thereby considering themselves best-of-breed solution providers.
- OEM partners like Infor are bundling best-of-breed solutions, like Ephesoft, into their larger enterprise offerings to give their customers better, more flexible solutions.
Gartner recommends that CIOs work with line of business (LOBs) leaders to adopt best-of-breed solutions that work best for their specific needs, while understanding the impact on the rest of the organization. As organizations are realizing the benefits of analytics and metrics for departments, best-of-breed solutions often specialize in understanding a function area or industry better than a general ERP solution. Therefore, these LOB leaders are adapting and pushing to use the most innovative technology that solves their business focus and processes. Addressing LOB needs with best-of-breed systems and channel partners leverages industry experts with a core focus, which lends to achieving a competitive advantage in the market.
Ephesoft’s enterprise content capture and data discovery platform is a best-of-breed application offered on-premise or in the cloud. The solution is often used as an onramp for classifying, extracting and exporting data into an ERP or LOB system. Ephesoft’s core focus is making meaning out of unstructured data so it can be used by decision-makers worldwide.
For example, the solution can take a mortgage loan packet’s data, organize and classify that data, and export it into a Loan Origination System (LOS) for fast and accurate loan processing. The LOS might have a capture component to it, but that component will not have Ephesoft’s patented, supervised machine learning algorithms that maximize efficiency, accuracy and productivity compared to the LOS capture tool offered.
Another example is that Ephesoft’s platform can capture personnel files for onboarding, classify, extract and export the necessary data into a larger, integrated ERP solution. Either way, the platform specializes in a specific function of intelligent capture, also known as best-of-breed software. Ephesoft’s reseller, channel, OEM and technology partners are also experts who can implement a wide range of best-of-breed solutions, not just smart document capture.
At the end of the day, CIOs and LOB leaders must evaluate the benefits and challenges for the types of solutions they will implement, along with the consideration of company goals, its vision and business processes in order to determine the best path.
Saving the Day: How to Become a Hero in Your Finance Department
5 Steps to Hero Status in Finance
There’s no denying that most of us in business are driven to seek praise, financial gain, power and other rewards. It’s human nature that we like pats on the back. Whether the finance or accounting department is internal or outsourced, there are ways to achieve Hero Status – especially if some or all your processes are done manually when it comes to invoices.
Step 1: Processes
Figure out what manual processes you are doing and what’s the quantity or amount. If you receive paper invoices are you taking the data and keying it in your ERP or other line of business systems? How many invoices do you have to enter manually each month? Do you scan each invoice and electronically file it as well as file the paper invoice? How much time does one invoice take to process? What’s your workflow or approval process and how much time on average does it take?
A report by PayStream Advisors published in October 2017 shows the average processing cost per invoice (combination of paper and electronic) ranges from $2.36 (innovator companies) to $6.70 (mainstream companies) to $15 (novice companies).
Step 2: Crunch the Numbers
Based on your research, crunch numbers on key metrics that you can use to state your business case. For example, many AP departments want to decrease the cost per invoice, decrease cycle times, reduce errors, improve visibility into invoice status and take advantage of supplier discounts. When a process is automated, all the costs are likely to decrease significantly. The easiest calculations are labor costs (salary and time spent on that activity) and cycle times, including audits (days/minutes change). Although you can automate processes with any number of documents, the best ROI comes from generating at least 3,000 documents or invoices per month. More documents mean more savings.
Ideally, your invoice processes should look like this: first, vendors send in electronic invoices. These invoices are ingested into an advanced document capture system. This system classifies, extracts and exports the data. It then automatically stores the data into a repository or workflow system integrated with your accounting system.
Another aspect to consider is whether it would benefit your organization to have automation in the cloud or on-premises. Cloud or Capture-as-a-Service offerings can be more cost-effective.
Step 3: Present the Data
Today, we have so much information available, that you should consider analytics. Create a plan that outlines the current state and what an ideal future state would be. Find out who can help champion your idea and research. Often it is the IT department, a business analyst or even your boss. Sometimes, vendors you are researching will have a tool to help you do this – just ask!
Step 4: Prepare for Change
It’s often true, and no one wants to talk about it but a side effect of automation and efficiency improvement is staff reallocation. But there’s a silver lining. Because the monotonous work of manual data entry work does not usually lead to high job satisfaction, these displaced workers can be freed up trained to do better, more meaningful work. While change can be a real fear among employees, someone who knows and believes their work life will improve with automation can be a change agent. Not only is a positive and convincing attitude the right move, it demonstrates that you are on the leading edge of technology and innovation. You become a hero that solves your department’s “dirty” work.
Step 5: Track the Changes for Recognition
Organizations that implement an advanced document capture platform deserve recognition. That’s why you did the work in Step 1 by figuring out what your previous workload looked like. Bosses want metrics. They want analysis. They want to see results.
You’re probably wondering where you are going to get all this time to plan and track the results. By making the time, this is how you will be rewarded and achieve Hero Status. It could mean having a lousy case study on Ephesoft’s website, in your company newsletter, a pat on the back or it could mean a bonus, promotion, or even an industry publication writing an article about the journey that helps to generate even more revenue.
For more information on how Ephesoft’s platform can help transform your AP department and make you a Hero, please contact us at sales@ephesoft.com or www.ephesoft.com.
