Run Smarter · AI Document Processing

Intelligent document processing that reads, checks and files your paperwork

Invoices, contracts, delivery notes, application forms and scanned PDFs, read by AI, checked against your rules and filed in the right system with the key details pulled out, and a person reviewing anything unusual.

Take the AI Readiness Check See examples

Example

Documents arrive by email, upload or scan

AI reads them, including scans and handwriting

Key details checked against your rules

Filed and logged in the right system

AI + Experts + Your Data

Any one of these on its own falls short. Together they give you the speed of AI with answers you can trust.

Does the heavy lifting

Reads, sorts and extracts details from every document.

EXPERT

Checks it's right

Sets the rules and reviews anything unusual.

YOUR DATA

Keeps it grounded

Your own templates, systems and filing structure.

HOW IT WORKS

How it works, step by step

Here is a typical job, from the moment it arrives to the moment it is done. Watch it move through.

01Documents arrive by email, upload or scan
02AI reads them, including scans and handwriting
03Key details checked against your rules
04Filed and logged in the right system

Where it pays off

Real examples of where AI Document Processing pays off. Filter by the part of the business you care about.

ADMIN

Contract review

Key dates, terms and risks pulled out and flagged for a person to review.

Professional services

OPERATIONS

Delivery notes and POs

Matched to orders and stock automatically, with mismatches flagged.

Trades and B2BEcommerce

ADMIN

Application and onboarding forms

Details pulled into your systems without retyping.

All sectors

ADMIN

Scanned and handwritten documents

AI OCR that copes with poor scans and handwriting.

All sectors

OPERATIONS

Compliance documents

Certificates and records checked for expiry dates and missing items.

Trades and B2BHealthcare

ADMIN

Email attachments filed

Every attachment named, filed and logged in the right folder.

All sectors

Start small. Prove it works. Then scale.

No big transformation projects. We find the one thing worth doing first, prove it with a pilot, then keep building month by month.

01 · 3 MINUTES

AI Readiness Check

Seven questions and a straight answer on whether AI fits your business yet.

02 · 1 DAY

1 Day Business Analysis

A day with your team to find the quickest wins. Free for a great fit.

03 · 2 TO 4 WEEKS

Pilot Build

One workflow built, tested and handed over, so you see it working first.

04 · MONTHLY

Monthly Support

Monitoring, training and the next build. Leave at the end of any month.

IN DEPTH

The detail, in 7 short parts

01 / 07

What Is Intelligent Document Processing?

Intelligent document processing (IDP) uses artificial intelligence to read documents, understand what's in them, extract key information and pass it into your business systems. It turns paper documents, scanned PDFs, emails and attachments into structured data your team can use, without manual data entry.

Traditional document processing relies on people reading each document and retyping the details. That's slow, it's prone to human error, and it doesn't scale when document volumes rise. Automated document processing with AI does the repetitive tasks, and a person reviews anything unusual.

AI + Experts + Your Data together beat any one on its own. AI reads and sorts every document, a person sets the rules and checks the exceptions, and your own templates and filing structure make sure everything lands in the right place.

02 / 07

How Intelligent Document Processing Works

A document processing pipeline usually has five stages. Each one can be tuned to your document types and your existing systems.

1. Document intake

Incoming documents arrive by email, upload, shared folder or scanner. The system collects them in one place, whatever the document formats: PDFs, images, Word files or photos taken on a phone.

2. Data capture with AI OCR

Optical character recognition (OCR) turns document images into machine readable digital text. Modern AI OCR, along with intelligent character recognition for handwriting and optical mark recognition for tick boxes, copes with poor scans far better than older tools.

3. Document classification

AI identifies what each document is: an invoice, a delivery note, a contract, a form. Classifying documents correctly means each one follows the right rules and goes to the right place.

4. Data extraction and validation

Natural language processing and machine learning help AI understand human language, so it can extract the relevant data from both structured documents, such as forms, and unstructured documents, such as letters and contracts. The extracted data is then checked against your rules: does the PO number match, is the total right, is anything missing? Data validation is where data accuracy is won or lost.

5. Filing and handover to business systems

The processed data goes into your accounting software, CRM, document management platforms or other business systems, such as Xero, QuickBooks, SharePoint or Google Drive. Every document is named, filed and logged, with an approval process for anything flagged.

03 / 07

OCR vs Intelligent Document Processing

OCR reads text. Intelligent document processing understands it. OCR on its own gives you a block of text from an image. IDP goes further: it works out what the document is, finds the fields that matter, checks them and sends them where they need to go.

That's why IDP suits document heavy workflows across diverse business processes, while OCR alone is mainly useful for making scanned documents searchable.

04 / 07

Where AI Document Processing Pays Off

Most SMEs have a few document workflows that eat hours every week. These are the usual places to start.

Invoice processing: supplier invoices read, matched to POs and posted to your accounts.
Expense management: receipts captured and coded without retyping.
Contract management: key dates, renewal terms and obligations pulled into one list.
Financial documents: bank letters, statements and remittances sorted and filed.
Onboarding: application forms and ID documents captured into your systems.
Compliance: certificates checked for expiry dates and missing items.
Healthcare clinics: referral letters and medical documents sorted for the right team, with patient records handled under strict access rules.

05 / 07

AI Contract Review

AI contract review reads a contract and pulls out the parts you care about: parties, dates, notice periods, payment terms, liability and renewal clauses. It can flag terms that differ from your standard position and compare a new draft with your template.

It saves legal teams and business owners time, but it doesn't replace legal advice. Anything high-value or unusual goes to a person, and in the legal sector we design every workflow around a solicitor's review.

06 / 07

Data Security and UK GDPR

Documents often hold personal and financial details, so security comes first. We use data encryption in transit and at rest, access controls so only the right people see each document type, and a full audit log of what the system did and who approved it.

Data for our own tools is hosted in the UK. Where we connect to third-party AI tools, we choose settings and plans that don't use your documents for training, and we document this for your UK GDPR records.

07 / 07

Choosing Intelligent Document Processing Software

There are many intelligent document processing solutions, from large enterprise platforms to features built into Microsoft Power Automate and Google Cloud. The right choice depends on your volumes, document types and the systems you already run.

We're independent, so we pick the intelligent document processing software that fits, or build a light process with AI tools and automation platforms such as Make, Zapier or n8n. Robotic process automation and business process automation can then handle the steps either side, so the whole workflow runs end to end.

Cost and timings

Most projects start with a pilot on one document type, from £1,500 over 2 to 4 weeks. Monthly support from £750 a month covers monitoring, fixes and the next document workflow. You'll see actionable insights from the pilot, such as hours saved and error rates, before deciding to go further.

FAQ

Common questions

What is intelligent document processing?

Using AI to read documents, understand what's in them, pull out the important details and pass them to your systems.

Can it read scans and handwriting?

Yes, in most cases. Anything it isn't confident about goes to a person to check.

Does a person still check things?

Yes. You set the rules, and anything unusual or high-value is reviewed before it's filed.

What is the difference between OCR and intelligent document processing?

OCR turns images of text into digital text. Intelligent document processing also classifies the document, extracts the key fields, checks them and sends them to your systems.

Is IDP considered AI?

Yes. IDP combines several AI techniques, including OCR, machine learning and natural language processing, to read and understand documents.

Can ChatGPT do OCR?

ChatGPT can read text from images you upload, which is handy for one-off jobs. For regular business volumes you need a proper pipeline with validation, filing and an audit trail.

Can I use ChatGPT to review a contract?

It can help you summarise a contract or spot clauses to ask about, but it isn't legal advice. Be careful with confidential contracts in consumer tools, and have a solicitor check anything important.

Is it legal to have data processed by AI?

Yes, if you follow UK GDPR: a lawful basis, clear information for the people concerned, suitable security and contracts with your providers. We help you document this.