How do you sort and organize files and documents with AI?

Every day, a business encounters various files and documents, from invoices and order forms to legal and KYC documents. Finding and handling these documents could quickly become complicated for relevant teams. This is where document sorting and organisation come into play.

What is Document Sorting?

Document sorting is organizing and structuring documents based on their content, metadata, or layout.

This can be done manually or through automated software solutions like intelligent document processing (IDP) systems.

The goal is to group related documents and extract critical information to streamline business processes.

Why is document sorting needed?

Remember the frustration you felt as you searched through your computer and cloud storage for that one bank statement from a couple of years ago? This is why document sorting is needed, especially one that intelligently understands what document we are dealing with and categorizes it. 

Do you appreciate the every time photos throw a smart compilation of your weekend trip to the beach? That’s an accomplishment of document sorting. 

Today, businesses handle an enormous volume of documents daily, and the number is growing constantly. The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper annually. 

Manually sorting and processing this high volume of documents can be extremely time-consuming and inefficient.

A study found that employees spend up to 50% of their time searching for information, much of it looking for documents. 

Implementing an effective document-sorting mechanism can lead to several benefits.

• Time Savings: Transform hours of long manual document sorting into minutes with the help of AI-automated solutions
• Detect Fraud: AI-led systems can usually detect any discrepancies in the document being processed and even incorporate additional criteria and matching to detect potential fraud.
• Compliance: Prevent any errors in sorting the documents and save them in a way that is compliant with GDPR and other regulations.
• Cost Savings:  Time saved is money saved, and the additional potential savings in terms of minimized errors
• Efficiency: Besides sorting, organizing the documents allows us to search for documents in a streamlined manner, enhancing the efficiency of business processes. 

Get started with the best-in-class AI to sort your documents, extract information and automate your business with workflows. Book a demo with Nanonets today!

Document Sorting through the Ages

It’s an age-old problem of how to sort and organize documents for easier access and faster retrieval.

• Manual Document Sorting - Be it physical documents or digital documents, one can always manually sort and organize them. This way the way it was done decades ago when documents were primarily on paper. Using folders and boxes to organize, your office clerk was likely responsible for categorizing each piece of paperwork. Invoices by date, agreements by client, and so on. It became a dedicated task and intense manual labor. Not to mention its error-prone nature, combined with retrieval struggles.

• Semi-automated document sorting - With the advent of technology, digital files like documents and photos come into the picture. Each digital file comes with information like file type, dimension, size, and other fields, which together are called metadata. For example, digital files might be automatically sorted into folders based on the date they were created or the project they are associated with. The system can do the initial sorting quickly, but human intervention is still required for verification and any necessary adjustments.
• Automated document sorting—With the advent of optical character recognition (OCR), the physical and digital worlds can now be connected. Any physical document can be digitized and processed. Combined with advanced algorithms like machine learning and natural language processing, the contents of the documents can be extracted and help with document analysis. With the advent of large language models (LLMs), this ability has been further enhanced to understand the entirety of documents.

How does Document Sorting work today?

When discussing document sorting AI algorithms usually run on certain criteria and approaches. Here are some of the approaches and data used to achieve the same:

• Metadata—Automations analyze the metadata, such as the document file format, data created, author, and other information that could be unique to a particular file type. 

You may have your Mac Finder or Windows Explorer do it for you on your computer files based on date created, file format and other details.

• Content Analysis—AI scans and reads through the entire document to determine whether a PDF is about an employment agreement or a lease agreement.
• Optical Character Recognition (OCR)—It's common that some documents may not come in the expected file type. Leveraging OCR technology helps us scan information from images and sort it if it's a receipt or other document. 
• Rules & Algorithms—Once a document has been scanned and identified, rules and algorithms can help sort and organize it better based on certain criteria and data.

Impact of Large Language Models (LLMs)

With the advent of large language models (LLMs), this ability has been further enhanced to understand the entirety of documents. These models enable a high degree of accuracy and recognize content. 

For documents with similar structures, understanding the context of the content is important to distinguish them. Use cases like differentiating between an invoice, purchase order, and receipts without further instruction improves efficiency. 

For businesses with diverse and large documentation needs, such advanced capabilities enable workflow automation and reduce the need for manual intervention. 

With powerful AI and seamless integration, the entire process described above is simplified and extensible across various use cases. Some of the prominent use cases across industries and functions are detailed below.

Get started with the best-in-class AI to sort your documents, extract information and automate your business with workflows. Book a demo with Nanonets today!

Examples of Document Sorting Workflows

Invoice Processing in the Finance Department:

The finance department of a large corporation often receives hundreds of invoices daily in PDF or image format. Using Nanonets' document sorting solution, these invoices can be automatically sorted based on parameters like vendor name, date, and amount. AI can also sort if it's an invoice or purchase order, facilitating reconciliation between these two documents.

The AI extracts data from the PDFs, classifies them appropriately, and routes them to the correct department or person for processing. 

This improves efficiency and accuracy and speeds up the payment process.

Insurance Claim Processing:
Insurance companies receive a large volume of claims in different formats, such as accident reports, medical bills, repair invoices, etc. Using Nanonets, these documents can be sorted according to claim ID, type of claim, or claimant details, streamlining the claims process. A health insurance claim can look different from a car insurance one; an efficient AI can help you sort and organise based on this.

This results in faster, more accurate claims processing and better customer service.

Healthcare Patient Records Management:
Hospitals handle many patient records daily, including lab reports, prescriptions, diagnostic images, etc. Nanonets can automatically categorize these documents based on patient ID, type of report, date, etc. This sorted data can then be stored digitally in a patient's health record, ensuring easy access for doctors and improving the quality of patient care.

Legal Document Management:
Law firms handle numerous documents, including case briefs, contracts, and legal notices. Nanonets can sort these documents based on case number, client ID, or type of legal document, allowing lawyers to access the required documents promptly and improving the firm's overall productivity.

HR Document Management:
HR departments handle documents like resumes, employment contracts, performance reviews, etc. Nanonets can automatically sort these documents according to employee ID, type of document, or date, making HR processes more efficient and freeing up staff to focus on more strategic tasks.

Academic Document Sorting in Universities:
Universities deal with various documents, such as admission forms, examination papers, and student records. Nanonets can sort these documents based on student ID, department, or type of document, making it easier for university staff to manage records and provide more effective student services.

Get started with the best-in-class AI to sort your documents, extract information and automate your business with workflows. Book a demo with Nanonets today!

How to Sort Documents using Nanonets?

You can create your document sorting workflow using Nanonets within minutes by following the below steps -

• Sign up / Login on https://app.nanonets.com.

• Choose a pre-trained model based on your document type / create your own document extractor within minutes.

• Verify the data extracted by Nanonets. Your data extraction model is ready now.

• Once you have created your model, go to the workflow section of your model.

• Go to the export tab and select "Export files to Google Drive".

• Connect your Google Drive account.

• You can now specify the folder based on the data extracted by Nanonets. For example, I have used the invoice model in this workflow. I am going to sort invoices by the seller_name field automatically extracted by your Nanonets model.

• You can also rename the sorted PDF files by using the extracted data. Specify a renaming format for your files based on the data extracted by Nanonets. I have specified a format here to rename files based on invoice date, seller name, and invoice amount as follows - {invoice_date}_{seller_name}_{invoice_amount}.pdf

• Choose your export trigger and test using a file.

• Click on "Add Integration," and you are good to go.

Nanonets will now automatically extract data from incoming files, sort them using predefined conditions, rename them based on the specified naming convention using the extracted data, and then send the renamed PDFs to the correct Google Drive folder based on your sorting rule!

Get started with the best-in-class AI to sort your documents, extract information and automate your business with workflows. Book a demo with Nanonets today!

Nanonets for Intelligent Document Sorting

As we embrace the future, the immense potential of artificial intelligence in transforming our everyday tasks becomes more evident. Nanonets' intelligent document sorting offers a new frontier in efficiency, scalability, and accuracy in document management. Its ability to automatically extract data from PDFs and categorize documents based on this data is a boon for businesses across various sectors.

The Nanonets AI-based document sorting solution is more than just a convenience—it's a strategic enabler. From streamlining invoice processing in finance departments and managing patient records in healthcare institutions to facilitating efficient legal document management and simplifying academic document sorting in universities, Nanonets' AI-driven solution proves invaluable.

Furthermore, it improves accuracy, as the machine-learning models are trained to learn and adapt continuously, minimizing the risk of human error. This heightened accuracy in document categorization, coupled with improved efficiency, inevitably leads to a significant boost in productivity. Businesses can also scale their operations seamlessly, as the Nanonets solution can easily handle high volumes of documents.

Integrating AI into document management also saves valuable time, which employees can redirect toward strategic, value-added tasks. This, in turn, cultivates a more innovative, productive work environment.

Document sorting and organization are the first step for many use cases. Some documents need you to sort and sync into ERP while requiring you to extract details and trigger actions on certain criteria. These actions and workflows can be enabled by Nanonets and its vast set of integrations and approval mechanisms it facilitates

As businesses seek to optimize their operations and thrive in the digital age, adopting advanced tools like Nanonets for document sorting is no longer a luxury—it's a necessity. AI is reshaping how we handle and interpret information, and Nanonets stands at the forefront of this transformation. As we move forward, the question for businesses is no longer whether they should embrace AI in document sorting but how quickly they can adopt it to stay competitive. With nanonets, the future of document sorting is here and intelligent.

Get started with the best-in-class AI to sort your documents, extract information and automate your business with workflows. Book a demo with Nanonets today!