The Rise of Automated Document Creation Solutions

With the rise of automation and machine learning, it is not surprising to learn that this has also branched out into document creation. There are several ways in which this has manifested, the most famous implementation being digital signing applications, as many landlords and tenants now use digital signing versions of their documents to agree or continue rental applications.

But what you might not know is how automated document creation actually works. Many industries now employ a workflow that takes data from multiple sources and generates a document, meaning that every production is uniform despite containing unique information. This means that companies are beginning to develop solutions for potential customers across the world, in which they can create any document to a high degree of accuracy just by asking for a few simple pieces of information. This is useful for situations that require a high volume of document creation, such as producing sales contracts, invoices, or even academic documents.

What is automated document creation?

Automated document creation is the process in which software is employed to populate a pre-defined template using information from several external sources. These sources can include an Excel spreadsheet, a CRM system, and databases. By cutting out the manual cutting and pasting processes, not only does automated document creation speed up the generation of these documents, but it also increases the accuracy and allows for all documents to be generated uniformly, no matter which employee is processing the paperwork.

How this works is by creating a workflow, whereby the inputting of new data causes a trigger for the template to begin populating. The automation will automatically format, save, and export the document ready to be used. As this document can be prebuilt, it can ensure that every document contains the same essential information. This could be contract clauses, accurate dates, or even the right number of academic courses.

Usually, a written document would be designed in a word processing program and uploaded to the automation system. There, the relevant changeable fields would be mapped to the right external data sources. Within the automation, rules can be set to ensure that specific information or clauses can be activated depending on the customer type or even for regional variations. After the automation runs, it can automatically be delivered to the relevant customer, potentially for an automated signing, so long as an email address was included in the original workflow of new data input.

Why is this useful?

One of the biggest factors in the efficiency of a modern-day company is the paperwork. There are only so many man-hours in a week to produce the relevant contracts or documents that a business requires. So by investing a little time and money into an automated system, you can free up many more positive work hours for employees to be able to focus on their job instead of wasting time drawing up yet another piece of essential paperwork.

Another large factor at play is the discrepancies in the documents being created by many different employees. You may find that one member of staff uses a different font size, leading to overspill onto additional pages for printing. Potentially, giving clients a different order of your essential clauses in their contract could make things very confusing in future disputes if you think clause 7 is different from what the client has in front of them.

The onboarding of new employees can also be massively expedited by the implementation of automated document creation. Since HR staff will be recording key, identifiable information about new staff members throughout the recruitment and interview process, automation can turn this into specific welcome documentation or even provide contracts of employment to new members of staff via email, with a built-in digital signing process.

More and more uses for automated document creation solutions keep popping up, due to the high demand for an efficient workplace and to reduce costs, as an automated solution could literally replace the salary of an administrative role in the business, if used effectively.

Academic transcripts are so easily lost

It is also fair to say that a smart use case for these automated document creation tools is for the reproduction of academic transcripts. So many people manage to lose their crucial documentation when they move houses, or in sudden, unexpected acts of god such as flooding. It can cost more money and time than you imagine to ask a college or university to reprint a new copy of your transcript. That’s why a fake transcript generator is another useful implementation of such automations.

The system only needs you to provide information such as the exact details of your classes in each academic year and the mark you received, in order to be able to reproduce a transcript like the one you originally received upon completing your studies. As the technology can be designed to build a specific template for each higher education institution, by asking which college or university you attended, the solution can recreate a document that imitates the one you originally received.

You would still need to print the new document on a similar quality paper to the original copy. This way, you are likely to find that the transcript will be accepted by any new employer who requires evidence of your academic results. It can not be guaranteed, and you may still need to ask your institution for a new copy if the transcript causes a block in your employment verification.

These tools work at a fraction of the cost

With so many applications of this type of technology, it is now easy to understand why there has been such a growth in the market. When it comes to academic use, ultimately, it is the cost of a replacement transcript that turns most people towards the use of an automated document creation solution. Colleges and, generally speaking, all higher education institutions charge a large fee for providing a reprint of your results.

For something that is so easily lost when moving homes or could be thrown out in a pile of paperwork, the cost often outweighs anyone’s expectations for securing a replacement. Instead, you can replace your transcript for your own records with a document that has been automatically generated, and it would only cost a fraction of the fee your institution would charge.