To give you an idea of where this tool fits in to your forms processing tasks, here is a possible scenario. The task here will begin with a set of forms and end with the data on these forms in a database. The figure below will represent the steps a typical data processing will take to get the data to where it will be easily worked with.

	Physical Forms These are the forms that contain the data. The data on these forms are not in a useful format, yet.
	Data Transformed There are a few methods that data processing teams use to transform the data on this form data into a useful format. One method is to hire a team of data entry personnel to input the data. The data entry team will manually review the forms and type the information into some sort of user interface. Another method is more automated. Suites of applications that are used to perform Image Processing and Optical. Image2XML falls into this category of applications. Forms are set up to be read and the data extracted using software.
	Raw Data Consumed The raw transformed data is usually 'scrubbed' (a term to describe the task of formatting the data so it is free of errors such as strange spaces in numbers, text that is incorrectly interpreted or entered incorrectly). This is done either by visual inspection or with a series of applications written to verify the raw data in an automated way.
	Data imported into a database With the data now clean, the data is imported into a database. There are many tools that exist for this purpose. The tool can be as simple as reading the data into a spreadsheet application and using the data import tools to move the data from spreadsheet to your favorite relational database management system (RDMS). Several types of RDMS contain their own data transformation services utilities. In an enterprise scenario, there could be data warehousing that act as a conduit to moving the scrubbed data into a data repository.

There seem to be a wealth of tools developed to address tasks 3 and 4. Applications have been written by talented developers and positioned in various information technology infrastructures to consume data from the 2nd task. Once the data is moved from the 2nd task to the 3rd task, it is in a predictable format that allows automated tasks to consume the data and move it to a more usable location. Tasks 3 and 4 are, while not completely a fixed cost, can be viewed as more static in price than the 2nd task. This is because the applications written for 3 and 4, cleverly written, can be placed and consume the data passed from the 2nd task on a regular basis.

As mentioned before, Image2XML exists in the 2nd section of tasks. Many shops still use an old fashioned approach to the 2nd task because many OCR and image processing systems applications are inaccurate. There is a humorous quote in application development that states that anything can be done if given enough time and money. These are the main constraints in almost every project. Both of these are precious resources that prevent people from creating a truly automated way of handling their form data. Many OCR and image processing systems are expensive, costing thousands of dollars. This prevents small businesses from automated data acquisition. Click here if you are interested in seeing how Image2XML can address these issues for you!