According to a recent report from Aite Research, $1.062 billion of consumer payments will be done by mail in 2013 in the U.S. Thats compared to $1.769 billion done online. Payments with checks are declining, but as we can see here, they are still part of the second most used payment channel. Even if the mailed payments include payment coupons with credit card information, companies still need to read this data, either manually or automatically, to process payments and reconcile accounts.
We are not surprised by these numbers. We know firsthand the costs associated with processing payments and the challenges companies face; incomplete or wrong information, hard-to-read handwriting, fraudulent activity, partial payments, etc. The list goes on and on.
Fast and accurate data capture and check recognition are fundamental to the efficient processing of mail payments. The newest solutions in the market, such as Parascripts FormXtra Capture, provide an integrated approach to process all documents in a single stream, including mail, documents, forms and checks.