Document processing is a crucial part of logistics operations, but it often becomes the bottleneck that prevents companies from scaling efficiently. Modern AI offers practical solutions to this challenge, even for companies that have never worked with AI before. If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s a better way to handle the endless flow of shipping documents crossing your desk, this guide is for you.
Why Consider Document Automation?
Every logistics company has its own story about document processing challenges. Maybe it’s that seasonal rush when documents pile up faster than your team can handle them. Or it’s the constant worry about finding and training new staff to handle growing document volumes. These pain points aren’t just inconveniences – they’re signs that your business might benefit from automation. Let’s look at situations that often signal it’s time to consider a change.
Growing Document Volumes
Perhaps your business handles seasonal shipping peaks where document volumes spike dramatically, or maybe your company is growing faster than your team can scale. When document processing prevents you from taking on more business, automation becomes a strategic necessity rather than just an efficiency tool.
Staffing Flexibility
Finding and retaining skilled workers for document processing has become increasingly difficult. When team members are out during flu season, or positions remain unfilled, the remaining staff struggles to keep up with document volumes. Automation provides consistency and reliability, ensuring your operations continue smoothly regardless of staffing levels.
Better Control and Compliance
Manual document processing often forces compromises, like thoroughly checking only high-value invoices against transport orders and tenders while leaving smaller transactions with minimal verification. Automation allows you to process and verify all documents consistently, improving cost control and ensuring compliance across all transactions.
How AI Document Processing Works
When automating document processing, it helps to understand how an AI system handles your shipping documents. If you’ve been processing documents manually, you’ll recognize these steps – they mirror what your team does, just automated:
It all starts with getting your documents into digital form. In the real world, this isn’t always perfect. Drivers might take quick photos of CMR waybills with their phones, warehouse staff scan documents in a hurry, and there’s often handwriting or stamps on the papers. The good news is that modern AI systems handle these real-world document variations remarkably well. As we explored in our article “The New Era of Document Automation: Why AI Beats Traditional OCR”, today’s AI can work with coffee-stained documents, handle poor photo quality, and even read handwritten notes.
Document organization
First, the system handles document organization. Just as you might receive a PDF containing multiple documents for a single shipment – perhaps a sea waybill, commercial invoice, and packing list all attached to a single file. The AI system needs to split these into individual documents. This is crucial because each document type contains different information and needs different handling.
Document recognition
Next comes document recognition. Your experienced staff can glance at a document and immediately know if it’s a bill of lading or an invoice. An AI system does the same through classification, which determines how each document should be processed. This matters because you extract different information from different document types, such as container numbers from bills of lading, amounts from invoices, and quantities from packing lists.
Data extraction
The core step is data extraction, where the system reads and captures the specific information you need from each document. Think of what your team normally highlights or types into your systems, such as reference numbers, dates, amounts, container numbers, and so on. An AI system can be configured to find and extract these pieces of information.
Automated Document Reviews
One of the most valuable aspects is automated document reviews. Currently, your team might check that the weight on a bill of lading matches the packing list or that invoice amounts align with agreed rates. The AI can perform these cross-checks automatically, flagging any discrepancies for review. This is particularly powerful because it can check every single document consistently, not just high-value transactions. As we detail in our article “The Rise of AI-Powered Document Checks”, modern AI can validate complex business rules across multiple documents, from matching reference numbers to verifying compliance with trade regulations.
Returning processed results
The final step is returning processed results, where the system transforms all that extracted and verified information into a format that fits your workflow. Think about how your team handles documents today. They might update Excel spreadsheets to track shipments or manually type information into your transportation management system. Whether you need a simple spreadsheet for review or want the information to flow directly into your TMS, an automation system ensures accurate data transfer without endless copying and pasting.
Getting Started: The First Steps
Starting with document automation is often easier than you might think. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you begin.
Start Small and Validate
At ExB, we always recommend starting with a simple extraction case to see how our AI handles your documents. Pick a common document type in your operations, e.g. commercial invoices or bills of lading. Our system comes pre-trained on logistics documents, which means you can test extraction accuracy immediately with your documents. This test requires no complex setup, training periods, or commercial commitments – just upload a few documents and see the results.
Define Your Integration Points
After confirming the extraction quality, the next step is to assess how automation will integrate into your daily operations. Begin by identifying key requirements and connection points to seamlessly incorporate automation into your workflows.
Incoming documents
How will documents enter the document automation system? This could be as simple as sending emails with attachments, uploading files through a web interface, or setting up automated file transfers via SFTP.
Processed results
In what format do you need the extracted data? Common options include Excel spreadsheets for manual review, structured files for system integration, or direct connection to your Transportation Management System (TMS).
Processing speed
Think about how document processing fits into your daily operations and how your volumes fluctuate. Do you need information right away, like when you’re trying to get a shipment moving and need those document checks completed quickly? Or is your challenge more about handling large batches efficiently, like processing hundreds of delivery documents that arrive every Monday morning? Many operations face both scenarios: urgent documents that need immediate attention, plus those predictable but heavy document loads that hit your desk at regular intervals. Both instant processing and high-volume batch handling are possible with modern AI solutions. Having a clear picture of your peak volumes and timing requirements will help to find a solution that fits your operation.
By mapping out these key factors – how documents enter the system, how results are delivered, and how quickly processing needs to happen – you are well prepared for a smooth automation project.
endless possibilities.
ExB is an Intelligent Document Processing platform that transforms unstructured data from any type of document into structured results. Our AI-based software can not only extract all relevant information from your documents, but also understand them. This allows you to automate your processes and save both time & money, while improving your customer experience and employee satisfaction. Win-win.
Measure Success
With the integration points in place, the next step is to ensure your system is delivering the accuracy you need. A simple way to do this is by measuring its success with real documents.
A good approach is to start with a small set of representative documents and have your team carefully review the extracted data – checking that dates, numbers, names, and other key details are captured correctly. This will give you an initial sense of the system’s performance and help identify any immediate adjustments needed.
Once you’ve seen the automation perform well on a small sample, the next step is to test it on a wider range of your documents to see how it handles real-world variations. The good news is that your automation platform simplifies this process by automatically generating detailed accuracy scores across your entire document set. These scores act like a performance report card, giving you a clear, at-a-glance view of how well the system is extracting and processing information. A quick review of the report eliminates guesswork and helps you determine whether the extraction quality meets your requirements. This means you can move forward with confidence, knowing your automation has been thoroughly tested and proven to deliver reliable results.
Pro Tip
Here is an extra tip from many successful automation projects: stay practical. Yes, some information absolutely needs to be perfect, like monetary amounts that affect payments or container numbers used for tracking. However, insisting on near-perfect accuracy for every single field can unnecessarily slow your project and cause frustration. For many types of information, like general descriptions or notes, near-perfect extraction isn’t strictly necessary. In our experience, companies achieve the best results when they prioritize precision for their truly essential data points.
Even better, your existing systems often help to enhance AI-extracted results. For instance, making data from your transport management system available to the document automation system can help verify or fill in missing information, which effectively turns a 90% accurate extraction into 100% reliable automation.
Try It With Your Documents
Logistics document processing is in the midst of a major transformation. Tasks that used to take hours of manual effort, like capturing data from bills of lading or checking invoice amounts, can now be automated with remarkable accuracy thanks to artificial intelligence.
At ExB, we’re on a mission to bring the power of AI to logistics companies of all sizes. Our goal is to make automating your document workflows as quick and painless as possible. No need for lengthy projects or huge budgets – get started with just a few sample documents and get your first automation running in minutes.
Ready to see it for yourself? Get in touch and we’ll set up a demo to walk through your specific use case. Let us show you just how much time and effort you can save by letting AI take document processing off your plate.
