This article distills the key points from interviews conducted in two parts on the background and workings of インフォマート’s new services, “Data Digitization Support” and “Data to Data,” and how they could change the way accounting departments work. The focus is not merely on moving from paper to PDF, but on outsourcing the remaining manual work in pursuit of true digitization.
The first part explained how the new “Data Digitization Support” service takes on in full the portion of invoices received on paper or as PDFs that has not yet been digitized, enabling the resulting data to be handled from the same perspective as invoices on the BtoB Platform Invoice service. The service also incorporates implementation support, including guidance on changing the addressee to インフォマート. A key feature is that it reduces the burden on parties with limited IT literacy, such as the need to obtain trading-partner IDs and process CSV files.
The second part provided a detailed explanation of the actual mechanism, the Road to Digital concept and the future vision for accounting departments. It positioned Data Digitization Support as a way to handle the remaining manual work and as an entry point for raising the digitization rate. The use of AI agents is expected to advance automation behind the scenes and broaden indirect access to AI capabilities among small and medium-sized companies.
One example presented was a case in which 25 of 50 companies switch to a digital route for receiving invoices, approximately 20 of the remaining 25 switch to receiving them by PDF, and only around 5 ultimately remain on paper. This is expected to eliminate the postal lead time for paper invoices and improve processing speed.
The difference between DtoD and conventional digitization is that DtoD handles the data as digital data that can be used with generative AI. When it remains an image file, the risks associated with intervening AI-OCR or manual data entry remain. DtoD, by contrast, achieves processing without human intervention and was described as providing greater peace of mind from a governance perspective.