Before a firm asks any supplier for a demonstration, it can mark one of its own paperwork flows. For example, the flow might be supplier invoices, delivery notes or onboarding forms. Intelligent document processing (IDP) is software that sorts incoming documents and pulls out the fields a team uses. It then passes them on, while a person looks over doubtful results. This intelligent document processing checklist asks whether one flow is ready for that kind of document processing. Its nine checks follow a page from arrival to storage. For each one, the team writes a short dated note of the evidence before a mark goes beside it. For the wider job, see the use case on taking data out of documents without retyping.
Last reviewed 2026-11-02 by Manish Sharma.
Intelligent Document Processing Checklist: Start With One Flow
In the marking Signisys uses, the scope is a single flow the firm runs today. The firm’s own people judge it, not an outside auditor. Terms come first: three of them recur below. A document flow is one kind of paperwork, followed from first arrival to filing. Field means one value the team reads off the page, such as an invoice date or a tax number. A reviewer is the person who looks at any field the team will not accept as read.
Four stages hold the checks, in the order a page travels:
The stages and tests come from practice, and no outside body sets them. A first attempt could use the flow the staff know best, or the flow with the longest wait for processing. If that wait comes from staff working through the pile, the steps behind it are laid out in the six hand touches each document gets.
Intelligent Document Processing Checklist: Sound, Rough or Gap
Within Signisys’ working method, marking starts from a sample. First, the reader picks a batch of real past documents from the flow. Next, the reader writes down the dates and senders the batch covers. Then each check gets a mark based only on what that batch shows.
Sound (2): the evidence turned up and passed the test across the sample. In addition, a dated note says who checked it. Rough (1): some documents in the batch meet the test and others miss it. Another case: the documents meet the test, yet no one has dated a note. Gap (0): nothing turns up to show, or what turns up misses the test.
A check with no meaning for this flow takes N/A and a sentence saying why. Each N/A lowers the top mark by 2, from 18. This tool sets neither a target score nor a pass band. The marks describe the batch. A different batch may earn different marks.
How the Documents Reach the Team Today
Arrival comes first. The two checks here ask how pages reach the team and who sends them.
| Check | Gather this | Sound when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The flow’s owner has listed each arrival route: scanned paper, emailed files, phone photos or portal uploads. | A copy of the sample, sorted by how each item arrived. | A colleague has sorted one recent week of arrivals and found no route missing from the list. |
| 2. The team has grouped the sample by sender and layout, and records who sends each kind. | Sender names, written on each group of the sample. | Working from the grouped sample, the owner points to the main layouts and to those with only a few items. |
Put a date and the checker’s name beside each mark. For check 1, a short line naming the colleague who sorted the week is enough. Likewise, for check 2, the owner’s answer comes from the grouped sample, not from memory.
The Fields Worth Pulling Out of Each Page
The fields come second. These three checks ask what the team takes from each page and how anyone knows the right value.
| Check | Gather this | Sound when |
|---|---|---|
| 3. The team has written a meaning and format for each field, for example the date order. | One line per field, kept in the flow’s folder. | Whoever uses that field next has agreed each line. |
| 4. The team keeps a hand-checked set of real past documents, with the correct value beside each field. | A checked set, naming the person who wrote the values. | Someone besides the writer has compared the values with the pages and dated a note. |
| 5. The owner has marked which fields must be right before anything moves on. | A field list split into fields to get right first and fields to correct later. | Whoever acts on the data has signed the split. |
For instance, the split in check 5 might put the invoice total and the tax number first. Check 4 deserves extra care.
Later on, the team compares any trial of software against that hand-checked set. If the set is weak, the team has nothing fair to measure against.
Uncertain Fields and the Correction Log
Review is the third stage. Its two checks ask who looks at uncertain fields and how the team records each correction.
| Check | Gather this | Sound when |
|---|---|---|
| 6. A named person reviews any field the team will not accept as read. | Two names, a reviewer and a stand-in, and the place doubtful items wait. | Both people have reviewed items from the sample and can find the queue. |
| 7. The reviewer writes down each correction with a name and date. | A correction log, or the plan for one. | Someone other than the reviewer reads the log on a set date, and the log exists today. |
For instance, a reviewer who changes an invoice date adds one line, showing the old value, the new value, the name and the day. The second reader then looks for the same correction turning up again. A repeated fix may point to a check further up the flow, such as check 3.
Key Takeaway Each correction earns a dated line in the log, while a second reader watches that log for fixes that recur.
After Entry: Where Values Land and What Stays on File
Hand-off and record close the flow. The last two checks ask where the values go and how long the originals stay.
| Check | Gather this | Sound when |
|---|---|---|
| 8. The receiving system is identified, with a named person responsible for it. | That system’s field list beside the team’s own list. | Its owner has agreed the two lists match. |
| 9. A finance or compliance lead has written how long the team keeps originals and values, and where. | A written keeping rule. | In that rule, the lead names a place for both and a named owner for it. |
Public guidance gives a pattern to borrow. The State Records NSW page on digitisation quality assurance lists, among its points, that the outcome of each quality check is written down. The same page adds that checking has to end before the digital files go into use or the paper originals are destroyed. No date appears on the page, and Signisys read it on 2 November 2026. It is guidance from a New South Wales government site, and a private firm would take its own advice on what applies to it. A team can still borrow the habit as good practice: finish checks 4 and 7 before any paper is thrown away.
Intelligent Document Processing Checklist: Sorting the Gaps by Stage
The job list follows the four stages, as Signisys sets out the method. Beneath each stage heading, list its checks marked Gap or Rough. Then, beside each one, add the person who will close it and the next batch for marking.
The flow’s owner then asks one question of each line. Could anyone judge software fairly while that line stays open? Lines where the answer is no go to the top. After all, a team that has not agreed its fields or named its reviewer has little fixed to judge software against.
The total from the intelligent document processing checklist belongs to one batch and one date. It gives a reading of IDP readiness for that sample and predicts nothing about a project. When something in the flow changes, mark a fresh batch and file both sheets together. For what the team decides once the marks are in, the order of work is set out in a guide to the choices made before and after the software reads a page.
Supplier Invoices at an Invented Hotel Group
The hotel group here is invented for illustration and is not a real client. It runs hotels in several cities, and its finance lead wants supplier invoices read and entered without retyping. Take check 4, the hand-checked set. Follow its three possible marks.
First, the mark is Sound when a colleague in the accounts team has written the correct values beside last quarter’s invoices. In addition, the finance lead has compared those values with the pages and dated the note. Next, the mark drops to Rough when the values are written but no one has compared them. Finally, the mark is Gap when no such set exists. In that case, the right values live only in what someone typed into the accounts system.
For this group, the set is the yardstick for any supplier’s trial. If the set is Sound, the finance lead can put a trial’s output beside known answers, field by field. With a Gap, the team is left comparing one reading against another, with no known answer to settle which is right.
Key Takeaway In the hotel example, the mark on check 4 decides whether a supplier’s trial meets known answers or just another reading.
When the First Flow Is Marked
A team that has finished the intelligent document processing checklist on one flow can carry the nine checks to the next. To that end, keep the dated notes and the hand-checked set in one shared folder for the flow. The next person to mark the flow then starts from those files, not from a blank sheet. Later, the same stored files can be searched for answers. That step is the subject of finding answers across stored business files. When the firm wants help, Signisys can mark the nine checks alongside the flow’s owner, on a flow the firm chooses.
Signisys provides document workflow automation and DevOps and IT automation services, and is not neutral here. See its document workflow automation solution and its automation service. The box below is a Signisys offer, and no outcome is promised. If you book, bring the sample batch and the dated notes for one flow.
Intelligent Document Processing Checklist FAQ: Practical Points
Does the intelligent document processing checklist need a product chosen first?
Can handwritten forms go through the intelligent document processing checklist?
How far does the intelligent document processing checklist reach?
What if the flow’s documents arrive in one layout?
Does a new supplier invoice layout mean marking the flow again?
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