In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficiency is key. At Innovative Solutions, we recently faced a challenge that many growing companies encounter: processing hundreds of invoices monthly from various vendors, each with its unique format and structure. Our finance team was drowning in paperwork, and traditional OCR solutions seemed cumbersome and expensive. That’s when we turned to our own creation, Tailwinds, to help us rapidly develop a solution.

The Challenge:

400 Invoices and 33 Hours per Month of Manual Work

Our finance team was processing an average of 400 invoices per month, with each invoice taking approximately 5 minutes to handle manually. This translated to a staggering 33 hours of work each month dedicated solely to invoice processing. The challenges we faced included:

• Delayed payments
• Increased risk of human error
• Reduced productivity
• Mounting operational costs

We needed a solution that could handle diverse invoice formats, extract relevant data accurately, and integrate seamlessly with our existing systems. And we needed it fast.

Why Traditional OCR Fell Short

While Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology has been a go-to solution for document processing, it presented significant limitations for our use case. Traditional OCR struggles with:

• Varying document sizes and shapes
• Inconsistent formatting across different vendors
• Adapting to new invoice layouts without manual intervention

These limitations made traditional OCR solutions less suitable for our dynamic invoice processing needs. We needed a more flexible, intelligent solution that could effortlessly adapt to changing document formats.

Eating Our Own Dog Food

Using Tailwinds SaaS, our team of AI experts built a robust, AI-powered invoice processing system in less than two hours. Yes, you read that right – two hours! This solution can:

• Extract data from any type of document
• Provide structured output ready for parsing
• Automatically insert the structured content into our company database

How It Works: 5-Step AI Magic

The entire process, from email receipt to database insertion, takes less than 10 seconds. It’s a dramatic improvement from our previous manual process, saving our finance team countless hours and thousands of dollars in labor costs each month.

Email Intake

When a new invoice arrives via email, it’s automatically forwarded to an AWS Lambda function via AWS SES. This function either extracts the text (if possible) or creates images of the document. It then calls the TailwindsAI API, passing in the new text or image.

Intelligent Document Analysis

Tailwinds reviews the file and queries a vector database (Weaviate) containing similar document types. Weaviate returns the specific entities (data points) we need to extract for that particular document type.

AI-Powered Data Extraction

Armed with the knowledge of what to look for, Tailwinds performs targeted data extraction using advanced AI techniques.

Structured Data Formatting

The extracted data is then formatted into a clean, structured JSON format, ready for further processing.

Database Integration

The JSON is passed back to the Lambda function, which handles the final insertion into our company database.

Retrieving Dynamic Document Meta-Data with Weaviate

Tailwinds Empowers Rapid AI Innovation

This invoice processing solution is just one example of how Tailwinds is revolutionizing the way we approach business challenges at Innovative Solutions. Tailwinds SaaS enables us to rapidly build solutions like this in minutes, not months, allowing us to implement more AI-powered solutions in a fraction of the time.  Key features that accelerated our development process include:

• Drag-and-drop editor: Simplifies the creation of complex AI workflows.
• Pre-made marketplace templates: Provides a starting point for common use cases, giving us a leg up in rapid development.
• Seamless integration with AWS services: Allows for easy incorporation into our existing cloud infrastructure.

More About Innovative Tailwinds SaaS

The Surprise Factor: Speed to Implementation

One of the most unexpected aspects of this project was the sheer speed of implementation. In fact, we were initially concerned that we must have done something wrong because the solution came together so quickly. However, our thorough testing confirmed that we had indeed created a robust, accurate system in a fraction of the time we expected.  This experience underscores the power of Tailwinds in democratizing AI development and allowing teams to iterate and innovate at unprecedented speeds.

Tailwinds vs. Off-the-Shelf Solutions

When compared to off-the-shelf invoice processing software, our Tailwinds-powered solution offers several advantages:

1. Customizability: We can easily adapt the solution to our specific needs and workflows.
2. Cost-effectiveness: No need for expensive software licenses or lengthy implementation processes.
3. Rapid deployment: The solution goes from concept to production in hours, not weeks or months.
4. Seamless integration: Built to work with our existing AWS infrastructure.

For companies facing similar challenges, the choice often comes down to buying expensive off-the-shelf software or building a custom solution from scratch – both time-consuming and costly options. Tailwinds offers a third path: rapid, customizable AI solution development that can be implemented in a fraction of the time and cost.

The Future of AI-Powered Operations

As we continue to explore the capabilities of Tailwinds, we’re excited about the potential for AI to transform other areas of our business. From customer service to product development, the possibilities are endless.

The invoice processing solution we’ve built is now available on the Tailwinds SaaS platform and is ready to be customized and implemented by other organizations facing similar challenges. And this is just one of many solutions that can be rapidly built and deployed using Tailwinds.

Our journey with AI-powered invoice processing is just the beginning. It’s a testament to the power of innovative thinking, the right tools, and the transformative potential of AI in solving real-world business challenges.

Are you facing similar operational challenges in your business? Let’s talk about how Tailwinds and the team at Innovative Solutions can help you harness the power of AI to revolutionize your processes. Contact us today to learn more about our Tailwinds platform and how we can accelerate your AI journey.

Have a Question? Contact Us Today.

AI drives the way most industries work today through automation, an upsurge in efficiency, and even opportunities that might not have been unlocked otherwise. AI systems are making important decisions—from loan approvals to patient diagnoses—in industries such as health care and financial services. Without strong data governance, these AI systems introduce risks in the form of bias, opacity, and non-compliance with different regulatory requirements.

Data governance ensures that AI systems work ethically, transparently, and according to regulations. In this blog, we’ll discuss how organizations can institute comprehensive governance practices across industries, using the banking industry to illustrate common challenges and possible solutions.

What is Data Governance in the Age of AI

Data governance is the practice of managing availability, usability, integrity, and security applied to data. In this classic view, data governance extends to how the data are used to train, test, and operate AI systems to ensure any decision made by AI is fair, explainable, and regulatory-compliant. In cases when organizations use AI for automated decision-making, data governance must deal with the following key aspects:

• Data Quality: Guaranteeing that data is clean, correct, and updated as it enters into AI systems.
• Bias Mitigation: Actively identifying and addressing any biases in training data or model outputs.
• Explanation: Providing explanations that are clear enough to understand the basis on which the decisions of AI systems are made is especially important for industries with stringent regulations.
• Accountability: Ownership and responsibility for AI-driven decision-making, holding an entity liable or answerable; this implies that the decisions of the AI system are auditable and traceable. For example, the use of AI for loan approvals, fraud detection, and risk assessment creates several governance principles that become very important in banking.
• Data Security and Privacy: Ensuring that sensitive information, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), is properly protected and compliant with privacy regulations like GDPR. This protection is essential for maintaining data privacy and preventing security breaches in AI systems that process large volumes of data.

Five Key Principles of Data Governance for AI Systems

Organizations should adhere to the principles to effectively govern AI in any industry:

Data Quality + Integrity

Bias Detection + Fairness

Make Transparent + Explainable

The Human Element

Data Security + Privacy

Building Resilient AI Governance Across Sectors

As AI continues to transform industries, the need for robust data governance frameworks has never been more critical. Ensuring that AI systems are fair, transparent, and accountable is not just about compliance—it’s about protecting your organization’s reputation and earning the trust of your customers. With tools like Amazon Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, and IBM watsonx.governance, along with IBM Guardium, your organization can harness the power of AI while safeguarding privacy and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Now is the time to invest in resilient AI governance that goes beyond risk mitigation and enables innovation with confidence. Equip your teams with the right platforms and processes to build AI systems that not only perform at a high level but also reflect your organization’s commitment to ethics, accountability, and customer trust.

Ready to implement a comprehensive AI governance strategy? Contact Us Today.

If there’s one surefire prediction we’d make for the future, it’s this: AI technology is here to stay — and it will only become more advanced. At this point, most small- to medium-sized business owners know why they should be implementing GenAI, but the question we get most often is how to implement it in the least disruptive way.

Five best practices to guide your organization through implementing GenAI

Below, we’ve laid out a list of five best practices to guide your organization through implementing GenAI so you can capitalize on its benefits without derailing your day-to-day operations.

Engage a Partner to Bring Your Ideal GenAI Tool to Life

As a business owner, we know your time is valuable (and limited). As a small to medium-sized business or start-up, we also understand that your internal resources can be limited. If all of the steps above make sense, but you know you don’t have the time or resources to spend on walking through the process alone, an experienced partner can help. Engaging with a team of dedicated experts will make your GenAI vision a reality — and give you the competitive edge you need in a world where AI capabilities are evolving at a breathtaking pace.

At Innovative Solutions, we’ve evolved along with the companies we’ve helped for over three decades, gaining deep expertise in Generative AI, Machine Learning, Data and Analytics, Cloud Modernization, Cloud Migrations, and Managed Cloud Services. We’ve mastered the science of meeting people where they are with the tech-driven solutions they need.

With Tailwinds, we’re giving businesses like yours the confidence to grow in the cloud with Generative AI. Learn how we can help you take the next step on your GenAI journey.

Learn More about Innovative Tailwinds SaaS

Have a Question? Contact us today.