How Tabscanner Receipt OCR Technology Handles Multiple Languages and Currencies
Whether it’s a multinational corporation managing receipts from various countries or a traveller documenting expenditures, the ability to process multiple languages and currencies is a key feature of modern receipt OCR solutions. But how exactly do these systems work? Let’s delve into the technology that makes it possible.
The Language Challenge
Receipts come in various formats, fonts, and layouts, often printed in the local language. This diversity presents a significant challenge for OCR systems, which must accurately interpret text regardless of language. Tabscanner addresses this by incorporating advanced machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) techniques.
With many other Receipt OCR technologies, the OCR engine scans and digitizes the receipt first, converting images of text into editable and searchable data however, Tabscanner approaches this differently. Our machine learning models identify and classify the fields of a receipt first, regardless of the extracted text. This is done by generating millions of multi-language receipts for training, based on randomised formats from the thousands of different POS systems globally.
This gives Tabscanner an advantage as the AI is effectively classifying the receipt first and the OCR extracting the data after, making our system very accurate on muli language receipts.Once the fields are identified, the text is processed using language-specific models trained on large datasets. This ensures that even nuanced linguistic differences, such as character variations in Chinese or accents in French, are accurately recognized.
Moreover,Tabscanner supports dozens of languages, including those with complex scripts like Arabic, Japanese, and Russian. This is achieved through the integration of multilingual text recognition models that are regularly updated to adapt to new fonts, slang, and regional dialects. There is also regional field parameters within our API to further improve accuracy which can be activated by your application’s geolocation to further extract local and regional specific fields.
The Currency Conundrum
Recognizing multiple currencies is another crucial aspect of receipt OCR. Receipts often display monetary values in various formats, using different currency symbols, placement conventions, and decimal separators. For instance, a receipt in the United States may list an amount as “$45.67,” while a receipt in Germany might use “45,67 €.”
To handle this, Tabscanner also uses currency recognition algorithms. These algorithms identify currency symbols and associated numbers, cross-referencing them with known conventions for each country. Once the currency is identified, OCR systems can further process the financial data for specific use cases. For instance, they can convert amounts into a user’s preferred currency using real-time exchange rates or categorize expenskes based on spending thresholds in different currencies.
Practical Applications
The ability to handle multiple languages and currencies has made receipt OCR indispensable in industries such as travel, finance, and e-commerce. For example, travel expense management platforms use receipt OCR to help employees submit expense reports from business trips abroad. These tools automatically extract relevant details—such as vendor name, transaction date, and total amount—regardless of the receipt’s language or currency, significantly reducing the administrative burden and can all be powered with the help of Tabscanner.
In e-commerce, receipt OCR helps businesses analyze purchase data from international customers, enabling better market insights and targeted promotions. Similarly, accounting software integrates receipt OCR to automate bookkeeping tasks, ensuring compliance with local tax regulations by accurately capturing data from receipts issued in different jurisdictions.
Challenges and Future Developments
Despite its impressive capabilities, receipt OCR technology is not without its limitations. Handwritten receipts, poor print quality, and unusual layouts can still pose challenges. Moreover, keeping pace with evolving linguistic and currency conventions requires continuous updates and improvements.
As the world continues to shrink and businesses become more interconnected, the demand for multilingual and multicurrency receipt OCR will only grow. For now, Tabscanner stands as a testament to the power of innovation in solving real-world problems, making global financial management more accessible and efficient.
Register now and set our test to the regional parameters on the Dashboard with a simple receipt upload.