Data Entry and Document Processing Editing and Proofreading Services

Fifty thousand paper forms arrive on three pallets, and the price agreed is 8 cents a record. Three weeks into the job, the argument is about a date written as 3/4/24, an unreadable surname on 400 of the forms, and a box checked in two places at once. The contract promises 99 percent accuracy, which the client reads as 99 percent of records and the supplier reads as 99 percent of fields. On a twenty-field form, the second reading allows up to twenty times as many faulty records as the first.

The documents we edit for Data Entry and Document Processing

Data capture specifications and their field definitions come to us before a job is priced, and often before it is won. Validation and business rule documentation, exception and flagging procedures, and accuracy standards with the method used to measure them arrive with them. Quality control and verification procedures, sampling and audit methodology, and turnaround and volume commitments form another group. We also edit source document handling guidance, scanning and image quality specifications, and indexing and metadata schemes. We see data security and confidentiality documentation, client onboarding and pilot documentation, service level agreements and reporting, and operator guidance and training material too. Our editors work on the specification the whole engagement is priced against.

What the editing involves

A specification that lists fields tells an operator what to type. A specification that also lists decisions tells her what to do when the source does not cooperate. Each field should carry its format, its permitted values, and the rule for a source that does not comply. A date written as 3/4/24 is keyed as written and flagged, a name that cannot be read is flagged rather than guessed, and a field left blank is recorded differently from a field holding a dash. Those rules belong to the client rather than to us. We work on whether the specification states them in one place, and states each of them once.

The boundary between flagging and guessing needs a line drawn on it, because an operator who flags too much destroys the price and one who guesses destroys the data. The client draws that line, and the specification should record it in terms an operator can apply at speed rather than as a principle she has to interpret. Accuracy needs the same treatment. The document should say whether the 99 percent is measured on fields or on records, which fields are critical and scored separately, and how the sample is drawn. The exception route belongs in the same document, naming who resolves a flagged item and within how many hours.

Confidentiality and the limits of our role

Everything you send us is treated in confidence, including client data, source documents, and commercial terms. We are editors, not data protection, security, or operations advisors, and we offer no opinion on handling obligations, security requirements, or accuracy methodology. What we can do is make the specification say the same thing to two operators on a Friday afternoon.