Digital mailroom automation is often discussed as if it were the same as invoice capture, and it is a step earlier and a different problem. Capture asks what does this invoice say. The mailroom asks what is this document at all, is it an invoice, a statement, a credit note, a delivery note or somebody's marketing, and which team should have it. Getting that sort right is what stops the rest of the process being fed rubbish.
Classification comes before extraction
A statement processed as an invoice creates a payment for money that is not owed on that document, and a credit note processed as an invoice creates the opposite error. Both are more damaging than a mis-read field, because they are wrong at the level of what the document is rather than what it says. A mailroom that classifies confidently and extracts cautiously is safer than the reverse.
Multiple channels, one queue
Documents arrive as post, as email attachments, through supplier portals and as photographs from site. The value of a mailroom is that all of those become one queue with one set of rules, rather than four informal processes with different owners and different failure modes. The channel that is usually forgotten is the invoice emailed directly to an individual, which never reaches any queue at all.
What to do with what it cannot classify
There will always be a residue: handwritten notes, documents in an unexpected language, scans of scans. The design question is whether that residue reaches a person quickly or sits in an unattended folder. A visible exception queue with an owner is the difference between a mailroom that reduces work and one that hides it.
Questions people ask about digital mailroom automation
Is a digital mailroom worth it if most invoices arrive by email?
Possibly, because the benefit is the single queue and the classification rather than the scanning. If invoices reach individuals rather than one address, that is the problem to fix first, and it costs nothing.
Does it replace a scanning bureau?
It can, though bureaux still make sense where paper volume is high and space or staffing is short. The classification and routing question is the same either way.
What should happen to the original paper?
Keep it according to your retention policy until you are confident the digital copy is complete and readable. Retention obligations attach to the record, not to the medium.