Florent Rogeon (DocuWare) discusses the uses of intelligent document processing powered by AI and its role in the digitalization of SMEs, particularly in the face of electronic invoicing reform.
You launched DocuWare IDP (Intelligent Document Processing), an electronic document management (EDM) service boosted with Artificial Intelligence. How can IDP support companies in their digital transition?
Florent Rogeon. The role of IDP, or intelligent document processing, is precisely to find the right data, at the right time, in often heterogeneous documents.
How are we going to help businesses? First, in terms of customer relations. In the projects we carry out, our priority is to correctly capture all the information contained in an order: item codes, references, quantities, etc. The objective is to guarantee that this data is correctly recorded in the management system (i.e. the ERP), which will then generate the invoice.
It’s the same logic on the delivery side: delivery notes can be read, recognized and integrated automatically. This helps secure the entire invoicing flow, limiting manual errors and discrepancies.
But DocuWare’s IDP also intervenes upstream, even before documents are sent or received. It is used to update repositories, both suppliers and customers. Often, this information comes from forms or emails, with a multitude of data (supplier name, intra-community VAT number, SIREN, etc.) that someone, on the ADV or accounting side, must manually re-enter into the system.
The IDP makes it possible to automatically capture this key data, verify it, and inject it directly into the management system. The result: clean, reliable supplier and customer databases kept automatically updated, whether for incoming or outgoing flows.
The IDP can also control all the documents necessary to open an account, and create customer or supplier files in a fluid and compliant manner. This is an essential building block, particularly in the context of electronic invoicing reform, where having an up-to-date reference system is a fundamental prerequisite.
In terms of the uses in the field that you have been able to observe, what are the situations or professions where you see the most adoption today of the DocuWare IDP? And what type of documents or processes do you think best lends itself to this?
Today, IDP is particularly used for processing merchandise invoices, many of which will remain in PDF format, even after the reform. If my supplier is based in the United States or Asia, they may not be able to send me standardized electronic invoices.
In this context, at the purchasing or accounting team level, the IDP makes it possible to retrieve all the lines of an invoice, even complex, and compare them with the receipt data. This is a valuable aid in ensuring consistency and traceability.
We also see huge gains on another type of document: delivery notes. Let’s take a concrete example from industry. Some of our customers have implemented IDP to automate a process that was previously completely manual. When they buy materials, let’s imagine paint, and they work with giants like Airbus or Boeing, the procedure is very supervised.
Every day, a person received the delivery note, noted by hand in an Excel file all the quantities and references delivered, the validity dates, as well as all the material certificate numbers. These elements are essential for the traceability and quality of documents.
Then, when it was time to launch production, the team had to reopen this Excel file, consult the PL workbook, and verify that the correct material had been delivered, with a valid expiry date. For what ? Because if production is audited by Airbus or Boeing, it must be possible to prove that the right products were used, with all the justified documentation.
Now, thanks to IDP, this entire flow is automated. The person can carry out this check in less than ten minutes, whereas previously they spent between one and two hours a day. This is a major productivity gain, and above all a strategic issue: because if they lose their approval with a client of this size, the entire survival of the company could be threatened.
Many companies, particularly SMEs, fear that they are not ready for the generalization of electronic invoicing planned for 2026. Do you also feel this concern on the ground? How can you help them take this step?
Indeed, we perceive this concern, especially in SMEs. Some people still hope for a postponement of the reform, but in my opinion, they are wrong. The DGFIP and the AIFE are maintaining their course while simplifying certain points to respect the schedule. We therefore risk a bottleneck because many companies will not be ready in time.
This reform involves important obligations: cleaning the bases, preparing, but also – and this is fundamental – defining once and for all their internal processes: orders, purchases, disputes, invoice processing… And today, many still operate in a fairly artisanal way, with emails, shared files, manual validations. Few companies have really laid out these processes in a clear and structured way.
But it is not by choosing an approved invoicing platform at the last minute that we will catch up. The problem is above all organizational. Generating an invoice in the correct format is simple, but the data must be correct. This involves properly structuring your third-party database, that is to say customer and supplier files.
Tomorrow, we will no longer bill a simple email address. It will be necessary to use identifiers such as SIREN or SIRET, essential to route invoices via approved platforms. This requires real preparation in advance.
At DocuWare, we have been offering workflow tools to formalize and automate these processes for years. And this reform is precisely the opportunity to take advantage of it to define, step by step, who does what, at what time, with what level of validation. You need a real tool for that.
What about data security and confidentiality? What commitments are you making at DocuWare?
Security is at the heart of our approach. We have been offering DocuWare technology in cloud mode for over 12 years. From the start, we built our solution on robust security standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications.
Our product has continually evolved. Today we have teams dedicated to security and we support more than 13,000 customers, or even 14,000, in the cloud. Our procedures are therefore proven, both in terms of technical robustness and organization.
But we go further. We have invested in specific certifications, notably issued by AFNOR, such as the Z42-020 Safe certification or the NF203 standard, which guarantees the integrity and traceability of stored documents.
And in terms of GDPR compliance, we have obtained NF552 certification. It certifies that DocuWare integrates all the necessary functionalities to allow companies to implement a fully compliant personal data management policy, whether for HR, customer flows, or any other type of sensitive data.
DocuWare is also an approved platform (subject to reservation) as part of the electronic invoicing reform. This means that we are committed to respecting strict specifications in terms of hosting, security of exchanges, legal compliance and interoperability. The future definitive approval will complement our existing commitments and will offer our clients even more guarantees in the management of their documentary and financial flows.
How do you see the uses of AI and Intelligent Document Processing evolving in the coming years? What are the next big steps for DocuWare?
Today, we talk a lot about AI. We use it every day, in our personal lives, and increasingly in the professional world. Clients often ask us: “What is your AI roadmap?” But we return the question to them: “What problems do you want to solve with AI?”, and often, they don’t really know yet.
This is why we are developing new augmented search functionalities for April 2026. These tools will make it possible to intelligently navigate through thousands of documents, generate summaries, obtain content comparisons, and answer questions no longer just from metadata, but directly from the bottom of the document.
The advantage with us is that the documentary base is well structured. When an AI queries a database like that of DocuWare (clean and organized), the results are two to three times better than on more general tools like Gemini or Copilot from Google or Microsoft, which often explore “digital bulk”.
But user expectations are growing. So, beyond AI, it is also about integrating these tools into usage paths, into business workflows, to really increase productivity.
The SMEs we support face bottlenecks: lack of resources, difficulty retaining loyalty in certain key positions. Through EDM, automation services and AI building blocks, we can finally delegate all repetitive and manual tasks to the machine.
The idea is that everything that “pollutes” an employee in their daily life – boring, administrative tasks, without added value – is taken care of automatically. And so that the people most in demand can concentrate on what is essential and bring real value to the company.
Finally, on the subject, we have just launched DocuWare AI Hub. It is a global AI research and development hub providing proprietary and highly reliable artificial intelligence solutions to DocuWare partners and customers. This hub will play a crucial role in DocuWare’s development of proprietary AI solutions for intelligent document processing and enterprise content management, based on ethical and data privacy standards supporting regulations such as the EU AI Act 2025.
