What actually happens when you automate document processing without mapping your edge cases first
Most document automation projects start with a clean demo. Structured invoice, perfect formatting, all fields present. It works great.
Then real documents arrive.
Vendor sends an invoice with no PO number. Another sends a scanned handwritten delivery note. A third uses a completely different layout than everyone else.
The tool fails. The team goes back to manual processing. The project gets quietly abandoned.
What we've learned building Scanny AI is that the setup conversation matters more than the tool itself. Before automating anything, teams need to answer three questions:
What are the 5-10 fields you actually need from this document?
What happens when a field is missing or unclear?
Who reviews the output before it hits your system?
Teams that spend 20 minutes answering these before uploading a single document get dramatically better results than teams that skip straight to automation.
The tool is almost never the problem. The process definition is.
What's been your experience? Have you seen projects fail for reasons other than the tool itself?