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There is too much fake marketing around companies adopting ML and AI today. We call this the "man behind the curtain" (wizard of oz). The rule of thumb is: if i

There is too much fake marketing around companies adopting ML and AI today. We call this the "man behind the curtain" (wizard of oz). The rule of thumb is: if it takes minutes or even hours to OCR & data extract then it's human labor. Lots of companies like Expensify, Bills.com, ReceiptHog and others use MTurk or services like MTurk to extract data from the financial documents. The accuracy is still not 100% guaranteed also the categorization is usually off since person categorizing your receipts doesn't have a history of your previous purchases and how they should be categorized in your business. This also means that if you are doing anything with PII or a healthcare company, watch out. These companies are NOT HIPAA compliant. They leak PII data. It takes 1 social hack to steal someone's identity. How do I know all this? Because we (https://iqboxy.com https://iqboxy.com YC W17) built a 100% automated solution for bookkeeping and expense management. You scan a receipt/bill/invoice and you get results in a few seconds. We have been offered many times to use those human labor services for "automated data extraction" but we believe it's not how this problem should be solved in 2018.

ryanSrich 9y ago
> NOT HIPAA compliant While you're likely correct, there's really no way of telling if they are compliant or not without a published 3rd party audit (ideally several). If a company puts the proper policies and controls in place, and then proves implementation and adherence to a 3rd party, then they are technically compliant (be that HIPAA, PCI, etc.). It is possible to define and implement data access policies for offshore workers. It's extremely hard to prove adherence, but it's possible.
- semerda 9y ago
  I doubt you could sign a BAA with offshore workers who don't have to comply to such US standards. Furthermore, this space will get shaken up in 2018 in Europe when EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect. Re 3rd party audit -- yes, a Pen Test by a 3rd party & BAA should be the standard for healthcare companies dealing with service provides. If Expensify has any healthcare companies using their service they are either too small to employ such due diligence or Expensify is headed towards a disaster aka Equifax #2. Either way, tech companies should take privacy more seriously.
  - redhawks2015 9y ago
    Saw that you were super active in this thread, so I googled your username. It looks like you're their competitor and you're acting like you're an unbiased/concerned person. Pretty dishonest - I'm sure it's great, but you should disclose that you're shilling for your company.
    - semerda 9y ago
      Not once did I "shill" for my company here. And yes I am concerned about this and people affected. Should I not be? Calling me dishonest is just poor form mate.
joelrunyon 9y ago
Is this supposed to completely replace your bookkeeper?
- dbirulia 9y ago
  Yes, our long term goal is to automate all the bookkeeping duties and when I say automate I mean automate with machines, not outsource :)
  - joelrunyon 9y ago
    But at the current stage - how much stuff is "missed"?
akavel 9y ago
@dbirulia I see you have a "free plan" (the "paid plan" is currently too much for me for expected value, in my country it's ~10 coffees, not 2), but it has "Advanced OCR" grayed out. Does it mean it has no OCR at all (just stores image scans?), or rather some kind of "primitive OCR" (whatever this means)?
- dbirulia 9y ago
  Hey @akavel the difference is that the system will not build ML models for your account and will not learn from your edits and categorizations. Give it a try and maybe it’s enough for your case.
saas_co_de 9y ago
I don't see how a 100% automated solution is going to detect errors. Unless you have humans reviewing and verifying at least a sample of the results you can't train. So do you expect your customers to review everything they scan line-by-line to verify accuracy?

ryanSrich 9y ago

> NOT HIPAA compliant While you're likely correct, there's really no way of telling if they are compliant or not without a published 3rd party audit (ideally several). If a company puts the proper policies and controls in place, and then proves implementation and adherence to a 3rd party, then they are technically compliant (be that HIPAA, PCI, etc.). It is possible to define and implement data access policies for offshore workers. It's extremely hard to prove adherence, but it's possible.

semerda 9y ago
I doubt you could sign a BAA with offshore workers who don't have to comply to such US standards. Furthermore, this space will get shaken up in 2018 in Europe when EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect. Re 3rd party audit -- yes, a Pen Test by a 3rd party & BAA should be the standard for healthcare companies dealing with service provides. If Expensify has any healthcare companies using their service they are either too small to employ such due diligence or Expensify is headed towards a disaster aka Equifax #2. Either way, tech companies should take privacy more seriously.
- redhawks2015 9y ago
  Saw that you were super active in this thread, so I googled your username. It looks like you're their competitor and you're acting like you're an unbiased/concerned person. Pretty dishonest - I'm sure it's great, but you should disclose that you're shilling for your company.
  - semerda 9y ago
    Not once did I "shill" for my company here. And yes I am concerned about this and people affected. Should I not be? Calling me dishonest is just poor form mate.

joelrunyon 9y ago

Is this supposed to completely replace your bookkeeper?

dbirulia 9y ago
Yes, our long term goal is to automate all the bookkeeping duties and when I say automate I mean automate with machines, not outsource :)
- joelrunyon 9y ago
  But at the current stage - how much stuff is "missed"?

akavel 9y ago

@dbirulia I see you have a "free plan" (the "paid plan" is currently too much for me for expected value, in my country it's ~10 coffees, not 2), but it has "Advanced OCR" grayed out. Does it mean it has no OCR at all (just stores image scans?), or rather some kind of "primitive OCR" (whatever this means)?

dbirulia 9y ago
Hey @akavel the difference is that the system will not build ML models for your account and will not learn from your edits and categorizations. Give it a try and maybe it’s enough for your case.

saas_co_de 9y ago

I don't see how a 100% automated solution is going to detect errors. Unless you have humans reviewing and verifying at least a sample of the results you can't train. So do you expect your customers to review everything they scan line-by-line to verify accuracy?