Date Capture Is Not Data Entry
I recently got into a disagreement with a friend about what data capture means. She insisted that data capture and data entry are the same thing. I don’t think that she could be further from the truth. The main difference is that data capture is automated and data entry requires manual work.
Data capture systems include a variety of different types of things but they’re all automated. For example, a barcode reader is a data capture system. It reads the data from a product’s barcode and stores it in the computer. Electronic document management systems are another example of data capture. They automatically back up computer files and save them in an organized fashion for later retrieval.
Data entry requires that you manually enter information. Instead of using a barcode reader, you would write the product’s description and sales information on a piece of paper or into a computer program. The barcode reader does it for you. So, in a sense, data capture is kind of like data entry. I’ll give my friend that much. But because it’s an automated process, it’s a whole lot different than data entry in terms of the work required by the person who is doing the job.
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