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IBM Datacap vs Redwood Software - Finance Automation Edition comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
666
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IBM Datacap
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (7th)
Redwood Software - Finance ...
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (27th), Financial Close Software (15th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
DeekshithShetty - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Development Senior Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
High-accuracy document processing with easy integration and good image enhancement
The OCR extractions are very good, almost 100% accurate now. The integration with other tools is very easy, with inbuilt actions to configure and directly export to multiple depositories. It is also good at image enhancement, including the removal of lines, which is helpful in processing and automation and ensures very little user intervention, thus saving time.
RC
Enterprise Architect at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Single bot now replaces five associates who previously handled finance processes and eliminates manual errors
Everything seems to be working well. However, I see value in integrating AI for automation. So, I would like to see AI integration for automation in future releases. Ideally, after I perform postings, I would like to leverage a generative AI model. This would allow me to type a query or question directly to the bot, and it would retrieve the information I need. For example, I could ask for the number of invoices, the status of specific invoices, or any other relevant data. Currently, we achieve this by building our own Finance model. So, integrating a pre-built finance model with the tool would be much easier and more efficient for reporting purposes. We're looking at several potential uses for this AI model. It could empower various user groups, including regular finance executives, customers, and even vendors to submit queries. Additionally, our leadership team is interested in using the AI model to generate reports directly on the Redwood dashboard. This functionality could potentially replace the need for BSpoke Solutions and the manual generation of BSpoke reports, streamlining the entire reporting process.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"IQ Bot is very helpful as it is easy to learn and implement and the data output accuracy is almost 90%."
"Automation Anywhere is easy to use and user-friendly due to its intuitive interface and straightforward implementation architecture, making it accessible even for those without a technical background."
"The core functionality, the ability to automate these tasks and to interact, both with our own in-house software solutions as well as with our customers' and vendors' solutions and portals, has been incredibly valuable for us."
"Efficiency is something that has increased a lot. Productivity has increased a lot too."
"We have some bots which are saving a week or month of multiple employees' times."
"Automation Anywhere's most valuable feature is its seamless integration into procurement software, allowing for the automation of purchase orders, billing, employee travel details, and other tasks."
"Some processes that have taken 24 hours for our guys to do, now take seven to eight hours for our bots."
"It improved on 40+ % of manual effort which was a pain point for project budget and Project team SMEs."
"It reduces human error and saves time."
"The administration of the application following an error is most valuable, as we are able to know easily when something is stuck in the system."
"One valuable feature of IBM Datacap is the OCR capability, along with its ability to read fields from documents."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to capture data, which changes all the time into different formats."
"I can have all scanners accessible from my end."
"It is highly extensible, which we found to be most valuable. It is a very extensible solution because it is based on configurable rule sets. We were able to amend and adjust the solution and very easily add custom code and custom components. It does require some programming experience, but we found that not to be an issue. We liked its extensibility."
"It's resiliency, with multiple ways of identifying what you are looking for and multiple export formats, and it's a platform, not a configured application, so you can do what you want with it."
"One of the valuable features of Datacap is the user experience. One thing that IBM did a few years ago was they standardized all of their ECM products on Content Navigator, including Datacap. If you're an IBM ECM customer you have FileNet, you have Datacap, you have StoredIQ and you have a consistent user experience, user interface."
"The out-of-the-box finance modules within the Redwood Finance framework help to speed up the process, versus designing and writing generic BOT code."
"Unlike other automation tools, Redwood has a unique space in finance automation, where standard SAP modules are used for automating every step in the process, quickly and easily."
"Redwood has a great feature where it logs every transaction. So, at any point, we can see every step taken for each transaction. It creates an audit trail of the entire process execution. It is a really good feature. This eliminates the need for extra coding or report generation. The audit report is readily available within the tool itself."
"So the best thing is ease of use."
 

Cons

"More structured and unstructured data collection will be a challenge. While we have the IQ Bot tool, the success rate at the beginning will be lower. It will be around 20 to 30 percent at the start because you need to train the bot at regular intervals. Of course, this depends on the data. This area could use be improvement."
"The original setup was easy. What was difficult was adding licenses. I went a month where I was paying for licenses that I couldn't use, for various reasons. That was painful."
"The certification exam for AA is not as per the training videos, as the questions are more scenario-based, which makes it very hard for beginners to clear the exam after just tutorial knowledge."
"We've had a lot of issues with the installation and performance on a variety of computers, onshore and offshore. Our network bounds multiple domains, and we've had issues there, as well. So, we are looking forward to the web-based development versions."
"The areas that need improvement are the license management, user access permission, user role access management, and technical support."
"In the last two years, with the help of IQ Bot, and what I learned today about this Attended Automation 2.0, I think they are addressing vital key challenges that we have faced so far."
"I am looking for artificial intelligence and machine learning. I hope that they introduce them in A2019. I'm looking forward to what will be there in A2019 because that's the area that we need to go forward. We are looking for Automation Anywhere to put up their efforts to make it easier by incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning. Along with RPA, this would make our automation journey very easy. We can bring more processes into automation, that's where I am looking for automation to focus on."
"Currently, while working on the SAP part, I encounter some challenges, particularly not being able to extract the tree structure."
"Going forward, IBM needs to ensure that the output is perfect (as it can make the product) while staying true to platform's core."
"In one case, our client needed to scan 5,000 pages in five minutes, or less, Datacap was not able to accommodate this task."
"I give the scalability of the solution a six out of ten."
"The IBM Datacap site actually is on the newer inside. They will give it as a plugin only."
"Reporting and analytics seem to often be something of an afterthought. With Datacap, they've started building out some dashboards, but one thing we hear from our clients a lot is, "Well, gee, we really love reports. What Datacap has is not really helpful. We'd like something better. We'd like more dashboards." That's one area where we've seen some feedback that the product could do better."
"Currently, when you are entering invoices, you have to enter multiple rows. In Captiva the multiple rows will be dynamically added. This would be a beneficial feature for IBM to add."
"Datacap is not that difficult to set up, however, there are some limitations. For example, it's supposed to only be used with Windows, it will not support a Linux platform and has been built on top of .Net technologies."
"We have page requirements where some values must be copied on each page. For example, say I need to scan a bunch of documents, and the name will be a field on every page. We don't have a default functionality in Datacap to copy the field value on the first page to all the pages. That feature would make the documents easy to prepare."
"would like to see AI integration for automation in future releases. Post-automation, I envision a generative AI model. If I could ask the bot questions like the number of invoices or their current status, it should be able to provide answers directly."
"This is where the real challenge is, having a licensing cost that needs to be compared with the existing manual operational cost and coming up with a competitive licensing and pricing model."
"The room for balancing improvement lies in automation enhancement with respect to the feature areas, considering dealing directly with Excel and reviewing it to do some additional stuff for it in the end system so that reading the right thing, picking up the values, and everything."
"Mapping the process steps to an existing R2R process quickly would be a definite step forward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like them to have better license management."
"Subscription for Automation Anywhere (AA) is paid yearly."
"Regarding the price, licensing, and maintenance, Automation Anywhere provides its customers with its best and affordable value."
"The pricing is fair. My company is part of a big organization, so the pricing is very advantageous."
"We are restricted to use one license on one PC. However, if my license is not working, I want to be able to use it somewhere else. This would be a nice improvement to the licensing, as other competitors in the market have better licensing terms."
"If you look at the capital expenditure, Automation Anywhere is number two to UiPath. But if you take a long-term view, on a scalable model of a large number of bots coming out, it slowly goes on to become the costliest tool. There is something they can do about that. The capital expenditure goes out right at the point of buying the tool. For Automation Anywhere, I would need to spend $20,000. UiPath can give me something for $6,000, while Blue Prism will come in at $300,000."
"The pricing of AA is similar to UiPath."
"The product starts at $10,000 and then it's up to you regarding how much you can consume."
"We were using the User Value Unit licensing, which means we get charged per active user of the system, and if I'm not mistaken, we also had it for the rule runner service. They had a PVU license model, which is a processor value unit. For each process that we have in our system, we pay a certain amount of money. We found the pricing to be quite steep. It was really an expensive solution in comparison to Kofax, which had a different licensing model and was actually cheaper overall because they charge per page and not per user and per process."
"You save a lot of time and money, but the benefit is you have people who are able to run the systems, check to see if there are any errors at all, and there are a lot less errors than a human system."
"This solution is the most expensive in the market."
"Pricing depends on how much we use it. We pay per bulk quantity. We pay as you go. Therefore, it sort of depends on our usage of it."
"IBM could offer more competitive pricing. This would allow them to attain more users. Some of our clients are considering moving to a different solution called Encapture which is similar but offers more competitive pricing."
"It is an expensive solution."
"In Egypt, we have exchange rates that change year to year, and currently, we're facing an increase in the exchange rate between our Egyptian pound and the dollar. Since we have been using IBM DataCap two years ago we had a good price, it was not expensive. However, I cannot say now if it is expensive or not because of the exchange rate. Additionally, I don't have the data of other competitors and I don't know the prices."
"It varies, and it depends on the client's requirements and negotiations. Nowadays, Datacap is also included in the IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation."
"The licensing was purely based on the number of transactions being processed in production."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
10%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise561
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Datacap?
Pricing is in the mid-range but could be more affordable, rated at four point five.
What needs improvement with IBM Datacap?
IBM needs to improve on scanning and reading accuracy for unstructured documents. Additionally, an important missing ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Datacap?
I primarily use IBM Datacap ( /products/ibm-datacap-reviews ) for data capture and scanning documents with OCR. Speci...
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Datacap
Redwood Business Process Automation - Finance Edition, Redwood Robotics, Redwood Finance Automation
 

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Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Turkcell, PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, Central Nacional Unimed, Conqord Oil
ArcelorMittal, Alliant Energy, Allianz, Arla, Bacardi, CPS Energy, DSM, Faurecia, Genetech, Jabil, Jumbo,
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Microsoft and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Updated: October 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.