Data entry, the process of converting paper documents or files into digital data, typically via a keyboard and computer, is one of the most common industries in modern business, accounting for billions of dollars every year.
So, it’s not surprising that there are many different types of data entry jobs out there—but you might be surprised by how many there are!
Here’s our list of the top 10 different types of data entry jobs that you didn’t know existed
1) Medical transcription
Not all medical transcriptionists work in hospital transcription departments. Many hospital transcriptionists simply transcribe dictated reports from other hospitals and clinics.
If you’re looking to start a career as a medical transcriptionist in a hospital setting, it helps to be certified.
This will give you more job opportunities and better chances of being employed. However, if you work with a certified provider like American Telemedicine Association (ATA), it will cover your certification fees after one year of on-the-job training!
Once you’ve been trained by ATA, we will make sure that your certification stays up to date; however, your only requirement is to take an exam every two years.
2) Online forms
Online forms can serve a variety of purposes. If you run an e-commerce site, for example, then you probably have online shopping forms for customers to complete to make purchases.
Online application forms are also popular. Depending on your form, there may be very little data entry work required at all!
And if it’s completely electronic (like online shopping), then data entry is a breeze. These forms are easy to design yourself, but sometimes it might be better and more cost-effective to hire someone else (such as a VA) to create them for you.
3) Virtual assistance
Virtual assistants are on call for a business and can handle a wide range of tasks including answering phones, greeting clients, creating marketing materials, scheduling appointments, and even generating invoices.
The more specialized your needs are, the more you can expect to pay—there’s little financial risk involved in trying out a new VA service for a month or two to see if it works for you.
4) Legal dictation
The process of recording and transcribing spoken words or speech is called Legal Dictation. It is mainly used in the legal field to create a written record that can be used in judicial proceedings.
This requires using special software that has built-in commands for legal terminology, court appearances, and other related concepts.
A person who performs legal dictation may also be called a scribe. Legal Dictation work involves:
listening to recordings of depositions or other testimony, writing down what was said during those recordings, and then reviewing those notes for accuracy and grammar before turning them into an official transcript that can be used in court.
5) Order management
It can be difficult to keep track of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of individual transactions. Managing data entry for these types of businesses requires a huge amount of organization and expertise.
The sheer size and complexity put a big strain on in-house resources. Plus, even if you’ve got an expertly designed system already set up for order management, it’s easy to fall behind when orders start coming in faster than your employees can handle them.
Outsourcing order management to outside resources allows you to focus on making money instead of spending time building and maintaining database systems.
6) Book keeping entries
These data-entry tasks take information from invoices and record it in a bookkeeping system. Although these days, most modern software can automatically make those entries for you, it’s still common to have human employees keep records.
The most important part of bookkeeping data entry is accuracy; any mistake can throw off your company’s entire financial system, which would be disastrous.
As a rule, every entry should be double-checked by another employee before being saved.
7) Address verification
As an employee for a company, your employer is responsible for sending you information about changes to your paycheck or healthcare coverage.
To verify your address and communicate with you, they will need to send mail. If you fail to return a postcard they send out, they’ll assume that something is wrong and have no way of contacting you.
Failing to update your address could mean that you don’t receive crucial information about important company policies.
Because of all these risks, companies often hire workers to manually verify addresses; by hand-checking thousands (or even millions) of records per year, they ensure that their data is accurate and up-to-date.
8) Phone surveys
If you’re taking a survey, there’s a pretty good chance it’s going to be done over the phone. Why? Because it costs way less than doing it online and is faster for both parties.
The downside? It can be way more awkward asking someone questions about their internet usage in person.
And if you’re trying to do an in-depth survey with lots of questions or options, skip phone surveys and just do an online one.
9) Coding jobs
While some companies focus on word processing and data entry, other organizations need people who have experience with computer programming languages.
Not only are these jobs great for your skillset, but they’re also in high demand right now. According to Indeed, over 550,000 job openings currently exist for developers in every region of the United States.
And an analysis from Redfin found that 90 percent of tech jobs were outside a company’s headquarters in 2016.
Searching for coding positions can help you land a gig where you want to live — or even change career paths if you’re already working at one place and want to get your foot in another door.
10) Search engine evaluator
If you have a knack for taking in massive amounts of information and turning it into data, consider becoming a search engine evaluator.
Companies like RevenueHits will hire you to search through their huge database of websites that they’re trying to get ranked on Google and let you know if they’ve gotten any traction.
It’s easy to work that may pay anywhere from $10-$25 per hour, depending on what you can bring in.
For instance, someone who’s researching weight loss might be looking at healthy food blogs more than comparison shopping sites, so it’ll take them longer to complete their given task—and thus earn less money.
