Timely procurement of goods and supplies is essential for any business. However, as the business grows, manual handling of the procurement process can be tedious. Further, it’s not only about procurement. Suppliers need to be paid on time. Otherwise, it can attract late payment charges and dented goodwill. Thus, the procure to pay process is one of the n important organizational aspects that need to be taken care of. This highlights the importance of procuring pay automation. But how can it be done? The answer lies in procure to pay software.
What is Procure to Pay Software?
A procure to pay software is the key to automating the entire procure to pay process. It supports the whole process, beginning from the requisition of the goods and services to payments and recording of relevant data. However, it is not limited to this. It also facilitates the requirement planning of the supplies and report generation.
What is Procure to Pay Process?
Procure to pay process involves a series of steps taken to receive goods or services from the supplier. It is also known as the P2P cycle or Purchase to Pay process. Following are the steps involved in the process:
- Shortlisting Vendors: This includes requesting quotations from the vendors and shortlisting them to select the one with the most favourable terms.
- Requesting the Order: Once the vendor is selected, the order is placed with the vendor.
- Negotiating Price: While placing the order, all the negotiations concerning the price and other terms are done with the vendor.
- Receiving the Supplies: After placing the purchase order, supplies are received. This may be one time or continuous over a period of time.
- Payments: This is the final stage whereby the vendor is paid off, and his account is settled.
The above procure to pay process is not a one-time exercise, but a continuous process over the business life cycle. Problems arise when the entire process is done manually in the organization. Manually performing the above tasks increases the chances of omissions and errors manifold. That is why organizations are increasingly considering procurement automation as part of their business process automation strategy.
Best Practices to Streamline Procure to Pay Process
Following are the best practices to streamline procure to pay process:Strive for Standardization
Strive for Standardization
Your policies play a vital role in the functioning of your organization. Therefore, strive to have specific policies and guidelines documented and standardized. This helps avoid confusion and deviations in the workflows.
Goal Setting
This is important to set the right direction and select the right software that suits your needs. Ask yourself – What do you expect from your procurement process? It may be increased accountability, improved efficiency, cost reduction, timely deliveries, etc. Set your goals, and it will help you set up best practices to streamline procure to pay software.
Maintain Transparency
Sometimes, a lack of proper communication between the vendors and the suppliers can be the reason for lack of transparency and visibility. Good procure-to-pay software allows the vendor to have timely updates about their supplies and payments, thus increasing transparency and communication.
Integration of ERP
Integrating your ERP software with your procure to pay software will ensure timely recording of your procurement data and make the data easily accessible to anyone in the organization.
Automate, Automate, Automate
Let this be the mantra to handle your procure to pay workflows. This reduces the chances of human errors and frees up time to focus more on strategic decision-making than routine, mundane tasks. As the workflow gets streamlined, the staff’s morale and efficiency increase, leading to increased productivity in the workspace.
Optimization of Inventory Management
While you streamline your procure to pay process, give due regard to your inventory management. The inventory triggers the purchase orders and, consequently, the procure to pay process. Optimizing inventory management will help control expenditures, minimize the waste of inventory, and plan purchases accordingly.
Pay on Time
This is crucial for harmonized relations between the suppliers and the organization. Suppliers. Paying on time shows that your processes are streamlined and can help you negotiate better procurement terms.
Reduction in Time for Approval of Invoice
Invoice approval can take many days if done manually. This will further delay the payments to be made to the supplier. With an excellent procure-to-pay process backed by efficient software, you can reduce the time required to approve invoices.
But how can all these be achieved? Procure Smartly – WeP Procure to Pay Solution
WeP provides a complete procure to pay solution, helping organizations automate and streamline their procurement functions. Following are the offerings by WeP:
- Standardize every step, be it generation of purchase requests, purchase orders, receipt of goods or invoices, etc.
- Checks at multiple levels to ensure error-free recording of the entire process.
- A centralized database of vendor offerings facilitates comparison and best selection of the vendor.
- An option between manual and automated payments and matching payments with the invoices.
- On-premise or on-cloud implementation
- Complete integration with your ERP solution
- Metadata facilitated store and search of documents
- Proactive budget restriction
- Custom dashboard and report generation for insights into your expenses
- Tracking of the entire procurement cycle through audit trail
While WeP P2P software is a complete offering for procure to pay automation, what’s more interesting is the after-sales support offered by WeP. This includes
- Speedy implementation of the solution
- 50% faster implementations of change requests
- Fully configurable solution and customizable as per your needs and desired flow
- Quick turnaround time for fixing bugs and implementation of feature updates