This blog comes to us from Ashley Brizendine, Marketing Manager at Determine, a Corcentric Company.
The search for a P2P solution (purchase-to-pay) software can be
daunting and, quite frankly, mind-boggling. Identifying a tool that best fits
organizational business processes, user needs and the desires of stakeholders
can be downright exhausting — especially if you’ve never implemented an outside
solution before. Knowing some of the key features and benefits to look for in a
worthy P2P solution will help make the search a bit more bearable, and empower
your organization to choose a tool that everyone will be happy with.
1. Lives in “The Cloud”
P2P software comes in a few different forms. Some organizations
choose to build a tool internally, while others purchase software that is then
implemented and hosted on-premise. Both of these options come with a higher
cost of ownership and, oftentimes, clunky configuration. A best-in-breed P2P
solution will offer dynamic cloud-based software. With software that lives in
the cloud, the vendor remains responsible for the overall functionality of the
tool and partners with organizations to support ongoing business needs and
processes.
2. Automates purchase orders
Chances are — if you’re searching for purchase-to-pay software
it’s because you’re trying to make daily operations more efficient. And of
course, there’s no harm in making things easier for you and your procurement
team, either. With that being said, automation is the way to go. An automated
procurement process from requisition to P.O. to supplier submission workflow
that’s audited, validated and error-free should be a required feature of any
solution you are investigating.
3. Configurable
One of the most elusive features to find in a sustainable P2P
solution is configurability. Due to major differences in business processes
from one organization to the next, a cookie-cutter software solution seems like
an easy fix, right? Unfortunately, these typically require a great deal of
process adaptation and change management on the buyer’s side. The right P2P
tool will enable its users to adapt the solution to their workflow and business
needs — not vice versa.
4. Exists as a single source of data
If
you’ve been in the procurement space for some time, you’ve likely heard the
stories about nightmarish processes where the entire purchase-to-pay stream was
spread out amongst various tools, departments and approvers. Some of the
benefits of having a single source of data include:
- Promotes collaboration between requisitioners
and suppliers
- Improves user adoption
- Helps control spend and maverick buyers
- Monitors performance, compliance and risk
5. Provides visibility into process and data workflows
Going from catalog to payment is a chain reaction — a group of
processes running in series and/or parallel for both the goods or service and
the order/payment processing. The ideal P2P solution will provide a dashboard
of sorts, giving needed personnel the visibility into each step of the process
while streamlining governance, capturing savings and gathering data for later
analysis. This increased visibility enables your procurement team to be more
intentional in sourcing goods and services while expanding cost-saving efforts.
6. Catalog Management
What good is a fancy new procurement solution if it doesn’t
actually make things easier? Catalog management is all the rave these days (at
least in procurement). Top of the line procurement solutions will give users
easy-to-navigate, simple search and purchase capabilities. Think about
searching for something on Google, or buying something from Amazon — the
idyllic experience — just in your P2P software.
7. e-Invoicing
While not all procurement solutions include e-Invoicing, there are
some out there that offer it. Essentially, e-Invoicing is the automation and
alignment between procurement and accounts payable. It helps speed up the
payment portion of the purchase-to-pay cycle while maintaining visibility and
compliance. You may not find this to be a necessity when looking at various P2P
software, but it proves beneficial if you are looking to enhance payment
control and overall responsiveness to invoices.
8. Built-in reporting capabilities
Automated reporting capabilities, as well as the ability to build
independent reports, is a feature that is much-desired by procurement
professionals. Built-in reporting provides users with strategic insight and
control over real-time savings and spend management. P2P tools that capture
important data throughout the purchase-to-pay lifecycle assist in monitoring
performance, compliance and risk — and bring us to the Holy Grail of
procurement…
9. Spend Analytics
What is your quest? To seek the Holy Grail! Which in procurement
is, of course — savings. Best-in-breed P2P solutions will have embedded
reporting capabilities to capture real-time data on savings, supplier spend,
spend by region, and much more. This data is then analyzed and put into a
digestible format so that you and your team can improve efficiency andcompliance, uncover maverick spend, and save more money for the organization.
10. Integrates with other tools
The benefits of having the right P2P solution in place can reach
far beyond procurement, especially if the tool has the ability to integrate
with other systems and/or exists on a platform that includes other modules that
may impact procurement processes and efficiency, such as contract management,
supplier management and sourcing.
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