As a result, more companies are undergoing digital transformations. They’re turning to solutions like workflow software and robotic process automation (RPA) — using software “robots” to perform basic and repetitive tasks.

If you’re not already leveraging these solutions, you’re missing out on opportunities to boost productivity across the board.

In this article, we’ll look at how workflow automation can help you manage and advance automation initiatives at your company. We’ll also look at automation initiatives that you can get started with today.

Click the links below to jump ahead:

• How Workflow Software Helps You Manage and Advance Automation Initiatives
• When Should You Consider Automation Initiatives?
• Automation Initiatives You Can Start Today
• Best Practices to Help Your Automation Initiatives Succeed

How Workflow Software Helps You Manage and Advance Automation Initiatives

Relying on manual processes may work in the early stages of a company. But as you start to expand, automation is a must if you want to scale your business processes.

Here’s how workflow software can help you manage automation initiatives.

It Keeps Everything in One Place

A workflow is a series of steps that you follow to accomplish an objective — onboarding a new hire, procuring goods and services, approving a sales order, etc.

Here’s an example of a purchase order workflow:

These are just a few examples. However, there’s a good chance that your company relies on dozens or even hundreds of workflows to get work done.

Workflow software like frevvo enables you to keep your workflows in one place, making them easily accessible when you need them most.

It Improves Visibility 

Before you can automate a process, you need to understand how it works first.

Workflow software allows you to map a workflow in its “as-is” state — how a process looks before you make any changes. This makes it easier to analyze your workflows and identify steps that you can automate.

For example, you might notice that an employee has to constantly track down their manager to approve a purchase order. In this instance, you can add a step to your workflow to automatically route forms to the right approver. 

It Acts as a Single Source of Truth

70% of automation initiatives are held back by data silos — a depository of data inaccessible to certain areas of an organization.

Making informed decisions depends on having the latest data. Because of this, the decision-making process can be stalled when data exists in silos. If someone needs information, they’d have to manually log in to different systems to retrieve it.

Workflow software can help your automation initiatives by connecting your data sources and creating a single source of truth, giving your employees a more unified view of your data.

Having connected data sources also means that you won’t have to copy data back and forth between different applications, which is time-consuming and prone to errors. 

It Provides Real-Time Data

Not all automation initiatives are successful. 

Whether you’re leveraging automation to reduce data entry, update customer records, or even onboard new hires, you need a way to determine that your efforts are working as intended. A failed implementation can prove costly in the long run.

Workflow software provides real-time data, allowing you to track and measure the impact of your automation initiatives. These insights can prove especially valuable as they can help you determine what’s working and adjust what’s not.

When Should You Consider Automation Initiatives?

If any of the following are becoming more commonplace, then you’ll want to implement workflow software sooner rather than later.

Your Team Spends Hours Each Week on Manual Tasks

Consider a common scenario: a new position just became available, leaving it up to HR to manage the hiring process and sort through hundreds of applications.

Applications are then forwarded to a department head, and promising candidates are called in for interviews before an offer is finally extended. It’s a lengthy process that can consist of dozens of emails, countless printouts, and numerous back and forth calls to HR.

When you consider just how much manual work is involved, it’s no surprise that 53% of employees estimate they can save up to two hours a day with automation.

So, turn to automation. Not only do electronic forms make it easier to collect information, but you can connect them to automated workflows.

Your Team Has a Hard Time Tracking Their Tasks

90% of employees are frequently burdened with monotonous and repetitive tasks. 

When employees are stuck with manual tasks like data entry, they have less time to focus on the skill-based work they’re hired to do. 

Workflow software can free up your team to focus on more important tasks. Examples include using automation to reduce data entry and update records.

Forms Are Frequently Lost or Held Up Due to Slow Approvals

Handling paper forms can be problematic. They can go missing or get lost entirely while they’re being delivered to an approver. When this happens, you’ll have to recreate the document and start the process over.

This was a problem that Activ8 was dealing with. 

Before switching to frevvo, its sales team would fill out a paper form in a customer’s home and mail it to the office for processing. However, missing forms and data entry mistakes would frequently slow this process down.

After digitizing its forms and connecting them to an automated workflow, Activ8 no longer has to deal with lost paperwork and data entry mistakes. It can now assess solar readiness and even process customer payments without having to wait for lengthy approvals.

Your Team Is Constantly Switching Between Different Systems

There are applications for practically every business function. However, when your team is frequently jumping between different apps, they’re also wasting valuable time.

One example is matching invoices against purchase orders to verify their authenticity and identify any discrepancies. Performing these steps involves logging into multiple systems, but it can easily take hours depending on how many invoices you need to verify.

With workflow software, you can connect your forms to your accounting system to perform this matching automatically and save your accounts payable team a great deal of time.

You’re Facing Compliance Issues

Finally, another reason to adopt workflow software is if you’re facing compliance issues. 

Just consider the expense approval process. Employees are entitled to reimbursement when they make company-related expenses.

However, ensuring compliance with your expense claim policy isn’t always easy. Expenses that aren’t covered can slip through the cracks if your finance team is reviewing each claim manually.

Automation initiatives can help you address compliance issues. For example, you can create forms that connect to your accounting system and flag any discrepancies for review. You can even require that employees submit receipts for each expense.

If your company continues to encounter the scenarios described above, then it’s time to start exploring automation initiatives.

Automation Initiatives You Can Start Today

There’s a reason why 93% of business decision-makers plan to extend the use of automation across their company — it can improve productivity, reduce repetitive tasks, and lower costs. 

Leveraging automation software can have the same positive impacts on your company. But where do you even start?

Here we’ll look at a few automation initiatives that you can get started with using frevvo.

Create Digital Signature Workflows

Obtaining signatures on paper forms can take days or even weeks. If you’re still relying on paper forms, one of the first automation initiatives you should tackle is to create dynamic forms. 

With frevvo’s drag-and-drop form builder, you can easily design and customize electronic forms without any coding.

You can also position a signature control anywhere in your form, so you can collect wet and digital signatures from any device.

Forms rarely live in isolation. They’re typically part of larger workflows that consist of people, data, and business systems.

With frevvo, you can connect your forms to a document approval workflow, define who they need to reach, and notify approvers that a form requires their signature. 

Validate Form Data Automatically 

Few things are as frustrating as having to send a form back because it contains missing or invalid data. This wastes valuable time and slows down key processes.

While electronic forms enable you to capture data faster, they’re still prone to data entry errors like incorrect formats and missing values.

Business rules enable you to add dynamic behavior to your forms. For example, you can specify custom formats for certain fields and display errors if the data doesn’t fit the requirements.

Here’s an example of what that looks like:

It’s a simple yet highly effective way to prevent simple errors from slowing a process down.

Pre-Populate Form Fields

Employees waste time when they have to manually fill out the same forms over and over. The next automation initiative you can undertake is to automate manual data entry. 

With frevvo’s connectors, you can seamlessly connect your forms to external systems like SQL databases, Google Sheets, or any cloud service that you use. Once connected, you can have your forms automatically pull in data from any source.

Here’s an example of a purchase order that automatically pulls in customer data:

Pre-populating fields greatly cuts down on manual data entry. It also helps minimize the risk of human errors (e.g., typing a “0” instead of a “9”).

Connect Workflows to External Databases

Instead of switching back and forth between different systems, you can connect your workflows to the applications and databases that your company already uses.

For example, you can connect an employee onboarding workflow to your HR system. When new hires fill out and submit their onboarding forms, their information will automatically show up in your HR system. It’s more efficient than copying and pasting data from one source to another.

Streamline Approvals With Dynamic Routing

Some forms require multiple approvers before they can be processed. But routing documents manually is slow and cumbersome. 

With frevvo, you can streamline approvals and seamlessly move electronic forms from one person to the next. There’s no coding required when you use the workflow builder.

Here’s an example of an expense claim workflow:

You can also incorporate dynamic routing into your workflows. For example, you can add a rule that routes expense claims to a department head if it’s over a certain value.

There’s no shortage of automation initiatives that you can implement. But the ones detailed above offer a great starting point.

Best Practices to Help Your Automation Initiatives Succeed

Automation can be a complete game-changer, but making the transition isn’t easy. 88% of IT decision-makers reported at least one challenge with a process automation project.

Follow these best practices if you want to succeed with your automation initiatives.

1. Make Automation a Priority

72% of organizations that reported success with automation say that making automation a strategic priority was one of the most important factors. 

Don’t let automation projects take a backseat. Get buy-in from your entire team and have managers set a positive example by leveraging automation in their daily work.

2. Establish Clear Goals

It’s essential that you track and measure your results. But first, you’ll need to establish clear goals. This will help you plan your automation initiatives and keep your team on track.

3. Use the Right Automation Tools

For any automation initiative to succeed, you need the right tools. Choose a tool that can help you scale your automation efforts. It should include essential features like a no-code interface, a visual form builder, real-time tracking, built-in mobility, and third-party integrations.

4. Pick an Appropriate Process

Don’t overwhelm yourself by automating all your processes at once. Start with “lightweight” processes like travel requests before moving on to more critical ones.

5. Provide Employee Training

Automation initiatives will undoubtedly bring about new changes to your team’s workflow. Make sure to define the roles and responsibilities for the stakeholders involved in the process, and provide adequate training to help your team become well-versed with the software.

Conclusion

Whether you’re onboarding new hires, preparing purchase orders, or approving travel requests, there’s no reason to continue losing valuable time to repetitive tasks. 

Workflow software like frevvo can help you manage and advance your automation initiatives. The platform features a fully visual interface, so there’s no coding required.

The post How Workflow Software Helps You Manage Automation Initiatives appeared first on frevvo Blog.

The next immediate step then is to find another vendor.

But do you have a process in place to source vendors? Does the purchasing team know what their roles and responsibilities are?

To ensure minimal disruptions to your operations, you need to plan for contingencies like vendor bankruptcies.

This is where a procurement plan comes in.

In this article, we’ll explain what a procurement plan is and why you should create one. We’ll also cover the steps to creating one for your company. Finally, we’ll look at how you can automate your purchasing processes with frevvo’s procurement automation software.

Click the links below to head to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is a Procurement Plan?
• Why Do You Need a Procurement Plan?
• How to Create a Procurement Plan
• Automate Your Procurement Process With frevvo

What Is a Procurement Plan?

A procurement plan is a document that details the entire procurement process — the steps that companies follow to procure the goods and services they need to operate.

It also outlines roles and responsibilities for your purchasing team, defines vendor selection criteria, establishes the types of contracts you’ll use, and more.

The goal of a procurement plan is to streamline the procurement process. Instead of starting from scratch each time, you can simply pull up an approved plan and adapt it accordingly.

Procurement plans typically include the following details:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Needs and requirements
• Project timelines
• Project constraints
• Vendor selection criteria
• Contract types
• Payment terms and methods
• Risk management

We’ll dive into each of these in a later section. For now, let’s take a look at why you need a procurement plan if you don’t already have one. 

Why Do You Need a Procurement Plan?

Creating a procurement plan can help standardize your purchasing processes and even benefit your bottom line. 

Here’s how.

Reduces Supplier Risks

Managing supply chain volatility is one of the biggest challenges that many companies face. In fact, 56% of chief procurement officers have said that key suppliers have either gone bankrupt or have been severely hampered.

Creating a procurement plan to source and select vendors can help you reduce supplier risk. If a key vendor goes bankrupt or is unable to meet its obligations, your purchasing team can refer to the procurement plan to quickly find a suitable replacement.

Enhances Transparency

90% of business executives say that increased transparency leads to better decision-making across the organization. This also applies to purchasing. 

Without transparent processes, mistakes are bound to happen — employees may duplicate orders or make purchases using non-approved vendors. This can lead to overspending and even delayed projects.

A procurement plan makes the procurement process more transparent. And when you use procurement automation software, your purchasing team will be able to track each step of the process from one central location.

Helps Ensure Compliance

Creating a procurement plan can help ensure compliance with established policies.

Why is this important?

Aside from reducing the risk of errors, a procurement plan can prevent instances of maverick spending — when employees purchase goods or services outside of established policies.

Maverick spending can negatively impact your bottom line. In fact, companies lose as much as 16% of negotiated savings when purchasing teams don’t use preferred vendors. 

Enforcing a procurement plan can help ensure that all purchasing decisions comply with company-approved policies and vendors.

Lowers Procurement Costs 

With a comprehensive procurement plan, your company can source vendors faster, speed up negotiations, and pay invoices more quickly — all of which can help lower procurement costs.

In short, creating a procurement plan is extremely beneficial for your bottom line. It provides purchasing teams with everything they need and sets clear expectations.

Now, let’s look at how you can create a procurement plan.

How to Create a Procurement Plan 

Procurement varies from organization to organization. 

For example, large retailers will likely have different purchasing requirements than manufacturing facilities. However, there are certain details that every procurement plan should include.

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Describe the Procurement Process

In this step of the procurement plan, you’ll provide a complete breakdown of the procurement process starting from requisition to paying the vendor.

A typical procurement process involves the following steps:

1. Identifying internal needs
2. Evaluating vendors
3. Negotiating contracts
4. Approving an internal purchase requisition
5. Releasing a purchase order
6. Receiving and reviewing an invoice
7. Confirming and auditing delivery
8. Completing payment
9. Maintaining records

No matter what products or services you’re procuring, having a formalized purchasing process is key to creating a procurement plan. Work with your purchasing team to detail each step.

2. Outline Roles and Responsibilities

The next step to creating a procurement plan is to establish the parties involved in the purchasing process, along with their roles and responsibilities.

Here are some of the key functions of purchasing departments:

• Identify internal needs for goods and services
• Source reliable suppliers to meet requirements
• Negotiate prices and delivery terms
• Coordinate deliveries and shipments
• Run quality control and product testing 
• Ensure compliance with all regulations
• Manage budgets and maintain accurate records 
• Manage relationships with vendors

The purchasing team will consist of various professionals who are responsible for overseeing these tasks. These include a purchasing manager to supervise procurement-related activities, purchasing agents to evaluate suppliers, and a contract manager to prepare contracts.

Make sure that you outline the roles and responsibilities of your purchasing team. You should also specify who can make and approve changes to any procurement documentation.

3. Determine Needs and Requirements

This section of the procurement plan describes the goods and services that your company is looking to procure. It can include tangible goods like office equipment or raw materials and intangible goods like software licenses.

Regardless of what you need to procure, you should include all pertinent details — sizes, quantities, technical requirements, etc.

Make sure to also include a statement that justifies why you’re purchasing certain goods or services from external suppliers instead of sourcing internally. 

4. Define a Project Timeline

The next step is to set a project timeline. This is important because procuring goods before you actually need them will only take up valuable space.

An efficient procurement plan will include specific timeframes to minimize holding costs. This will also give your purchasing team deadlines for when they need to start and complete certain tasks.

5. Determine Project Constraints

Every project has constraints and limitations that it must abide by. Cost constraints are the most obvious example, as you may have a limited budget for purchasing goods and services.

Other types of project constraints include:

• Quality specifications
• Scheduling limitations
• Scope and deliverables
• Security requirements
• Industry regulations

Make sure that you detail any project constraints and limitations in your procurement plan.

6. Define Vendor Selection Criteria

In a typical procurement process, the purchasing department will issue a request for proposal (RFP) and vendors will respond with proposals or bids.

Then once the solicitation process begins, your team can collect proposals and evaluate each one. Defining vendor selection criteria can help you narrow down your choices.

Selection criteria can include:

• Costs: If a proposal doesn’t fit within your budget, you could either move on to the next one or enter into negotiations with the vendor.
• Delivery: If a vendor can’t deliver goods or services within your desired timeline, then look for one that can.
• Quality: Vendors must be able to meet certain quality standards before you can consider their proposals.

Establish selection criteria to find the right vendors. In this section, you should also specify who will make the final decision. You can also establish a small selection committee whose purpose is to evaluate and select vendors.

7. Select a Contract Type

Vendor contracts or vendor agreements are legally binding agreements in which both parties agree to exchange goods or services for compensation. 

However, there are different types of contracts that you can use. Common vendor contracts include:

• Fixed price contract: An agreement in which the buyer and seller agree to a fixed price regardless of other factors. 
• Fixed price plus incentive contract: An agreement in which you agree to pay a fixed price and an extra bonus if the seller delivers earlier than expected.
• Cost-reimbursable contract: An agreement in which a contractor receives a standard fee and reimbursements for any costs they incur on the job.
• Time and materials (T&M) contract: An agreement in which your company pays a contractor for their time and the materials used. These contracts are typically used in instances when you can’t estimate the size of a project upfront.

When preparing a procurement plan for any purchases, make sure that you select the right type of contract and get it signed.

8. Determine Payment Terms and Methods

This section of the procurement plan details the payment terms that you and a vendor have agreed upon.

It includes:

• Total costs
• Expected deliveries
• Due dates
• Payment methods

Some vendors may require advance payment, while others may offer more generous terms like net 30 or net 60. If you’re making stage payments over a period of time, make sure to specify exact payment dates to avoid any confusion.

9. Identify Potential Risks

There’s always a degree of risk when working with external suppliers. In this section of the procurement plan, identify any risks and outline specific strategies to mitigate them. 

For example, let’s say that a contractor fails to meet their deadlines. What impact would it have on your project timeline? In this case, you could either extend the deadline (and risk upsetting your customers) or hire an alternate contractor.

Follow the steps above to put together a procurement plan that you can use.

Automate Your Procurement Process With frevvo

With procurement software like frevvo, you can automate business processes like purchase requisitions, purchase orders, invoicing, and more.

The software includes pre-built templates and drag-and-drop tools, so you can easily customize your forms and workflows — without writing a single line of code.

Of course, any forms that you create for your purchasing processes will typically have to go through multiple parties for approval.

With the no-code workflow builder, you can incorporate dynamic routing into your workflows and ensure that your forms reach the right approvers.

Here’s an example of an automated purchase order workflow:

Once an employee creates and submits a purchase order, the system automatically routes it to their manager for further review.

Your forms and workflows are mobile-friendly out of the box, so your purchasing managers will be able to approve documents like contracts either from the office or on the go from a mobile device.

Start Automating Your Procurement Processes Today

Procurement plays a critical role for any business. 

However, purchasing the goods and services that your company needs to operate is a complex process. Missing any key information can result in delayed projects.

Creating a procurement plan can help you manage the purchasing process, from outlining roles and responsibilities to establishing vendor selection criteria and more. 

It can also make your purchasing process more efficient. If a vendor goes bankrupt, you won’t have to start from scratch to find an alternate vendor. You can simply pull up a procurement plan you’ve already created to speed up the process.

Of course, creating a procurement plan is only one aspect of purchasing. There are numerous steps involved between issuing a request for proposal and making a payment. Performing these steps manually will only slow down your purchasing process.

Fortunately, automation tools like frevvo make it easy for you to automate your purchasing processes. You don’t need a large budget or a team of developers either. The software is fully visual, so you can create your own automated workflows without coding.

Ready to get started? Sign up for a free 30-day trial to try frevvo’s procurement automation software for yourself.

The post How to Create a Procurement Plan in 9 Simple Steps appeared first on frevvo Blog.

A robust accounts payable process helps you stay on your supplier’s good side and gives you a better overview of your company’s cash flow at all times. You also protect yourself against fraud from parties posing as vendors.

In this article, we’ll break down the accounts payable process, its importance, and common challenges. We’ll also look at how you can streamline it with process management software.

Want to skip ahead? Use the links below:

• What Is the Accounts Payable Process?
• What Is the 3 Way Match Process in Accounts Payable?
• Why You Need a Robust Accounts Payable Process
• Top Accounts Payable Challenges (in a Post-Covid World)
• How to Streamline Your Accounts Payable Process with Process Management Software

What Is the Accounts Payable Process?

The accounts payable (AP) process is how companies manage payments to suppliers and vendors for goods and services they purchase.

AP breaks down the ordering and payment process into four steps:

1. Keep and catalog purchase orders (analog or digital).
2. Receive invoices from suppliers based on goods or services rendered.
3. Review the vendor invoices (with the three-way match process).
4. Pay the invoices.

If you want to get specific, you can break it down further than that, but this is the core process.

Unlike the accounts receivable process — which is essentially about collecting owed payments from customers —  AP focuses on “outgoing” cash flow, not incoming. It’s about managing the money spent on supplies from vendors you need to create new products or deliver services.

What Is the 3-Way Match Process in Accounts Payable?

The three-way match process compares all incoming invoices against the purchase order and receipt bill.

These three documents are the key to maintaining a secure and accurate accounting system:

• Purchase order: The receipt of your original order from the supplier or vendor.
• Invoice: Bill for services rendered or delivered goods.
• Receipt or receiving report: Document that describes the goods or services received.

They’re the standard internal controls your team goes through before confirming any vendor payment. Only after your team ensures a complete match do they process any payment.

For example, suppose you order a new supply of leather to finish a batch of bags. In that case, your company will accurately track every detail of the transaction, including invoice receipts and receipt confirmation for goods, and they’ll confirm that everything lines up.

That’s the essence of the three-way matching process in AP. An accounts payable department that masters this process can help reduce risks related to sizable vendor orders.

You can reduce the risk of fraud, improve your payment management and supplier relationships, and more.

Why You Need a Robust Accounts Payable Process

55% of executives say AP is very or exceptionally valuable to their organization. A robust AP process is crucial for maintaining healthy supplier relationships and protecting yourself from fraud.

Let’s look at why you need a strong AP process in more detail.

Build Healthy Supplier Relationships

77% of companies are investing in deeper supplier relationships. But at the same time, many companies don’t even pay their invoices on time.

30% of small businesses experience negative effects from late invoice payments — it’s one of their main concerns about doing business with other companies.

Always paying your invoices on time with the correct amount the first time around is the foundation of a strong supplier relationship. 

Build rapport by never exceeding invoice due dates, making it easier to get special treatment when you need it — like fast handling on last-minute orders.

Protect Yourself Against Fraud

If you order a large volume of goods or services, especially digital services, maintaining the accuracy of every single minor transaction can be a challenge. Without proper bookkeeping, it’s easy to lose track and fall victim to fraud.

It even happens to the biggest companies in the world. Facebook and Google lost over $100 million to a single vendor fraud case, where a group of swindlers impersonated one of their suppliers.

By always comparing invoices to outgoing purchase orders and receipt reports and looking for discrepancies, you can avoid vendor fraud altogether. Your team will never authorize credit card payments for purchases that you never made. 

And this is only one of many procurement risks AP can help with.

Get a Better Overview of Your Cash Flow

Not having a handle on your cash flow can be a costly problem, stopping your business from taking on new projects and growing. 52% of U.S. SMBs have lost a project of $10,000 or more because of insufficient cash flow.

By documenting all vendor transactions, you can estimate monthly expenses and make better decisions about cash flow. It also makes it easier to create financial statements like a balance sheet for your company’s shareholders.

Of course, manually tracking every company credit card in an excel sheet isn’t the most effective way to get things done. Instead, automated invoice processing can help you match, process, and log all payments correctly without painstaking data entry.

But it’s not at all smooth sailing. Accounts payable departments worldwide are facing a growing set of challenges in a post-pandemic landscape.

Top Accounts Payable Challenges (in a Post-Covid World)

Let’s look at some of the biggest challenges AP teams faced in 2020 and what you should do about them.

Working Remotely Is Becoming the New Normal

2020 was a year that changed the working lives of virtually every AP department out there. While traditionally most worked in the office, now 91% of AP professionals work remotely at least some of the time.

That comes with its own set of challenges, like effectively digitizing the process and finding accounting software solutions to invest in.

It also highlights existing issues, like a workflow centered around printed receipts and invoices and manually confirming all invoice data.

Supplier Inquiries and Invoice Exceptions

In 2020, AP employees spent 22% of their time handling supplier inquiries. They might need extra time to deliver a shipment, or they may not be able to deliver the full amount.

That means you need to change everything from the original purchase order to the invoice in order to ensure that your numbers match up later.

A digital process and accounts payable automation can make it easier for your team to adjust to these types of changes. They can quickly look up original orders and then confirm and make changes to data while on a call with the supplier — no need to comb through filing cabinets.

Using Too Much Paper

With an analog approach, you print at least three sheets of paper for every purchase order and item you receive — the order, receipt, and invoice.

4 out of 10 accounts payable teams feel they use too much paper, especially as companies face increasing pressure to become greener.

The solution is simple but not easy: going paperless (more on this below).

Invoice Approval Takes Too Long

51% of companies say that invoice approval takes too long. With the traditional manual review process of invoice data, who can blame them?

If your backlog builds up, that can lead to an overworked AP department — more prone to human error — delayed invoice payments, and worsening supplier relationships.

A slow process also increases your risk of breaking payment terms and incurring late fees.

One of the root causes for slow invoice approval is incorrectly-filled-out purchase orders that lack information. A manual process leaves you vulnerable to delays caused by human error.

While the global pandemic hasn’t left AP unscathed, many top challenges are still the same as they were before, like using too much paper or taking too long to approve invoices.

How to Streamline Your Accounts Payable Process with Process Management Software

Using process management software like frevvo, you can streamline your AP process from start to finish without coding any complicated programs from scratch.

You can even automate certain parts of the process to eliminate the risk of human error, increase efficiency, and pay more invoices on time.

Let’s take a look at how you should set this all up.

1. Create Digital Ledgers for Vendors and Suppliers

The first thing you need to do is create digital ledger accounts dedicated to all your existing suppliers. This will help the system automatically index and categorize purchase orders and invoices according to the data in the form.

In essence, this is how you organize your “digital filing cabinet” with a smarter AP process. Most companies already have some kind of general ledger set up in their ERP (enterprise resource planning) software.

The problem is that most companies try to maintain the data in their ERP with manual processes and data entry.

Instead, you should set up a digital process that automatically collects, stores, and even matches and validates invoices.

2. Handle Purchase Orders and Invoices Digitally with Custom Forms

Set up custom forms for vendors and internal teams to digitize your records, plus eliminate paper waste and time-consuming data entry.

With frevvo’s dynamic form builder, you can easily create purchase order forms that suit the needs of you and your vendors — without writing any code.

You can start with a template and quickly add all necessary fields to ensure your employees fill out the required data points for each purchase order.

This is the first step toward streamlining your ordering and invoicing process with automated form processing — next up, you need to automate your authorization workflow.

3. Use Business Logic to Automate Complex Payment Authorization Processes

Even if you have a multi-faceted invoice authorization process depending on the amount, you can still automate it successfully. But to do that, you need a solution that can handle complex business logic.

For example, you might follow a process where different people authorize invoices of different sizes.

With frevvo, you can easily create a process like this for your purchase orders and invoices with our visual workflow builder.

For example, you can quickly set up rules that will automatically tie in a VP or head of departments to confirm large purchase orders.

You can also create rules based on factors other than price, such as purchase category. If an employee is ordering a marketing video, you can tie in the VP of marketing, not just the head of finance.

frevvo’s forms support authorization with legally binding electronic signatures, which means your team can quickly handle the entire process from start to finish within the platform.

For more tips on how to streamline this process for your vendors, check out our post on best practices for AP automation.

4. Track the Status of All Purchase Orders in Real-Time (And Eliminate Late Payments)

frevvo helps you integrate your invoice approval workflows into your ERP system and ensure your records are up to date.

You can even create a custom real-time dashboard that tracks your invoices due and helps you visualize your cash flow.

It may sound complicated, but Central Wyoming University was able to fully automate its purchase order workflow with frevvo in under ten days. 

They transformed from a completely paper-based system, struggling with human error and lengthy approval processes, to a smooth automated workflow.

Start Automating Your Accounts Payable Process Today

While most companies already have an accounts payable system in place, they likely face a wide range of challenges, including fraud, delayed payments, and poor supplier relationships.

Unless you want to invest big in developing a custom solution from scratch, a powerful no-code platform like frevvo is key.

With frevvo, you can streamline your accounts payable process from start to finish. You can even automate key elements of your AP process, like invoice authorization, and use digital forms to get rid of manual data entry.

With our drag-and-drop builder, your AP team can set up and control their own processes and digital workspace, ensuring fast adoption and no issues with developer miscommunication. Get started today with a 30-day free trial to set up an entirely new workflow.

The post Accounts Payable Process Explained: Challenges, Benefits, and Best Practices appeared first on frevvo Blog.

However, poor procurement practices and inefficient processes can result in slow approval cycles, missed payments, higher costs, and even instances of fraud.

An effective procurement management system can help you address these challenges.

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at procurement management, including what it is and why it’s important. We’ll also cover the steps in the procurement process and how you can use frevvo’s automation software to automate them.

Click the links below to jump to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is Procurement?
• What Is Procurement Management?
• Why Is Procurement Management Important?
• What Are the Steps in the Procurement Process?
• Top Procurement Management Challenges
• How Technology Can Improve Procurement Management

What Is Procurement?

Procurement is the process of purchasing the goods and services that a company needs to support its operations.

Procurement plays a vital function in every business. Operations will come to a standstill without the necessary goods and services a company needs.

There are three types of procurement:

• Direct: Direct procurement is obtaining anything you need to manufacture a product. Examples include raw materials, parts, and other components.
• Indirect: Indirect procurement means purchasing items that you need to support your daily operations. Examples include office supplies and equipment. 
• Services: Services procurement includes procuring people-based services (e.g., contractors, consultants, etc.).

The process for each type of procurement will generally follow the same set of steps, which includes sourcing, generating requests, negotiating contracts, and more.

What Is Procurement Management?

Procurement management is the practice of managing the processes that your company carries out to acquire the goods and services it needs to operate. These processes include evaluating vendors, creating purchase orders, approving invoices, and more.

Smaller companies may have just one person handling procurement activities, while larger organizations may have an entire department dedicated to purchasing.

There are three P’s in the procurement management process:

• People: People are the individual stakeholders responsible for different stages of the procurement process. Their tasks include creating contracts, approving invoices, and more.
• Process: A business process is a set of steps that employees perform to complete a task. Establishing well-defined processes ensures that employees follow the same steps, which delivers more consistent outcomes.
• Paperwork: Paperwork is the documentation that’s required for different stages of a procurement process. For example, one step of the procurement process is creating and approving purchase orders.

Properly managing each procurement process is by no means easy. But effective procurement management can help your company control its spending better and improve overall efficiency.

Why Is Procurement Management Important?

Supply assurance was one of the biggest procurement challenges that chief procurement officers (CPOs) faced in the past 12 months.

• 56% said that some key suppliers have gone bankrupt.
• 41% had to expedite shipping to secure timely delivery of goods.
• 36% said suppliers failed to meet new requirements.
• 32% said they were losing revenue due to supply shortages.
• 11% experienced brand damage because of supplier issues.

Without effective procurement management practices, your company can find itself in a position where it can’t secure the goods and services it needs in a timely or cost-effective manner.

Imagine that a key supplier goes bankrupt or is unable to meet its delivery schedule. If this happens, it can bring your business operations to a halt and cause your company to lose customers.

Having an efficient procurement management process to source vendors, negotiate contracts, and issue payments can help you manage supply chain risks and ensure business continuity.

Reducing costs is a top priority for 76.4% of CPOs. Procurement management can help your company lower its procurement costs by negotiating better contracts and improving supplier relationships.

What Are the Steps in the Procurement Process?

Procurement varies for every company. For example, a large retailer will likely have a different procurement process than a small business that specializes in a particular product. 

However, there’s a basic “blueprint” that many companies follow to procure the goods they need to operate. The procurement process typically involves the following steps.

Step 1: Identify Internal Needs

The procurement process starts with identifying internal needs. It involves specifying product requirements and setting criteria that need to be met before researching vendors.

It can also include software. For example, the HR department may submit a request for software that assists with the onboarding process. During this step, they may also work with your finance team to establish a budget based on their needs.

Step 2: Evaluate and Select a Vendor

The next step involves researching potential vendors, requesting quotes, and making a final selection based on extensive research. Most companies already have a list of approved vendors they have professional relationships with. 

Depending on your needs, this step may involve creating a Request for Proposal (RFP) — a document that includes details on goods or services you’re looking for. It allows you to collect offers and bids from potential suppliers.

Once the process is officially closed, the procurement team and evaluation committee will review the offers and determine which one best fulfills their needs.

Step 3: Negotiate Contracts

Once you’ve narrowed down your list and selected a vendor, you can begin the negotiation process. It could be straightforward or involve more back-and-forth discussions to negotiate the price and terms of the contract.

Then, once the details are confirmed and the terms are agreed upon, both parties sign a legally binding supplier contract.

Step 4: Approve a Purchase Requisition

It’s often the standard procedure for departments to submit a purchase requisition to the purchasing department for internal approval. This kicks off the purchasing process.

Here’s an example of a purchase requisition form:

When submitting a purchase requisition, you’re not actually purchasing anything yet. You’re getting approval from a manager or department head first. Using a purchase requisition ensures that employees follow business processes and can prevent instances of fraud.

Step 5: Create a Purchase Order

The next step in the procurement process is to create a purchase order (PO), which typically includes the following details:

• PO number
• Date of purchase
• Vendor information
• Buyer information
• Order details
• Delivery date
• Delivery address
• Shipping method
• Payment terms

Here’s an example of a purchase order form:

The purchase order becomes legally binding once a vendor receives and approves it.

Step 6: Receive and Review Vendor Invoice

Once a vendor receives the purchase order, they’ll get to work on preparing the order. In the meantime, they’ll send over an invoice along with prices and payment due dates.

This step typically involves matching invoices against a corresponding purchase order to validate the invoice. An invoice approval workflow that integrates with your accounting system allows you to perform this matching automatically.

Step 7: Confirm and Audit Delivery

At this point, the vendor will deliver the goods or services as promised according to the terms established in the contract. 

Once you receive the order, you’ll audit and confirm the delivery. If anything is missing or products don’t meet certain quality standards, you’ll file a discrepancy report with the vendor.

Step 8: Issue Payment

The next step in the procurement process is to issue payment. But first, you’ll need to perform a three-way match — matching the purchase order, vendor invoice, and receiving document. 

Performing this match is necessary to prevent instances of accounts payable fraud. If everything looks good, you’ll issue payment according to the contract terms.

Step 9: Maintain Records

Finally, maintaining accurate records is an important step in the procurement process. 

Not only does it allow you to maintain an audit trail, but it can also make it easier for your accounting team to see a full breakdown of spending by vendor.

Top Procurement Management Challenges

Procurement depends heavily on having clear processes in place to ensure that everything works efficiently. However, no process is immune to missteps along the way.

Here are some of the most common procurement challenges:

• Risk management: Risk is always a challenge in the procurement process —  non-compliance, supplier-related issues, and even fraud can affect your bottom line. Delivery delays can also hurt your business. 47% of organizations have experienced missed, late, or short shipments.

• Process inefficiencies: Relying on manual processes to manage procurement is time-consuming and prone to errors. Repetitive tasks like manual data entry also take employees away from higher-value work. 42% of business leaders say that automation can speed up task completion.

• Long cycle times: Without a system in place to procure goods, certain workflows in the procurement process can take longer than expected. This can prevent your company from capturing early payment discounts.

To give an example, companies that rely on manual methods to process an invoice take 45 days on average, while those with automated workflows take just five days — a difference of nearly 90%.

• Maverick spending: Companies can lose as much as 16% of negotiated savings when employees purchase goods or services without following pre-established procurement policies. This kind of spending is also more difficult to track, which can cause problems with spend management.

• Lack of transparency: 60% of business leaders say a lack of transparency in the procurement process is a risk to the company. A lack of transparency in the procurement process can slow down decision-making and make finding the information you need harder.

Using the right tools can help you address and overcome the procurement challenges described above. Let’s look at how in the next section.

How Technology Can Improve Procurement Management

Relying on manual methods for your procurement processes may work if you’re only working with a handful of vendors, but it’s not scalable, and it’s error-prone.

Here’s how using technology like frevvo’s process management software can help you improve procurement management.

Standardize Your Processes

The procurement process has a lot of moving parts with many people involved. If your processes aren’t standardized, it can lead to issues like maverick spending and non-compliance risks.

Using process management software allows you to standardize your processes, which can help enforce stronger internal controls and ensure that employees follow the same steps, whether they’re creating a purchase order or approving an invoice.

Standardizing your processes increases productivity, keeps your team members on the same page, and helps you manage procurement risks.

Streamline Approvals

Paper-based approvals are slow and prone to delays — employees waste time printing, signing, and routing documents to the right person for approval.

frevvo’s no-code platform makes it easy to create dynamic forms and automated workflows for your procurement processes. There’s no coding required, so even non-technical users can get started with the software right away. 

Once you create your form, you can incorporate them into a custom Workflow. As an example, let’s say you want to automate the purchase order process.

To get started, simply follow these three steps:

1. Install a pre-built template, or create one from scratch
2. Customize your form, and modify the routing as needed
3. Connect to external systems to auto-populate your forms

Then, test your workflow to ensure everything is working. You might also want to get feedback from the procurement department before deploying it.

Here’s an example of a purchase order workflow you can create in frevvo:

Once an employee creates a purchase order, it automatically routes to a manager for review and then to Finance for final processing.

Other procurement processes you can automate with frevvo include contract approvals, invoice approvals, and more.

Collect Electronic Signatures

It’s always in your company’s best interest to collect signatures on important documents like contracts and purchase orders. But printing and mailing forms is incredibly inefficient. It can also lead to long lead times.

With frevvo’s form builder, you can add legally binding signature components to your forms. The platform supports wet and digital signatures — a secure method of signing documents that uses a certificate-based digital ID to verify and authenticate a signer’s identity.

Watch the video below to learn how you can create legally binding signatures with frevvo:

Define Roles and Set Up Notifications

You can improve role clarity by defining clear roles for the procurement team.

By using frevvo to digitize your procurement processes, you can define roles and set up notifications to ensure that approvers are immediately notified when a document requires their attention. This can help you prevent workflow or approval issues. 

Perform Three-Way Matching Automatically

Matching invoices to purchase orders and receipts is time-consuming, but it highlights any discrepancies. 

With frevvo’s software, you can integrate your workflows to external databases like your accounting system to perform this matching automatically.

Centralize Procurement Documents

85% of employees waste time searching for documents.

You can use frevvo’s built-in connectors to store documents generated by your procurement workflows in an electronic document management system (EDMS) like Google Drive, SharePoint, DocuWare, etc.

Improve Spending Visibility

Using frevvo’s automation software can help you automate purchase order tracking and provide more visibility into organizational spending. 

Analyzing these trends can lead to substantial savings. For example, you can track spending with different vendors and build stronger relationships with the ones your company works with most. This can help you negotiate better procurement contracts in the future.

Create Audit Trails

27% of organizations say that increasing transparency in the supply chain can reduce disruptions in the procurement process.

Digital processes create clear audit trails that help procurement professionals track and manage each step of the procurement process.

Generate Detailed Reports

Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) in real-time can help your company identify bottlenecks and uncover areas for improvement.

With frevvo’s analytics dashboards, you can monitor metrics like active procurements, average cycle time, expedited purchase counts, process errors, and more. Using these insights can help you further improve your processes.

Start Automating Your Procurement Processes Today

Procurement management plays a critical role in helping your company secure the goods and services it needs to operate.

However, managing each step of the procurement process manually isn’t practical in the long term. It can lead to longer turnaround times, data inaccuracies, and even invoice fraud — all of which can hurt your bottom line.

A workflow automation tool like frevvo can help your company automate and streamline your procurement process. Using the no-code interface makes it easy for you to create custom forms and automated workflows in practically no time.

The platform comes with a drag-and-drop interface — create dynamic forms, customize your workflows, set up dynamic routing, and more. Plus, you can analyze your workflows and make continuous improvements to your processes with the built-in reporting dashboards.

You don’t need to be a technical expert either to start automating your processes. Anyone comfortable with using Microsoft Excel can create and customize their own workflows without writing any code.

Get started today with a 30-day free trial to start automating your procurement process.

The post A Complete Guide to Procurement Management appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Manual processes can lead to issues like missing invoices, delayed payments, and even instances of fraud — all of which can hurt your bottom line and damage relationships with your vendors.

So how can you manage your invoices better and prevent costly errors? And how can you increase visibility across the entire accounts payable process?

By implementing an automated invoice processing solution.

In this article, we’ll look at what automated invoice processing is and how it can help you improve invoice management. We’ll also cover how you can create a fully automated accounts payable process using frevvo’s invoice approval software.

Click the links below to jump straight to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is Automated Invoice Processing?
• How Automated Invoice Processing Improves Invoice Management
• 3 Steps to Implement an Automated Invoice Processing Solution

What Is Automated Invoice Processing?

Automated invoice processing is the use of software to process invoices for accounts payable and update the information in your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. It helps you speed up invoice approvals, minimize errors, and reduce processing costs.

Paying an invoice isn’t as simple as writing a check.

Accounts payable is a prime target for scammers who may set up shell companies and send invoices that appear legitimate — a billing scheme that cost Google and Facebook more than $100 million. These schemes can have devastating financial impacts on any company. 

In order to prevent instances of fraud (and maintain accurate records), the accounts payable process typically involves the following steps:

1. Matching invoices against a purchase order (PO)
2. Resolving any irregularities (e.g., mismatched PO numbers, incorrect line items, etc.)
3. Routing invoices to a manager or senior executive for approval
4. Updating the company’s ERP system
5. Issuing payments to vendors

These steps are fairly standard practices. But when they’re performed manually, AP departments are unable to maintain an efficient invoicing process. This results in lengthy approval times and higher processing costs.

Companies that rely on manual methods take 45 days to process an invoice, while companies with automated workflows take just five days — an improvement of nearly 90%. 

In addition, companies with manual processes spend an average of $15 to process an invoice, while those that use tools like business process automation software spend just $2.36. 

In short, relying on manual methods to process invoices is only costing your company valuable time and money. Those costs can add up as you start working with more vendors.

Let’s look at how invoice automation can be a complete game-changer for your AP department in the next section.

How Automated Invoice Processing Improves Invoice Management

Even if your company is only handling a few invoices a month, implementing an automated invoice processing solution now can help support business growth in the future.

Here’s how frevvo’s invoice approval software helps you streamline the entire accounts payable process (without compromising on accuracy).

Reduce Manual Data Entry

A common step in the AP approval process is keying information on approved invoices into an ERP system. Not only is this time-consuming, but it also increases the risk of errors like duplicate entries and miscalculations.

51% of companies say that manual data entry and inefficient processes are the biggest pain points of a manual AP process.

With frevvo’s invoice approval software, you can create dynamic forms that automatically populate your ERP system. This cuts down on manual data entry and minimizes errors.

Perform Invoice Matching Automatically

Accounts payable fraud is on the rise. In 2020, an estimated 74% of organizations were targets of payment scams and other billing schemes.

Invoice matching can help prevent instances of AP fraud. It involves matching incoming invoices against a corresponding purchase.

However, for companies with manual processes, a clerk would have to search for a PO in a database or worse, in a file cabinet, and match individual line items on an invoice — a process that can take hours.

An invoice approval workflow that integrates with your accounting system can perform this matching automatically and even flag any discrepancies for further review.

Route Invoices to the Right Approvers 

Once the AP department has reviewed an invoice and resolved any exceptions, they’ll need to route it to a manager for approval. 

However, manually routing documents can lead to further delays and even lost invoices. That’s why 37% of companies say that manual invoice routing is their biggest pain point when processing invoices.

With invoice approval software like frevvo, you can create an automated workflow that routes invoices to the right approvers and set up notifications so that they can act on it right away.

Notifications enable managers to review and approve invoices in a timely manner.

Centralize Your Records

An electronic document management system (EDMS) lets you centralize your documents, making it easy to find the files you need.

With frevvo’s built-in connectors, you can store approved invoices into systems like Google Drive, Microsoft SharePoint, Ricoh DocuWare, Xerox DocuShare, M-Files, and more.

Measure Performance

A more efficient invoice approval process will allow you to lower processing costs and even take advantage of early payment discounts. 

A common discount that vendors offer is 2/10 net 30. Invoices with these terms are due within 30 days, but you can get a 2% discount if you pay them within 10 days.

frevvo’s built-in dashboards allow you to track key metrics across your workflows in real-time, so you can identify any bottlenecks that are slowing down approvals.

Addressing any inefficiencies can help you speed up approvals and capture early payment discounts.

3 Steps to Implement an Automated Invoice Processing Solution

As we’ve seen, automated invoicing offers clear benefits. It helps you automate repetitive tasks, streamline approvals, and maintain accurate records.

With automation software from frevvo, you can set up automated invoicing workflows in a matter of days. There’s no need to hire a team of developers or allocate a huge budget on a custom AP automation solution. 

Follow these steps to get started.

1. Start With a Pre-Built Template or Create Your Own Form

Kickstart your automation efforts by installing a pre-built invoice approval workflow. Or, you can use the workflow wizard to answer a few simple questions. Either way, the software will generate a functional workflow with routing and business rules.

The system will also create a digital form that you can use right away. Of course, you can also use the drag-and-drop form designer to customize it to fit your business needs, e.g. add an invoice line items table, create dropdown lists, enable digital signatures, and more.

With the Visual Rule Builder, you can also add dynamic behaviors to electronic invoices. For example, you can set up your forms to only show certain information to stakeholders as the form moves through the approval process.

Even non-technical users can use the rule builder without any coding experience.

2. Customize Your Invoice Approval Workflow

Invoices typically go through multiple approvers. Once your forms are in place, the next step is to customize your workflows to route invoices from one approver to the next.

Like with the form designer, the workflow builder is fully visual, and you can use the code-free interface to apply conditional rules to your workflows. For example, you can add logic that automatically routes invoices to a senior executive if it exceeds a certain value.

Here’s an example of an invoice approval workflow with conditional routing:

Having a senior executive review every invoice isn’t often the best use of their time and could lead to delays. Conditional logic can help make your workflows more efficient and enforce compliance with internal policies.

3. Integrate With Your Accounting System

Most companies use an ERP system to manage their financial accounts. However, manually entering line items from approved invoices into these systems is tedious and time-consuming.

frevvo’s invoice automation software enables you to integrate your invoice approval workflows into your ERP system and ensure your records are up to date. Integrations help streamline approvals and cut down on manual data entry.

Once everything is set up, go through some user acceptance testing and iterate your workflows before deploying them across your organization.

frevvo’s analytics dashboards let you track key performance indicators (KPIs) so that you can analyze and optimize your workflows to improve their efficiency.

Start Automating Invoice Approvals Today 

Accounts payable plays a crucial function in every organization — you need to pay your financial obligations on time to maintain good relationships with your vendors.

However, manual invoice processing is inefficient and prone to errors, putting your company at risk of lost invoices, missed payments, and even payments fraud.

frevvo’s invoice approval software makes it easy to set up automated workflows that integrate with your accounting systems. You get enterprise-grade software with hardened security, digital signature support, audit trails, and more at an affordable cost.

Get started with a 30-day free trial to see how easy it is to create automated invoice processing workflows for your company.

The post A Complete Guide to Automated Invoice Processing and How to Implement It appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Most importantly, purchase orders serve as written agreements that include details about goods, quantities, prices, and delivery dates.

No matter what goods or services you purchase, you need a way to track those orders.

A paper-based purchase order process can work. But as your company grows, managing all the paperwork becomes a hassle and can slow down procurement.

So how can you create a more efficient purchase order process?

Using a purchase order (PO) system can help.

If you’re still managing purchase orders manually and are looking for a way to streamline this process, then keep reading.

In this article, we’ll walk you through what a PO system is, why your business needs one, and how you can set one up using frevvo’s purchase order workflow software. 

Modern low-code platforms are so easy to use that you don’t need an army of expensive developers or a large I.T. budget. The interface is fully visual, so if you know how to use Excel then you can create your own automated workflows.

Click the links below to jump to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is a Purchase Order System?
• Benefits of an Automated PO System
• How to Set Up an Automated PO System in 5 steps

What Is a Purchase Order System?

A purchase order system is software that helps you create, manage, and track purchase orders that you send to your vendors. It allows you to scale and automate the entire procurement process.

Purchase orders are part of the procurement process. The workflow varies for every company depending on their requirements, but it generally follows the same steps. 

Here’s an example of a purchase order workflow:

The PO process starts with an employee creating a PO and ends when your company pays the invoice and enters the transaction in your records.

Many companies in the early stages may forego purchase orders and enter into informal agreements with their suppliers. Informal processes are convenient, but what if there’s a dispute about payment or delivery terms?

Things can get complicated without proper documentation.

Having a formalized PO system enables you to create purchase orders, manage vendor information, and approve invoices from one place.

Purchase orders are legally binding once signed and accepted, so they provide legal protection. If there’s a dispute from either side, you’ll have a record of the agreed-upon terms in your PO system.

A paper-based purchase order system is better than no system at all. But relying on a manual process is costly and inefficient. It’s also prone to errors — an employee may duplicate an existing PO, enter in the wrong data, or forget to route a document.

Let’s take a look at how an automated PO system can address these challenges and improve purchase order management and how even a small business with limited I.T. resources can implement one.

Benefits of an Automated PO System

Managing purchase orders manually just isn’t practical in the long run, especially as you start to process more purchase orders and work with more vendors.

You’ll save yourself (and your employees) a lot of time and effort when you use purchase order workflow software like frevvo to automate the process.

Here’s how an automated purchasing system can streamline the procurement process.

Increases Productivity

Each minute an employee spends manually preparing a purchase order is time they could spend on more productive tasks like negotiating better contracts or, better yet, improving the customer experience.

The increased risk of entering data incorrectly or making a calculation error also means spending even more time to correct those mistakes.

An automated PO system can help you streamline the entire purchasing process. Employees won’t have to waste their time filling out the same forms or chasing signatures for approvals.

Lowers Processing Costs

Manually processing purchase orders means longer cycle times — the time it takes to create and deliver a PO to a vendor or supplier.

Companies with an automated PO system have an average cycle time of 24 hours, while those that rely on manual methods take 35 hours.

Higher cycle times mean higher processing costs.

Using a PO system to reduce cycle times can help you lower processing costs. Ways to do so include reducing manual data entry and automatically routing POs to vendors.

Improves Cash Flow Management 

A healthy cash flow puts your company in a better position to meet your financial obligations and sustain operations. However, 44% of small business owners who had cash flow issues said the problems came as a surprise.

A PO system gives you full visibility into upcoming financial commitments. Accounting teams can analyze previous orders and anticipate future spending. They can also plan accordingly to ensure there are sufficient funds to cover incoming invoices.

When you know how much money is available, you can plan your budget more effectively and avoid cash flow surprises without having to go through a trail of paper forms.

Helps Reduce Errors and Prevent Fraud

Manual processes are more prone to errors. Instances of overpayments, inaccurate deliveries, and even fraud are likely to occur when purchasing controls are lax. 

Using frevvo’s purchasing software can help you implement strict internal controls and enforce adherence to internal policies to reduce errors.

Examples include setting controls on who can start a workflow and requiring signatures. You can even create a rule that routes POs above a certain value to a senior executive for additional review.

If an error does occur, a PO system creates an audit trail that shows what actions were taken, who performed them, and when. With these insights, you can take steps to create a process improvement plan and eliminate inefficiencies.

Improves Vendor Relationships

Companies that handle invoices manually take 45 days to process invoices, while those that use automated approval workflows take just five days on average.

A PO system doesn’t stop at creating and approving purchase orders. You can also integrate it with your accounting software and set it up to pay invoices in a timely manner.

By streamlining the invoice approval process, you can improve relationships with your vendors and even take advantage of early payment discounts.

Some vendors offer 2/10 net 30 payment terms. If you pay an invoice in full within 30 days, you can get a 2% discount on the net amount, which can translate to huge savings in the long run.

Now let’s look at how you can set up an automated PO system.

How to Set Up an Automated PO System in 5 Steps

Even if you’re a small business with a limited budget and I.T. resources, you can still set up a fully automated PO system and streamline the procurement process.

With frevvo’s purchase order workflow software, you get the benefits of an enterprise-grade system with audit trails, hardened security, built-in ADA and WCAG compliance, and more. 

The best part? There’s no need to code or spend significant resources.

Follow these steps to get started.

1. Start With a Pre-Built Template or Use the Workflow Wizard

As your company starts processing more purchase orders, you simply can’t afford to lose months of development time to create a custom solution.

frevvo’s purchasing software lets you set up an automated PO system in a matter of days or even hours. Get started by selecting a pre-built template — each comes with an automated workflow and form that you can use right away.

Here’s an example of a purchase order workflow that you can install:

The workflow starts when an employee creates a purchase order. Then it routes to a manager for review and then routes to the finance department for final approval before it gets sent to a supplier. You can start with this template and add or modify individual steps.

Want to create your own fully customized PO workflow?

Use the Workflow Wizard to build a custom workflow from scratch. Add and configure as many steps as you need to create a workflow that fits your purchasing process.

The purchasing process can vary from one organization to another. Ensure that you understand what each step involves, including who is responsible for them when creating an approval workflow.

Use this opportunity to perform a business process analysis and identify any redundancies or inefficiencies in your PO process.

Give each step a meaningful name and describe who works on it, and frevvo will automatically generate a workflow that contains routing and a basic form.

2. Customize Your PO Forms and Add Business Logic

The next step to setting up an automated PO system is to create an electronic purchase order form. 

Purchase orders typically include the following:

• Contact information
• PO number
• Date
• Item descriptions 
• Quantity and prices
• Payment information
• Expected delivery

These items can vary depending on your company’s procurement requirements. But it’s a good idea to create a standardized PO form for consistency.

Here’s an example of a purchase order form that comes with the pre-built template:

With the visual drag-and-drop builder, you can add text fields, dropdown lists, checkboxes, and more to customize your form to fit your business requirements.

That’s not all.

Forms are more powerful when you add dynamic behavior to them. For example, fixing simple errors or sending forms back because of missing information creates unnecessary delays.

frevvo’s purchase order system comes with a visual rule builder that lets you add business rules to your forms — no coding required.

Here are some things you can do with business rules:

• Pre-populate fields based on the logged-in user
• Calculate totals and subtotals automatically
• Specify custom formats for fields
• Make fields (like signatures) required
• Show or hide form controls like text areas

Here’s an example of how you can use the rule builder to add business logic:

With the workflow builder, you can add or modify steps, customize notifications and other messages, and also add conditional routing to your PO process. For example, you can create a rule that routes POs above $10,000 or more to a senior executive for additional review.

Here’s an example of how that looks:

Other ways you can apply business rules to your workflow include routing a PO to the right manager and restricting vendors based on which department is submitting it.

3. Integrate the PO System With Your Systems

Employees waste time when they have to look up vendor information or perform calculations.

With frevvo’s PO system, you can connect your forms to internal business systems and automatically populate fields based on a selection. For example, if you have customer data in a SQL database, you can create a form that performs a lookup to dynamically populate that information into the proper fields without the user having to type in anything.

Here’s an example of how that looks:

You can connect your forms to other data sources like your inventory or accounting system,  Google Sheets and SharePoint. This will help reduce the time spent on manual data entry and keep your systems up-to-date. 

4. Test and Deploy Your Workflows

By now, you should have a purchase order form and an automated workflow. But don’t assume that everything will work perfectly.

Test your new workflow to ensure it works as intended. Get feedback from your team or those in the purchasing department.

If you’re setting up a PO system for the first time, there may be hiccups along the way. It’s best to fix any issues before you deploy it across the organization.

It’s not always easy for employees to adapt to new changes in the workplace. Provide the training that your team needs to help them use the new system and make the transition as smooth as possible.

5. Analyze and Optimize Your PO System

Even after you’ve implemented a PO system, your job isn’t done yet, as you should continuously look for ways to improve it. Even a small change can make your workflows more efficient.

With frevvo’s new analytics dashboards, you can track key performance indicators (KPIs) like cycle times and get a full processing time breakdown by approvers.

These metrics can help you measure the performance of your PO system and even identify bottlenecks that are slowing it down. As you make any changes to your workflows, make sure to communicate them to your team and update your training materials.

Create an Automated PO System Today

Whether you’re an early startup or an established company, setting up an automated PO system to manage the procurement process is a must. It’ll help you speed up processing times, simplify record-keeping, and minimize errors.

frevvo’s purchase order workflow software features a fully visual interface, so there’s no need to code or wait for months of development time to introduce automation to your organization. 

Plus, you won’t have to spend significant resources to reap the benefits of an enterprise-grade system that might ordinarily be out of reach.
Get started with a free 30-day trial today to try frevvo’s purchase order software, or contact us to speak with a business process expert.

The post How to Set Up a PO System (Even on a Limited Budget) appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Slow processing times can damage relationships with your vendors and hurt your company’s long-term success.

Coding errors can result in items being billed to the wrong projects or GL categories – problems that are often hard to find and fix later.

So how can you easily manage incoming invoices, categorize them, ensure they’re valid, and make payments on time? How can you streamline and automate these processes?

This article will cover invoice management and some of the challenges that companies face when managing invoices. We’ll also look at how you can create an automated approval workflow using software from frevvo to streamline the invoice management process.

Click the links below to navigate to the section you want to learn more about:

• What Is Invoice Management?
• Top Invoice Management Challenges
• How to Automate Invoice Management in Five Steps
• Essential Features of an Invoice Management System

What Is Invoice Management?

Invoice management is the process by which supplier invoices are received, coded, approved, and submitted for payment with full visibility into spend metrics.

To put it simply, invoice management involves managing accounts payable (money you owe to vendors) according to the business norms established by your organization.

Every company has different processes, but a typical invoice approval workflow looks like this:

1. Receive invoice
2. Verify invoice
3. Flag irregularities
4. Approve invoice
5. Issue payment
6. Bookkeeping

Invoice management may seem straightforward on the surface — once you review and approve an invoice, you issue payment and record it in your accounting system.

However, one survey found that 13% of invoices to small businesses are paid late. In addition, companies spend an average of 15 days a year chasing unpaid invoices.

It’s possible to manage these invoices manually, but it’s an inefficient way of doing things. 

From printing paper invoices to chasing signatures for approval, manual invoicing increases turnaround times and the likelihood of costly mistakes.

Paper-based invoices might work for very small organizations. However, as you grow, it quickly becomes more cost-effective to use invoice approval software. This will help your company scale invoice management and handle a growing volume of invoices.

Let’s look at how invoice approval software helps your company address the common challenges of manual accounts payable (AP) processes.

Top Invoice Management Challenges

Without the right systems in place, organizations struggle to maintain an efficient process for managing invoices. Here are the top pain points of manual AP processes.

Let’s look at how using invoice approval software can help address some of the top challenges.

1. Manual Data Entry

Manual invoice processing is extremely time-consuming. Depending on the number of invoices your company processes, your team can easily spend hours on data entry alone.

In fact, 38% of small business employees say that data entry is their most time-consuming task.

Manual data entry takes your employees away from more productive tasks.

Entering data manually also increases the risk of errors. From adding extra zeros to missing decimal points, even a small error can lead to issues like overpaid or underpaid invoices.

With invoice approval software, you can digitize invoice forms and processes and have fields populated with pricing data from a database. You can also have fields automatically calculate totals based on quantities and unit prices, which helps reduce manual data entry and the risk of human error.

2. Manual Routing of Invoices for Approval

The problem with manually routing documents and chasing down signatures is that it often leads to long cycle times — the time it takes to complete a task. This can delay invoices and strain relationships with your vendors.

Novice organizations, companies that rely on manual processes, take 45 days on average to process invoices from receipt to approval.

Innovators, companies that have digitized their processes with automation tools, take just five days on average to process an invoice. They also have much lower processing costs.

With invoice approval software, you can create a workflow that automatically routes invoices to the right approver. This way, employees don’t have to waste time hunting down signatures.

3. Lost or Missing Invoices

Without an effective invoice management system in place, it’s possible to misplace or even lose invoices that you receive.

You might not even realize that you have an unpaid invoice until a vendor follows up. Since the invoice has gone missing, you would have to ask the vendor to send another one which reflects poorly on your company.

Using invoice approval software can help you avoid this problem. It allows you to track incoming invoices and you can even set notifications when due dates are approaching.

4. Invoice to Payment Matching

Payment matching is a practice that companies follow when processing invoices. It involves matching an invoice against a purchase order.

The point is to verify the legitimacy of incoming invoices, which is important, as 82% of organizations have reported instances of payment fraud.

With frevvo’s invoice approval software, you can integrate your workflow with your accounting system and perform this matching automatically. It ensures that you only pay what you owe, no more and no less.

5. Inability to Approve Invoices in Time to Capture Discounts

Vendors may offer discounts for making early payments. A common discount is 2/10 net 30, which is when buyers can receive a 2% discount if they pay their invoices within ten days. 

Those discounts can translate to huge savings depending on how much business you do with a vendor. However, many companies aren’t able to approve invoices in time due to slow invoice approval processes.

Automation can improve processing cycle times by 73%, allowing you to take advantage of early payment discounts. This also helps you maintain positive relationships with your vendors.

The challenges above are some of the top pain points of manual processes. The good news is that implementing invoice management software can help you address them.

Let’s look at how in the next section.

How to Automate Invoice Management in Five Steps

It costs companies $12.90 on average to process a single invoice. Using automation software can help you automate invoice approvals and reduce processing costs.

With frevvo’s invoice approval software, you can create and customize an approval workflow that’s tailored to the specific needs of your organization.

Follow these steps to get started.

1. Create an Invoice Approval Workflow With the Workflow Wizard

You don’t need to hire a team of coders and wait through months of development time to automate your invoice approval process.

With frevvo’s workflow wizard, you can create your own custom workflows from scratch without any coding experience. Create new forms, add approval steps, and more with visual tools.

Here’s an example of how you can build your own workflow in frevvo:

Simply add the steps that reflect your invoice approval process, and frevvo will automatically generate a workflow in seconds. Alternatively, you can also install a pre-built template. 

Here are some of the pre-built templates available in frevvo:

Each template comes with a fully functional workflow and form, saving you both time and effort.

2. Customize the Form and Add Business Logic to Your Workflow

Once you’ve created a workflow (or installed a template), the next step is to customize the invoice approval form to fit your business requirements.

frevvo’s dynamic form builder includes simple drag-and-drop tools. Add text boxes, radio buttons, signature fields, and more to easily customize your form.

Here’s an example of an invoice approval form:

The example above is a standard invoice approval form. But you can also create forms for different types of invoices like:

• Credit invoices
• Debit invoices
• Proforma invoices
• Interim invoices

With the visual workflow designer, you can add conditional logic to your workflows. For example, you can add a rule that routes invoices above $10,000 to a senior executive.

Here’s an example of a workflow with a conditional rule:

Invoices that are below $10,000 are automatically routed to the finance department without requiring VP review. Adding rules to your workflows like the one above can improve their efficiency.

3. Integrate the Workflow to Your Accounting System

Once you approve and pay an invoice, there’s another important step — entering the data into your accounting system. However, doing this manually is time-consuming and prone to errors.

Ensure your records are always up to date by integrating your invoice approval workflow with your accounting systems. This not only saves time on manual data entry but also helps you maintain accurate records for compliance and auditing purposes.

4. Test Your Invoice Approval Workflow

Run your workflow through several tests before deploying it across your organization. Get feedback from your team and make any adjustments.

With frevvo, you can test your workflow to ensure everything works as designed. You can even preview how your forms will look on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Here’s how mobile previews look in frevvo:

Once everything looks good, you can deploy your new workflow with a single click and start using it right away.

5. Measure and Improve Your Workflow

Creating an automated invoice approval workflow is just the beginning. Keep a close eye on metrics like cycle times and continue to make improvements.

Here are some of the reports you can generate in frevvo:

Making small improvements over time can help you speed up approvals and reduce processing costs even further.

Essential Features of an Invoice Management System

Choosing an invoice management system can be challenging. To help you make an informed decision, the following are essential features to look for. 

Let’s take a closer look.

Automatic Validations

Sending a form back due to missing or invalid data can be frustrating. 

Look for an invoice management system that has a form designer with automatic validation features. An example is creating a field that can validate data (e.g., valid email addresses in an email address field).

Conditional Logic

Some invoices may require additional approval before you can issue payment. For this reason, you’ll want an invoice management system that lets you add conditional logic.

Here’s an example of what frevvo’s Rule Builder Wizard looks like:

By following these steps, you can add all kinds of conditional logic to your workflows.

Digital Signatures

Chasing signatures for paper invoices can drastically slow down approvals. Manually signing documents means printing, signing, scanning, and uploading them back to forward to the next person – a tedious process at best. Further, if a manager is traveling or away from the office, approvals get held up until they return.

Look for a solution that lets users add digital signatures to an invoice from any device. That way, managers can approve and sign electronically from their mobile device at any time even if they are on the road.

Role-Based Access

Role-based access control is simply a must, as it allows you to grant varying levels of access to each user. It ensures that only authorized users can view and take actions on the workflow thereby protecting sensitive information. Using roles also makes it much easier when employees move to a different job, get promoted, or leave the company.

Here’s how you can set restrictions on your workflows in frevvo:

Notifications & Reminders

When a manager receives an invoice to review, you’ll want that person to receive a notification so they can take action right away.

A good invoice management system will let you customize these notifications and ensure that approvers have the information they need to approve invoices.

Further, the system should also have the ability to automatically send reminders if someone does not perform their tasks by a specified deadline or to reassign the task to a different user if the original assignee is on vacation. That way, invoices aren’t delayed and employees aren’t forced to chase down managers or supervisors to get approvals in time.

PDF Generation & Storage

You may wish to generate PDFs to keep hard copies of invoices or to send them to your vendors after you issue payment.

In frevvo, you can use the mapping feature to generate PDFs. Any signatures that are on your forms will also transfer to the PDF.

Typically, these PDF documents are then stored in an electronic document management (EDM) system, e.g. SharePoint or DocuWare. Ideally, your automation software should transmit the documents electronically to the EDM system along with the proper indexing without requiring any manual intervention. Users can then search for and retrieve invoice details at a later date from the EDM system.

Third-Party Integrations

Workflows are more powerful when you can connect them with your existing systems.

With frevvo’s invoice approval software, you can integrate your workflows with your accounting system and have the data update automatically. This reduces manual data entry and helps you maintain accurate records.

Built-In Mobility

Nowadays, more work takes place on the go. 

Look for an invoice management system that works on all devices. This will let your team review and approve invoices no matter where they are.

Reporting

To continue improving workflow efficiency, you need a tool that lets you view and track key metrics in real-time. This will help you measure the effectiveness of any changes you make.

Security/Compliance

Internal processes like invoice approvals contain sensitive data. 

When choosing any kind of software, it’s important to check their security policy first to ensure that your data is secure and they comply with all standards.  

Conclusion

Managing invoices may seem straightforward at first. But as your company starts to scale, you’ll need an invoice management system to help you manage approvals. 

With frevvo’s invoice approval software, you can create an approval workflow that fits your specific business requirements using visual tools.

Best of all, you can try a free 30-day trial here to test out the software for yourself.

The post How to Automate Invoice Management (And Why You Should) appeared first on frevvo Blog.

But this bureaucratic pain is no longer necessary thanks to the advent of purchase order automation software.

Click the links below if you want to jump ahead:

• A Look Into the Purchase Order Process
• What is a Purchase Order Form?
• Pitfalls of a Manual Purchase Order Process
• 9 Key Benefits of Digital Purchase Order Forms
• A Step-by-Step Guide to Digital Purchase Order Software
• Try frevvo Free to Automate Your POs

A Look Into the Purchase Order Process

The purchase order process is the entire journey of a purchase order. It’s part of every organization’s overall procurement process. It starts with purchase order creation, its approval, dispatch, delivery, invoicing, closure, budget checks, contract management, quality checks, and anything else that is required for an order to be fulfilled.

For this process to be clear for all parties involved — the sales rep, managers, and buyers — establishing a proper flow is key.

Here is what one possible purchase order process flow could look like (yours will vary depending on your business requirements):

In this example, the process conditionally requires the approval of a VP if the amount exceeds a certain threshold.

What Are Purchase Order Processes Used For?

The main goal of a purchase order process is to manage orders and expectations surrounding this order. When a clear structure is established, all parties involved understand what will happen at what step of the flow.

This helps to clear up misunderstandings and errors in communication.

However, their use goes way beyond fixing communication. A process following purchase order management best practices also helps you track your paperwork, which will, in turn, make it easier to keep your budget in check.

For instance, imagine how your AP department would react if they received an invoice for several hundred thousand dollars due within 30 days. Without a properly organized purchase order process, the AP department won’t always be warned – this makes it needlessly difficult for them to do their job.

Having a proper paper trail is also vital when you’re audited. Your purchase order process can provide evidence of a transaction in the case of a financial audit, thus protecting you when it comes to the legal aspect of your finances. If you don’t have a proper process and tend to usually note down orders on a piece of paper, this isn’t proof enough for auditors.

What is a Purchase Order Form?

Every PO process starts with a purchase request form that’s filled in with information about the PO and is then routed around according to business requirements.

The purchase order form becomes a legally binding document once it is accepted and signed by the vendor. This document outlines everything the customer and the vendor need to know about an order.

Purchase order forms are the single point of reference in the case of a dispute or an issue in clarity. In 2014, a federal court ruled that purchase orders are an enforceable contract between two parties in the case of MidAtlantic International Inc. vs. AGC Flat Glass North America Inc. If your process requires the supplier to accept the PO, it serves as a legally binding document and can be used to address any discrepancies.

What Should a Purchase Order Include?

Your purchase order must contain everything necessary to clarify the purchasing process. This includes the items in the order, price, delivery expectations, payment terms, and so on.

A typical purchase order form might look like this:

Types of Purchase Order Forms

• Standard: This is your typical PO that’s used to make one-off orders for products or services. They’re usually made when a specific need arises within your company.
• Planned: For planned POs, everything is specified except for the delivery date. This type of PO is usually made when you can anticipate a particular need. For businesses that need to upkeep office supplies, for instance, this is a great way to make an agreement with a supplier for future deliveries.
• Blanket: Similar to planned POs, blanket POs don’t have a specific date OR amount of the product or service. This is used to agree on terms and conditions as well as budgeting limits, but the specifics are figured out only later. Blanket POs are useful to guarantee better pricing from a supplier, since you’re establishing a need over a long period of time.
• Contract: Contract POs are the loosest type – they act as a formal agreement between the supplier and the client, but don’t establish specifics for products or services. These are used to establish legally binding terms and conditions to create a future flow when a client knows they want to work with a certain supplier.

Try now: Check out these free purchase order form and process templates.

Pitfalls of a Manual Purchase Order Process

Using a manual approach, e.g. emailing an Excel spreadsheet around or even a paper form to process your purchase orders, leads to several challenges down the road.

Lack of Visibility

Without an automated PO system, it’s difficult for all parties involved in a purchase to get visibility to all necessary documentation at once. You also can’t tell where you are in your process unless someone happens to tell you.

Lots of Paperwork Generated

Running a business already involves too much paperwork. While some of it is unavoidable, you should aim to reduce paper where possible. A manual purchase order process just adds to the pile of paperwork and makes it increasingly difficult to stay organized.

Dependent on Human Intervention

For the process to move along, only humans can act – this requires the employee making the initial PO to send an email or walk up to their manager for a signature, then remember to follow-up with the vendor. So many details can go wrong – for instance, if the manager is traveling or the email is sent to the wrong person, the process is unnecessarily delayed.

Process Bottlenecks

The smallest details can cause a bottleneck when you’re using a manual PO process. What if you run out of printed PO forms? What if your manager misplaces the form they were supposed to sign?

This may sound kind of ridiculous, but these things do happen and waste valuable time!

Compliance Issues

You need to comply with business or regulatory requirements, but manual processing makes this difficult. You can’t track the exact process for every order, so how do you know if the process is being followed to the letter every time?

Prone to Errors and Inaccuracies

Human error is unavoidable. This isn’t because people are unreliable – it’s just a part of human nature.

Even the best employee can have an off day and make a mistake. When this happens, you shouldn’t default to blaming your employees – instead, take a good look at your process. Errors are bound to happen over time.

9 Key Benefits of Digital Purchase Order Forms

Now that you understand all the challenges of a manual purchase order process, let’s see how an electronic purchase order system helps overcome them.

Purchase order automation is the process of using electronic purchase requisition and purchase order forms and routing to streamline the entire process. Instead of relying on human-driven manual steps, you rely on a solid purchasing system that automates every step.

In short, digital purchase order forms help you solve all of the pitfalls you’ll encounter in a manual process.

Here are nine of the best reasons for companies to opt for digital purchase order workflows.

1. Fewer Errors

Manually creating purchase orders can lead to errors for several reasons. Handwriting may be illegible and misinterpreted or fields may accidentally be left blank. Mistakes could result in an unnecessary back and forth that wastes both parties’ time. Digital purchase orders remove the chance of illegible text or missing information.

2. Save Time and Money

An electronic purchase order form allows all of your vendors and their information to be stored in one place. Nobody needs to waste time searching for form information. Nothing needs to be mailed or faxed. Orders can be sent instantly and a record is automatically saved. 

Since the automated procedure saves time, it allows your staff to focus on other essential tasks. Less wasted time means you save money. A study by APQC found manual purchase orders can cost companies as much as $506.52 per purchase order. Purchasing software can significantly reduce that number.

3. Improve Security

Filing cabinets filled with papers and emails are not a secure place to store confidential information. Automated systems keep your records safe and are only visible to people set up with permissions. Rather than using passwords, you can choose to integrate with your existing authentication and authorization systems.

4. Reduce Waste

Companies create way more paper waste than necessary. When existing paper forms are replaced by digital purchase order forms, you’ll substantially reduce the amount of paper your company uses. Using less paper saves you money, helps the environment, and improves your image as a green company.

5. Save Space

Say goodbye to rows of filing cabinets stuffed with copies of purchase orders. Your digital purchase order information is safe in the software’s electronic repository. You can also choose to save it to an external database, store it on a SharePoint site, save on Google Drive, or elsewhere. With multiple electronic backups in place, you don’t need your valuable workspace to be jammed with filing cabinets.

6. Unlock Productivity

For most growing companies, time is precious. There are never enough hours in the day to get things done and tasks like manually processing POs isn’t just tedious and time consuming — it’s a significant barrier to growth. Imagine how much more time your team could spend on important tasks like planning and executing rather than rote paperwork, documentation, and manual review.

7. Greater Visibility

An electronic purchase order system makes it easier to see where your money is being spent. You can quickly compare each department’s spending and if a vendor relationship seems profitable. A simple search through documents can show you pending orders, the status of orders, and any payments due.

8. Ensure Compliance

When you begin using your digital purchase order software, you’ll have the ability to set any rules you find necessary. You choose which team members are allowed to request products and who has the authority to approve requests. The software will ensure your rules are followed so you don’t have to worry about it.

9. Less Guesswork

Electronic forms can be as comprehensive as you like. You can limit purchasing to specific dollar thresholds or certain items. If you want, some employees could have higher spending limits than others. Decision making becomes faster when you take out the guesswork and you can avoid any miscommunications resulting in overspending.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Digital Purchase Order Software

With all this in mind, how do you improve efficiency for your purchase order forms? Here is a step-by-step guide for establishing a proper workflow using frevvo’s purchase order workflow software.

When an employee within your organization needs to create a new purchase order, your system should allow them to create this PO online.

The automated PO form should include vital fields that the employee can fill in.  Where possible, fields such as employee name or today’s date should be auto-populated.

Step 1: Use a Wizard to Start Creating Your Digital Purchase Order

Using frevvo, you’ll have the option to customize a fully functional, pre-built template so you can quickly get started. If you prefer, you can start from scratch and, using the workflow wizard, rapidly generate a fully functional digital purchase order including a form, workflow, and pre-built business rules.

Read more: View 10 more examples of business rules here.

Once the wizard has generated the workflow, simply drag and drop in our intuitive designer to create or adjust forms. No coding or design experience is required and you can easily create your exact PO form.

Step 2: Customize the Form

The wizard has generated a basic form that you can use as a starting point. However, you’ll almost certainly need to customize the form using the simple, visual designer to fit your business requirements.

For example, a standard purchase order form typically includes:

• A purchase order number
• Date it was created
• Your company’s contact information
• Vendor contact information
• Item numbers, descriptions, quantities, inventory, etc.
• Price breakdown, including discounts
• Shipping address and expected delivery date

For repeat users, auto-fill can help you save time by finishing details you start to type. It’s vital to have a standardized form with all of the necessary information each party needs to see.

Here’s an example: See that all the necessary fields already exist and several are automatically filled in. When the employee inputs information, validation ensures that all required fields are filled in and the data in each field is valid.

This helps eliminate data input errors and helps the employee create the PO much faster than if they needed to input everything manually.

What About Digital Signatures?

Typically, you won’t have to worry about setting up and configuring signatures. Based on the information you provided in the wizard, the generated form already has digital signatures pre-created and configured in the appropriate sections.

The system also auto-generates business rules so that approval sections are only displayed at the right time.

Step 3: Use frevvo’s Visual Rule Builder to Add Business Logic

POs are easier to use if they perform calculations and pre-fill fields automatically.

Use frevvo’s Visual Rule Builder to add conditions and business logic as needed. It’s easy and 100% visual. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can create business logic:

Step 4: Customize the Workflow

The wizard has already generated a fully functional workflow. There’s no complex coding or setup required

However, you may wish to customize the routing. For example, some POs only need to be approved by company higher-ups if they exceed a certain dollar amount or involve specific products or services. With frevvo’s visual rule builder, simply point and click to define any conditional logic needed in the workflow (e.g., only POs above $10,000 require approval from the VP.)

Step 5: Test the New Digital Purchase Order

As noted earlier, one of the hazards of manual purchase order approval workflow is that forms and records can easily go missing.

With frevvo, once an employee has filled out a digital purchase order and a manager and finance department representative (or anyone else designated in the chain of command) gives their approval, the form is automatically sent to all parties. This helps ensure that companies will have legible, accurate, and securely-stored purchase orders.

Let’s take a closer look at the previous example:

Employee Starts the PO

In this frevvo sample, you can see there is a ‘Send to Manager’ button available to the employee. With one click of that button, the PO is sent to the right person – and that’s all there is to it. The system automatically figures out who the right manager is, and routes to that individual.

Manager Verifies Request

The system automatically notifies the manager once a PO request for approval is pending.

From there, the automated process allows the manager to approve, deny, or send back the form for correction. We all know how busy managers can get so the system includes a mechanism to remind them or even escalate to someone else if the PO is not approved in a timely manner.

This systems also allow digital signatures – this avoids unnecessary printing and scanning of documents. Everything is handled from the same online app.

Everything also works seamlessly on mobile devices; a manager who is traveling can handle the PO from anywhere.

As you can see above, approval takes a single click, just like the original PO creation.

It’s good practice to let the manager make comments – without this functionality, managers may decide to send comments by email, which makes it difficult to track all the information that was exchanged about the PO.

Notify Employee Upon Approval

When all parties have approved the PO, an efficient program automatically notifies the employee who originally created the form.

At the same time, the PO automatically moves to the next step.

Send to Vendor

The vendor receives an approved copy of the digital purchase order with all the needed signatures. From there, the vendor can sign the PO and prepare an invoice. This signature requires no printing since it is electronic. It ensures acceptance by the vendor and creates a legal binding contract.

Notify the Finance Department

Finally, an electronic notification allows the department to prepare for the incoming invoice. It also lets them know of all the terms and conditions involved in the transaction.

Wrapping it Up

Updating from paper to digital purchase order forms allows you to get rid of all the extra steps of the process that are needlessly weighing you down, whether it’s printing, data entry, tracking down lost POs, or sifting through endless email threads.

All of that paperwork can be automated for increased profits, reduced errors, and an overall higher ROI for the entire process.

To get started, try frevvo today and see how easily you can automate your purchase order processing — and hundreds of other operations tasks — with no coding required.

The post Digital Purchase Orders: The Definitive Guide appeared first on frevvo Blog.

POs are also one of the most admin-heavy business processes. They’re prone to errors, bottlenecks, lost paperwork, unnecessary back and forth, and maverick purchases. 

This can lead to incorrect deliveries of goods and services, delayed orders, overspending, and even outright fraud if purchase order tracking systems are not in place.

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at what purchase order tracking is and how it benefits your organization. We’ll also look at how to set up automated purchase order tracking.

Contents:

• What is purchase order tracking? 
• How to track purchase orders efficiently
• Advantages of purchase order tracking
• Set up automated purchase order tracking in three steps
• Features to look for in purchase order tracking software

What is Purchase Order Tracking? 

Purchase order tracking helps organizations make their procurement processes more efficient and transparent. 

With PO workflow automation, organizations can create digital purchase orders and swiftly route them for approval. It also makes it easy to keep track of each purchase order as it passes through multiple stages and various approvers.

The ability to easily track POs is one of the key benefits of purchase order workflow automation software. Purchase order tracking refers to the act of monitoring the status of purchase orders, either in real-time or in an analytics dashboard — or both. 

How to Track Purchase Orders Efficiently

Typically, to find out the status of a PO, employees or departments need to retrieve the PO number, then call or email the procurement department or vendor. 

If they’re lucky, the person they’re asking for an update is organized and has the information on hand to provide an answer immediately. However, this is rarely the case in paper-heavy offices, which means waiting for an update. 

Another way to track purchase orders is through Excel spreadsheets. There are even free templates available. Spreadsheets are fine if you’re a growing business or if you only process a few POs from a handful of vendors each month. 

But using spreadsheets for purchasing isn’t practical — they’re difficult to maintain and prone to errors. If someone forgets to update the values, you’re working off of outdated information. It also makes tracking purchase orders more difficult as you start to work with more vendors.

With purchase order software, tracking is efficient and painless. 

Anyone in the workflow can check the current order status of the PO — as well as vendor information, order date, and more — with a few clicks. Meanwhile, automated notifications help keep everyone updated as the PO moves from step to step.

Moreover, by integrating your purchase order tracking software with your accounting software or creating a custom dashboard, you can get detailed insights into your spending and streamline the purchasing process.

Advantages of Purchase Order Tracking

Manual PO processing involves an endless stream of Excel spreadsheets, back-and-forth emails, lost papers, and late invoice payments — not to mention invoicing fraud going undetected.

Purchase order tracking offers the following advantages over the traditional, outdated way of doing things.

Increased Convenience and Quicker Processing

34% of employees say a lack of standard processes gets in the way of their work. 

With automatically tracked POs, you can say goodbye to countless hours of tedious administrative tasks and approval bottlenecks. Save time by creating digital purchase orders and automating routing between approving parties. 

Automated notifications and reminders keep things moving so POs don’t lie forgotten in inboxes. They also make it easy to keep track of which stage a purchase order is in.

Greater Control Over Expenditure

Building conditional routing into your purchase order workflow helps make sure that POs are subject to approval under specific conditions. 

For instance, if purchase orders exceed a predetermined amount or originate from a department with a history of overspending, it automatically routes to a senior manager for approval. This helps ensure that your organization’s procurement policies are followed. It can also prevent duplicate orders from going through.

Fewer Errors, Inconsistencies, and Fraud

Automation drastically reduces errors and vulnerability to fraud by taking manual data entry out of the equation, standardizing approvals, and enabling automatic matching. 

With an automated purchase order tracking system like frevvo, it’s easy to connect your workflow with other business tools, such as your SQL database. This means you can create dynamic forms that automatically populate certain fields when selecting a vendor.

You can sync in both directions, making it easier to update each line item in your database using data from your workflow submissions. You can also set up automatic matching between invoices and purchase orders to flag inconsistencies for review.

Automated workflow tracking creates a robust audit trail and builds approvals into the purchasing process.

Standardized, Consistently Compliant Forms 

Purchase order tracking software allows you to standardize your forms and workflows, which reduces deviations from your company policy. 

Using standardized PO forms across suppliers can also take a few minutes out of the process, as employees won’t need to locate each supplier’s form before creating a PO. 

By standardizing your forms, you can ensure that they are always compliant with internal policies and vendor requirements as well as government regulations.

Reduced Operational Costs

71% of employees say up to 20% of their time is spent on mundane tasks.

Tracking purchase orders digitally can save your organization time, money, and resources by removing much of the manual work from the purchase order process. 

By freeing up your employees’ time, PO automation allows them to be more productive and focus on what you hired them to do instead of mind-numbing admin tasks.

Greater Transparency and Spending Insight

Accurate PO tracking gives you and the purchasing department greater insight into where money is going. Reviewing and analyzing spending patterns can lead to considerable savings. 

PO automation software often comes with built-in dashboards that update in real-time. When you can see all your accounts payable expenditures at a glance, it’s easier to trim the fat. 

Optimized Business Intelligence

Purchase order tracking also drives business intelligence and can give greater visibility into the status of specific projects. For example, seeing that a key supplier has delivered a shipment early might allow you to adjust your manufacturing timeline or make changes to your inventory.

Or, you might set automated deadlines based on shipping deadlines, which will allow you to source from alternative vendors to ensure your product launch stays on track.

Dashboards in frevvo let you analyze your procurement workflow.

Set Up Automated Purchase Order Tracking in 3 Steps with frevvo

Every organization’s approach to the procurement process is unique. As such, each business needs a slightly different solution when it comes to automating purchase order tracking. 

With frevvo, you can automate many of your accounting processes and create a purchase order workflow that meets your exact needs. 

Use our drag-and-drop visual form builder and workflow designer to create the perfect digital PO form and set up approval routing rules — all without any coding or help from I.T.

Say goodbye to error-prone Excel spreadsheets, rote data entry, and manual approval processes that cause delays, costly mistakes, and missed purchases that impact roadmaps.

Automating your purchase order workflow and tracking POs digitally is easier than you think. Simply follow the steps below, and you’ll be reaping the benefits in no time.

Note: The following steps require a frevvo account. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial to try it out for yourself.

Step 1: Install a Template

Hit the ground running. Install a pre-built purchase order form template with a single click.

Step 2: Customize Your Purchase Order Form

Modify the template to build the exact form you need without any coding using our 100% visual form builder. Should you need assistance, we offer no-obligation support options. 

Step 3: Configure Conditional PO Routing

Next, set up your workflow using the drag-and-drop workflow designer. You can also select the purchase order template and customize it accordingly.

Establish conditional routing rules to route POs to relevant parties based on certain conditions. For example, an order exceeding a certain amount may trigger additional routing before the PO is processed by the accounts payable department.

Having a VP or other senior manager review every purchase order isn’t the best use of their time. Conditional rules, like the one above, improve overall efficiency.

Deploy and Track Purchase Orders Automatically

After testing the workflow, deploy it with a single click. To track your purchase order, simply go to your task list and view the built-in audit trail for the PO. You can search for specific POs using data in the form and view the current status at any time.

frevvo comes equipped with a number of built-in workflow analysis reports. Using these reports, it’s easy to track purchase orders, identify bottlenecks, and optimize operational efficiency.

For example, you can easily track all currently open purchase orders by viewing the Active Processes report and drilling down to the purchase order process.

For a detailed overview of workflow analysis and how to use frevvo’s built-in reports to improve productivity, read Workflow Analysis: How to Improve & Optimize Your Processes.

Features to Look For in Purchase Order Tracking Software

There’s no shortage of workflow automation platforms. Here are the features to look for when choosing purchase order tracking software.

No-Code Automated Workflows

Not everybody has the technical know-how to code.

The first thing to look for is a purchase order system with an intuitive interface that anyone can use to create workflows. It should also make it easy to create business rules that route forms to the right approvers.

Here’s an example of what frevvo’s workflow editor looks like:

With the editor, anyone on the team can build their own automated workflows without having to write a single line of code.

Intuitive Form Builder

Forms are a necessary part of the procurement process. Look for software that comes with an easy-to-use form builder.

To avoid wasting time on sending POs back to correct mistakes, the software should also have validation features that check for errors and perform calculations automatically.

Here’s an example of frevvo’s dynamic form builder:

To customize the purchase order form, simply drag any of the elements from the palette on the left side and drop them into the form. You can also configure individual fields. For example, you can make certain fields required or limit what users can input.

Built-In Mobility

As more work gets done on mobile devices, built-in mobility is simply a must. This ensures that employees can get their work done whether they’re on a smartphone or tablet.

Here’s an example of how mobile forms look in frevvo: 

With frevvo, your forms and workflows are mobile-friendly out of the box.

Role-Based Access

Role-based access is another must-have feature. This lets you assign permissions to employees based on their roles and responsibilities. 

Here’s what role-based access control looks like in frevvo:

With these settings, you can specify exactly what users can and can’t access.

Automated Notifications

Whenever a task is assigned to someone, you’ll want that person to be notified immediately. 

Any purchase order tracking software you choose should make it easy to customize and configure notifications.

Users can quickly act on any notifications they receive.

Third-Party Integrations

Look for software that can integrate with your existing systems. 

With frevvo, you can connect your workflow with a SQL database and create dynamic purchase order forms that automatically fill in vendor information.

Here’s an example of how that looks:

Pulling in information from your database cuts down on manual data entry. This saves time and leads to fewer errors. 

Cloud-Based Storage

Physical storage is expensive. Direct costs include paper and ink, while indirect costs include time spent on maintaining file cabinets and searching for certain documents.

Look for a solution that can post data to the cloud. This helps you maintain accurate records and provides an audit trail.

With frevvo, you have the following options on how to send and store data:

• Send email
• Post data to your web application
• Send to Google Drive
• Send to your file system
• Send to SharePoint

In-Depth Reporting

Purchase order tracking software with in-depth reports is a must. 

Measuring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) helps you measure the efficiency of your workflows. They can also help you identify bottlenecks in a process and areas of improvement.

Here are a few reports that are available in frevvo: 

• Active Processes: See a complete breakdown of what workflows are in progress and what their status is.
• Throughout / Productivity: See the average and maximum durations of your workflows — useful for identifying bottlenecks. You can also see a full breakdown of processing times by users and approvers.
• Recent Submission Activity: Get an overview of recent workflow submissions and click the graph to get more details.

Get Started With Purchase Order Tracking

Purchase order workflows are essential for the procurement process. But any inefficiencies can result in higher costs and delays in securing the goods or services your organization needs.

With frevvo’s workflow software, you can easily set up automated workflows and keep track of each purchase order as it moves through each step. The software is fully visual, so there’s no need to hire costly programmers or spend months on development.

Sign up for a 30-day free trial to automate purchase order tracking. You can get started right away with a pre-built workflow or build one entirely from scratch.

The post Automate Purchase Order Tracking in 3 Steps appeared first on frevvo Blog.

Often, invoices go to multiple people in the organization rather than being centralized. A recipient manually forwards the invoice to the accounts payable department for coding and review – usually by email. Someone manually enters invoice data into an internal system, the invoices are paid, and filed away – often in a folder.

It’s incredibly wasteful, error-prone, and costly. According to the Institute of Finance and Management accounts payable professionals spend a mind-boggling 84% of their time trapped in an endless cycle of manual and semi-automated AP processes, including data capture.

With a modern AP automation solution, your employees can stop wasting time on data capture and manual processes and can instead spend it on work that really matters.

What is Accounts Payable (AP) Automation?

AP automation is a set of procedures and tools to automate the everyday things that your finance team does manually. Things like manually entering invoice data into an Excel spreadsheet and then manually emailing that spreadsheets for an approval signature.

AP automation has been around for years. For example, many businesses use optical character recognition (OCR) technology to reduce manual data entry: scan a paper invoice, and the key data is automatically extracted into the system. 

But OCR is still inefficient since you still have to manually process paper, verify the data, and correct any errors. 

These inefficiencies have a real dollars and cents impact – many vendors provide early payment discounts, so unnecessary delays in processing invoices reduce your ability to save money by taking advantage of these discounts.

Similarly, it’s easier to benefit from electronic payment savings when the underlying system itself does not rely on manual processing. You’ll also avoid mistakes like making erroneous or duplicate payments.

The good news is: you no longer need massive budgets or large I.T. investments to benefit from automation. 

Follow these six accounts payable automation best practices to dramatically increase efficiency, improve compliance, and boost productivity for your AP department.

1. Involve Your AP Team From Day One

Ultimately you need the people in your finance department to actually use your automation solution. Otherwise, you’ll just have created or paid for beautiful shelfware.

People are simply more likely to devote their time, effort, and energy into something that they’ve been able to influence. 

Start with a single workflow that’s simple but relatively frequent. Ideally, it should involve several stakeholders and should be an everyday task that they perform routinely during the work day.

Interview the stakeholders and ask them questions like:

• What do you like / dislike about the current process?
• What one or two improvements would have the biggest impact?
• What are the one or two most meaningful sources of delay or errors?

You’ll quickly get a picture of the key areas to focus on automating so you can address real users’ problems.

Include a round or two of user acceptance testing (UAT) so people get a chance to fine tune the solution once they get their hands on it.

Once you’ve rolled out your new automated solution, make sure to periodically review it and continue to solicit feedback. Suffice it to say that you should integrate any usable feedback into your AP solution.

2. Plan for Complexity

Real business processes are almost always complicated. 

In practice, there are all kinds of exceptions and special cases for approvals.

Consider a manager who must approve a purchase requisition for supplies. The request comes in from an employee. The manager could:

• Simply approve the request and forward it to procurement to issue a PO and make the purchase.
• Return the request to the original employee asking for clarifications or corrections.
• Approve the request but obtain one or more additional levels of approval depending on what’s in it. E.g. the grand total exceeds a certain threshold.
• Approve the request but forward it to multiple department heads if individual line items from the purchase requisition are assigned to their budgets.
• Deny the request entirely. (Perhaps the manager knows that the same items were already requested earlier by another employee and this is a duplicate request.)

The reality is that there are almost always multiple options. These rules are usually laid out in an instruction sheet – the first page of a PDF or an Excel tab. They’re long and confusing. People inevitably interpret them incorrectly and either cause delays or, far worse, bypass business standards.

I recommend that you use a workflow diagram to document the workflow you’re automating. A diagram like the one above is incredibly helpful since it makes it easy to communicate a workflow and to get feedback and buy-in.

When discussing a workflow diagram, people will wonder why they even need a particular step or decision point. You’ll weed out unnecessary tasks that have crept in over the years and end up with a simpler workflow. (I’ve seen this happen many times.)

With AP automation tools, you can eliminate confusion and delay since the system encodes these decision points and people don’t have to manually figure out what to do next.

But, it only works if you’ve taken the trouble to document the workflow, simplify to the extent possible, and obtain consensus.

3. Use Modern Software to Automate AP Workflows

Modern automation software goes far beyond technologies like OCR, using online forms and workflows to completely digitize accounts payable processes like invoice and purchase order processing.

Procurement automation software like frevvo fully automates accounts payable processes to eliminate manual tasks from end-to-end.

• Electronic forms ensure accuracy of your purchase order and invoice data. 
• Automated routing, notifications, and escalations remove the need to manually chase down approvals.
• Integration with SQL databases and other business systems decreases unnecessary data entry and the resulting errors.
• It’s easy for busy executives to approve and sign on their mobile devices.
• Documents and data are automatically saved to your document management system (including Google Drive) or your accounting system.
• Built-in reports and dashboards make it easy to monitor KPIs, spot trends, and take rapid action.

4. Focus on the User Experience

Every user of your automation solution is also a consumer of sleek consumer mobile apps that have a polished user experience.

No one expects an AP automation system to include fancy graphics, but no one wants to go back to a user experience from the 1990s either.

Consider following workflow design best practices to maximize adoption and to create a user experience that makes people’s jobs easier as well as enjoyable.

Focus on Mobile

Mobile devices are ubiquitous in the workplace. With the trend towards remote work accelerating, people increasingly want to perform tasks easily using their phones from any location.

But mobile support shouldn’t just mean creating responsive web forms. Make your workflows easier to use on mobile devices by incorporating these mobile-specific capabilities:

Make everything just a bit larger from clickable buttons to form fields to the font size. Mobile screens are small and tiny little icons and buttons are hard to tap with a finger. 

Make fields, especially text area controls big enough to view their entire contents without scrolling. It’s particularly annoying to scroll individual controls inside a mobile form.

Limit the amount of information on a single screen. Most business processes have lengthy forms, so paginate them so people aren’t overwhelmed.

Present a single column layout. It’s easier to scan quickly in a single direction (top to bottom).

Finally, make use of mobile-specific features. We’ve found the most useful ones are letting people sign digitally with their finger on the touchscreen for approval and uploading images captured with the camera as attachments.

Use Thoughtful Design

Don’t complicate people’s lives by making them think about what a particular design element means. Pay close attention to simple things like:

Place all buttons in the same place on the screen relative to the other items in the workflow. Make primary and secondary action buttons the same color everywhere. Obviously, the primary action button should stand out.

Label the buttons so the action is self-explanatory. For example, if clicking a button sends the electronic invoice to a VP for approval, the button label should say “Send to VP for approval” and not just “Continue” or “Next”.

Place labels above form fields rather than to one side. Eye tracking studies have shown that they help users complete tasks more quickly and with less cognitive load.

Where possible, use meaningful icons, placeholder text and contextual help to clarify intent and eliminate confusion. They’ll help reduce errors – a major source of inefficiency, cost, and frustration.

Pay Attention to Performance

“I love watching the spinning wheel while my data loads” said no user ever. 

We’re all getting increasingly impatient. Even a few seconds of wait time lead to increased abandonment and an almost irrationally negative experience.

Take the time to test your workflow automation solution under real-world conditions. Make sure it’s fast and responsive, even if that means you have to redesign elements. (For example, you might need to break up a form into two parts or use lower resolution images.)

5. Leverage the Power of Integrations

Data used in AP processes like purchase orders and invoices almost certainly resides in external systems. When your automation system can seamlessly integrate with data and documents saved in external systems, it saves time and improves the user experience.

Auto-fill form data

For example, consider an employee who needs to purchase materials to replenish inventory. 

First, they fill out a purchase requisition. A typical requisition contains a table with line items for each part that they need. Filling out the details of each line item manually – internal part number, description, MSRP – is tedious and error prone.

Most people hate typing in unnecessary information and going back to correct errors later. In the above scenario, the data might reside in a SQL database. When the system is integrated with the database, it can pull in this information automatically. Let the employee pick a part from a drop down and avoid typing anything. The drop down options themselves are populated from SQL so they’re always up to date.

When they pick a part, the system can query the database and pull the SKU, description, MSRP and other relevant information and auto-fill it into the form.

Auto-save data and documents

When an AP process completes, it’s very convenient if the data is automatically uploaded to business systems and documents of record (supplier invoices, purchase orders) are automatically stored in a secure electronic document management system.

The system can also notify participants that the workflow has completed and send them relevant documents by email. 

Auto-login to save time

No one wants to remember and manage yet another set of credentials. Worse yet, it creates avoidable security risks.

Choose workflow automation tools that integrate with your existing authentication framework – Active Directory, SAML, etc. If possible, implement single sign on (SSO) so that users are automatically and securely authenticated to the system, their credentials and permissions are managed in one place, and the overall system remains secure.

6. Analyse, Iterate, and Optimize Continuously

No one gets it 100% right the first time. Accounts payable automation, like most things, is a constantly evolving journey. You should be prepared to evolve your workflows to maximize efficiency.

Even though you’ve documented the workflow and obtained consensus, you’ll find that people diverge in their opinions after using the system for a while. They’ll have suggestions for changes and improvements.

Go back and interview real users, ask them about their experiences: what’s truly helpful, and what could make their lives even easier? Implement the best suggestions – nothing delights users more than making a real impact.

The right workflow analysis software can help you pinpoint bottlenecks in the process with graphical reports and dashboards. Maybe the electronic invoice automation process is unnecessarily held up by the CFO. As a result, your company is unable to take advantage of early payment discounts that can save a lot of money.

Armed with real data, you can bring about real and meaningful change in the organization.

It’s especially crucial as your solution matures and you have several AP automation processes in production use.

Final Thoughts

It’s the 21st century and the speed of modern business continues to accelerate. Slow, manual AP automation processes place your organization at a distinct disadvantage in a fast-paced, competitive business environment.

Fortunately, simple and affordable solutions are available so you can reap the massive efficiency benefits of accounts payable automation without needing to make large, upfront investments in software and I.T. staff.Simple workflow automation software like frevvo can make following these best practices a lot easier. Try it free for 30 days.

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The post 6 Proven Accounts Payable Automation Best Practices appeared first on frevvo Blog.