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Implementing An Agile Procurement System That Works For You
Being able to react quickly gives companies a decided advantage in today’s fast-paced business world. Agile procurement systems, for example, let your company adapt to changes in supply availability and prices without any wasted time. This saves money and time while also giving you a business advantage.
When your procurement needs to adapt quickly, using a manual PO system is nearly as bad as not having one at all. Implementing a procurement system that’s agile enough to keep up with your company’s needs means you need a purchasing system flexible enough to support your goals. Here are five ways procurement automation can support you as you develop an agile procurement system.
1) Quick, Controlled Shopping
If you want an agile procurement system, then purchasing employees need the ability to make quick purchases. You also need a certain level of control, though, to curtail maverick spending.
NextProcess’ purchase order system lets you set up a convenient shopping portal so users can purchase approved items directly from vendor’s websites. Because this can drastically speed up the procurement process, making your system agile becomes much easier.
2) Automatic Policy Compliance
Manually checking purchase orders (POs) to make sure they comply with company policy is tedious. But you do need to enforce policy, and you need away to reassure who are concerned that agile procurement might compromise company interests.
Our system is highly configurable, so you get to set up custom tolerances that work for your company while maintaining flexibility. You can even set up variable approval structures for different types of POs or items.
3) Streamlined PO Processing
To keep your purchasing agile, you need a system that won’t get bogged down while processing. Using the power of business process automation, purchase order software combines routing, approval, and emailing the vendor.
In a manual system, a purchase order could get lost, misfiled, or delayed going from one person to another for approval before even arriving at the vendor. An automated system takes care of these problems. It also makes it easy to match invoices to POs once your order arrives.
4) Data For Planning
An agile purchasing team needs the resources to plan ahead, collaborate, and take action based on reliable data. And that’s what an automated purchasing software system can give them.
The purchasing system is designed to track purchase orders and collect all relevant data. And it stores everything in an easily-searched system. You can quickly access history records, track budgets, match purchasing information with invoices, and generate detailed reports.
5) Real-time Information
You need access to real-time information if your system is going to be truly agile. No matter how accurate your records are or how useful your purchasing system is, they’re not much help if they aren’t available when you need them.
A cloud-based software system like NextProcess updates in real time and is accessible anywhere. Users can securely log into the platform from any internet capable device to review, report, or approve purchasing decisions. To see exactly how this, and other features, work, contact us today and set up a free demonstration.
