P2P Paperless Purchasing (Pete's Story)
Paperless Purchasing is about improving productivity and making information on purchase requisitions, order, deliveries and purchase invoice approvals immediately available by addressing the problems of a manual purchasing system.
The Problem:
A manual purchasing system
Pete has lots of piles of paperwork. There are the purchase order piles, the delivery note piles, the purchase invoice piles and they are spread all over the organisation - and the content of every piece of paper is invisible to all. It is hardly surprising that some get lost which just adds to the problem.
The accounts department is also living in the dark. They know that the organisation is continually spending money, but they have no information to work with until the purchase invoice is finally approved and posted to the accounts – many weeks after the original purchasing commitment was made.
And everyone is chasing bits of paper. The suppliers want to know why their invoice has not been paid, the management want to know why a critical supplier has placed their account on hold and the accounts department want to know where the purchase invoice approvals are, so they can close the month end accounts.
Pete is so busy because his organisation relies on a manual paper-based system.
The Solution:
Life with Compleat Spend Control
Pete doesn’t do paperwork anymore, because there isn’t any. The introduction of Compleat Spend Control has turned all the lights on for Pete.
Before Compleat, all the information about what the organisation had ordered, what it had received, what had been invoiced, what was awaiting approval and what was waiting for a credit note was on a piece of paper, somewhere in a pile on someone’s desk, in a file or in the internal mail. Pete was permanently in the dark as nothing was visible and Pete spent most of his working life looking for a piece of paper to answer the question of where it was in the process.
Compleat removed all the paper and replaced it with a single, seamless, paperless process from the creation of a request to purchase, through approval and budget checking to purchase order, through receipting (where desired) and purchase invoice capture, approval and posting automatically into the accounts system.
Visibility & Real-time Integration
Compleat delivered a single electronic document containing the entire history of the transaction and its current status at any moment in time. Everyone that needs to know about it can now see it at any time, from anywhere that is on the company network or connected to the internet. Pete doesn’t get any calls about paperwork, though he does still hear from suppliers chasing payment. But he has all the answers at his fingertips and spends most of his time chasing credit notes.
The Finance Director is also noticing the difference. No more emergency calls from irate colleagues because a critical supplier has put the account on stop for non-payment. If an invoice is queried, Pete knows about it and can chase it through, getting agreement and the appropriate credit note whilst keeping the supplier in the loop. The approver just gets on with their day job.
The change in policy to inform all suppliers that all purchase invoices without an official order number would simply be returned is paying dividends. The suppliers learnt very quickly - as did the staff who tried to buck the system with verbal orders - they don’t want another call from the Finance Director.
Purchase orders are matching deliveries, purchase invoices are matching the orders and the purchasing process is flowing swiftly and directly into the accounting system. The Finance Director’s board colleagues are also happy, as the vast majority of their purchase invoice approvals are a simple electronic “tick in the box” saving them so much time on such a tedious job.
And everyone knows that the right price is paid on everything that is being purchased and on the correct payment terms.
The business has Compleat Spend Control. It is fast, visible and efficient. Everyone is wondering how on earth they managed before.
About Compleat Purchase to Pay (P2P)
Compleat P2P software is a 100% browser based application designed specifically to be used by staff involved in the purchasing process that have little or no experience or expertise of utilising business automation software. Staff user training can be achieved in as little as one hour, demonstrating the unique “ease of use” of Compleat.
Compleat P2P can be deployed on a Microsoft SQL Server platform either locally or within a hosted environment.
Compleat provides tight “packaged” integration with most leading accounting software products including Infor FMS SunSystems, Microsoft Dynamics GP, SAP Business One, Pegasus Opera II & 3, Sage 50 / 200 / 500 / 1000 and CODA Dream. The range of supported accounting systems is being continually extended.
Compleat also provide Compleat Employee Expenses automation.