In a highly competitive market, you need to ensure that all aspects of your business run like clockwork. Otherwise there is no chance of staying ahead of the pack. It’s easy to focus more on what’s going on out in the field where revenue is generated and not examine the efficiency of internal workings as closely.
With efficient business processes, you can truly gain the edge on your competition. Have you considered that your existing purchase order system may be holding you back? Automate your workflows to increase efficiency, save costs, and provide superior customer service – and to make follow-up, review, analysis and sharing information so much better.
Both SharePoint and Office can be used for your purchase order system.
Signs You Should Ditch Your Current Purchase Order System
Look for signs that indicate it’s time to dump your current purchasing program for something more powerful:
- Long delays between order placement and delivery. A PO system can involve time-consuming data entry, requisition and authorization procedures. This is true whether you work on a manual system or operate a paperless system based on spreadsheets.
- Increased costs of maintaining your PO system. As your business grows, you may have to take on new staff to handle the increased workflow. This obviously has a cost implication for your operation, thereby reducing its efficiency.
- Increasing errors, or at least never reducing them. PO staff may be subjected to pressure from line management for order delivery. This increases the risk of errors creeping into data entry for orders. When under pressure, staff may also be tempted to bypass certain key steps in the order requisition or authorization procedure.
- Insufficient communication between internal departments. A purchase order system should not operate in a vacuum; any order must be linked to both stock and financial management systems to eliminate the incidence of over-ordering and to provide for efficient accounting and payment of suppliers.
Sound familiar? Then it’s time to move to using SharePoint or Office 365 to run your purchase order system.
Benefits of SharePoint / Office 365 for a Purchase Order System
First off, both SharePoint and Office 365 are best known as platforms for storing data, collaborating on updating it, and sharing it. Therefore, these platforms have powerful in-built tools to make purchase ordering more reliable, organized and less prone to error. You can use either SharePoint or Office 365 to track orders and report on the efficiency of the entire process, or on one stage of the process, or even on specific operators and stock items. And there’s no need to employ more people to do all this.
OK, so some other PO software platforms can do those things. But… they don’t necessarily integrate well with your current technology and may not be as customizable.
Both SharePoint and Office 365 offer several benefits over other purchase order systems:
- Easy integration with other business and financial software applications, databases, and systems.
- Customizable to serve the unique demands and requirements of your operation.
- Effective, real-time communication between all parties and departments involved in the purchasing process.
- Better control over the process through efficient tracking and reporting.
On top of all that, SharePoint and Office 365 are powerful enough to be used in every aspect of your operation and still integrate seamlessly with your email, calendars, mobile devices and – most importantly – team members.
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