SharePoint vs M-Files: The Tool For AP Proficiency & Purchase Order Automation in Tulsa
Generating capabilities in your company workflows is a pivotal initial stage toward digital transformation, back-office innovation, and giving your organization an edge in a growingly aggressive professional landscape.
Tangible arrangements and disjointed processes with impasses make synergy, efficiency, visibility, and accountability to partners very difficult.
By means of accounts payable automation, you could achieve paperless operations into your organization and streamline workflows like purchase orders, invoicing, payment processing, procurement, and data input workflows.
Digitizing these kinds of business processes creates more proficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater cost savings, and improved employment of your personnel.
Within this manual, we’re reviewing two of the most famous tools designed for AP efficiency and purchase order digitization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our goal is to help you select the appropriate solutions stack and collaborate so you could develop and expedite your AP digital transformation.
But before we begin with our product assessment, let’s talk through what purchase order mechanization is and how it produces higher efficiency for your AP workflows.
What is Purchase Order Automation?
Purchase order automation is the notion of employing business tools with machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the purchase order system and its related tasks.
Via mechanization, purchase requisitions could be spontaneously forwarded to the fitting team to initiate the validation process. Then, as soon as the order is approved, it is mechanically forwarded to the vendor.
Although this may not look like much at first glance, digitizing the purchasing process eliminates the requirement for a physical process, tangible schemes, and streamlines the standard time-consuming workflow.
As an example, with purchase order solution or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, you can develop automated purchase requisitions that suppliers can comprehend followed by having the details mechanically integrated into your accounting software.
This presumably small aptitude substantially streamlines the process, drastically reduces the need for by-hand interference, and consequently, amplifies proficiency within your Accounts Payable department.
The Benefits of AP and Purchase Order Automation
We talked about various of the gains of AP mechanization in the previous section, but to be certain that you get the point, let's dissect these advantages in absolute terms.
Automated data entry and storage
Improved efficiency through more automation and less manual interference
Improved precision because of less human error
Increased transparency into operations via digitized processes
Actual-time reporting, analytics, and auditing to continue to improve capacities
Reformed distribution network and vendor relationships and self-operated portal
Greater ability to oversee for security and conformity
Now that we’ve reviewed what AP and purchase order automation is, how it works, and why it’s vital, let’s begin our product assessment on Sharepoint as opposed to M-Files.
Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review
Coming in this section, we’re going to first take a look at a fundamental breakdown between the costing and capabilities of SharePoint as well as M-Files, succeeded by a deeper dive on their AP and purchase requisition mechanization qualities.
Basic Price and Features Breakdown
Although this chapter provides a fine general simultaneous evaluation, it doesn’t tell us much about how these tools manage workflows like electronic purchase order. Thus in this succeeding portion, we’re giving a synopsis of each tool and how it administers this essential operation.
Microsoft SharePoint Overview
SharePoint is one of the most prominent and endorsed enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS tools, due to its strong association with other prevalent Microsoft solutions like Excel, Outlook, and Word.
As it relates to purchase order mechanization, SharePoint allows you to address each one of the problems you could be facing with your present-day, manual purchase order system.
Order Tracking
To initiate, by utilizing Microsoft SharePoint and combining Office 365 tools, team members can track purchase requests at any stage from request authorizations to delivery.
Customization
SharePoint and Office 365 also enable your organization to adapt your automated purchase request scheme to your individual instructions and requirements.
Components you may custom tailor within SharePoint involve the template of the purchase requisition forms, line items, multi-level approvals, role assignments, and filters based on location, type, payment terms, and more.
Communication
SharePoint and Office 365 could also facilitate correspondence among sectors. When the PO procedure has begun, SharePoint could prompt a programmed email to all relevant parties to alert them that the operation has begun and once more as soon as it’s complete.
Interactive Dashboards
Another significant element of mechanization is the insight into efficiency and workflow perceptibility. SharePoint delivers this by authorizing you to monitor purchase order progress through an interactive dashboard.
With the dashboard system, you could monitor purchase order history throughout sections, view the breakdown of approval vs denial ratio, and follow the position of existing POs.
Vigorous Integrations
Furthermore, SharePoint offers great adaptability in that it can work with with most programs across departments for greater collaboration.
Such as, if a branch submits a purchase order for a network printer; as soon as the request is actioned, SharePoint can spontaneously develop an entry in your finance tool for the new IT resource.
Now that we’ve discussed what SharePoint can do in terms of helping you automate your AP tasks, let’s proceed to M-Files.
M-Files Overview
M-Files is a robust enterprise content management (ECM) solution that offers both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid version determined by your business demands.
Its interface is modeled off the Windows Explorer web engine making it convenient to understand and implement for parties that are accustomed to the Windows ecosystem.
Furthermore, M-Files offers state-of-the-art functionality that enables organizations to digitize tasks and processes suchlike purchase requisition automation. Let’s study those competencies.
Input
With M-Files you may acquire invoices from primary or distributed locations and digitize the collection of important data associated with your purchase order and authorization processes.
Data entry
As an extension of the input capability, M-Files enables users to distinguish and withdraw data from purchase order areas to promote the mechanization and conveying process. Additionally, M-Files permits you to input any relevant organizational regulations, validation details and includes directory searches to help ensure precision across the procedure.
Matching and coding
As an advanced functional scope, M-Files could carry out conforming of POs and GL coding of non-PO invoices in your ERP operation to facilitate structure and routing.
Mechanized approvals
The M-Files platform can manage and mechanize as much of the confirmation workflow as you wish. This includes handling, queues, routing, response, and aging records. Any purchase order that fails the approval procedure can be revised manually and then reinstated into the automation flow for authorization.
Automatic storage of approved POs
Once validation has been issued, purchase requisitions can be transmitted to finance spontaneously to conclude handling and storage in a primary cache.
How Wave Can Assist You in Enforcing Your Purchase Order Automation Platform in Tulsa
Holding your business competitive today requires rationalizing your processes and eliminating the hindrances from your workflows that decrease your capability and efficacy. Additionally, it involves selecting the right business systems to complete your tactical growth aims.
At Wave, we can be of assistance by studying the foundational aspects of your business and with gradual digital conversion and company system automation, revamp them.
We use a blended set of technology in accordance with your business requirements to digitize your laborious processes around gathering, organizing, and filing data so that it's easy to locate and use whenever, from wherever.
We can be of assistance in individualizing your AP digitization software to fulfill your business's precise requirements and we happily collaborate with more than 60 industry-acknowledged ECM and DMS solutions including SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files, and Oracle.
If you’d like to discover more, contact us today and we can schedule a time to chat.