In today’s market scenario, delivering products to customers in time is one of the major challenges faced by the manufacturing industries. Errors and delays abound when internal processes for managing the purchase order approval workflow are manual. A single missing approval for a critical raw material purchase sometimes can cause a total production line breakdown thereby severely impacting efficiency, output, and even the company’s bottom line. You’ll witness smoother end-to-end processing and fewer errors when your purchasing requests flow through an automated approval system. Continue reading to learn how to automate your purchase order approval process.

No matter what size your organization is, automation is required in one way or another. Today, access to technology is much easy with computers, laptops, and smartphones accessing the information through the internet. So this can be the reason that making automation for the process of making purchases much faster than it also saves costs and avoid making wrong decisions. 

Advantages of Automation of Purchase Order Approval Process

Automating the procurement workflow is good for your business, as it ensures that operations are completed as quickly as possible without bottlenecks, the responsibilities are fixed and shared, and your investment is spent only where it is absolutely necessary.

Here mentioning some major benefits of automating PO approval workflow:

• Cost savings
• Eliminating bottlenecks
• Shared Responsibilities
• Improving accessibility to the information
• Simplifies audit

Automating purchase order workflow entails much more than simply getting rid of paper POs. The process of creating requisition, approval, creation of purchase order, & approval of the purchase order– all of these steps should be online, accessible & rule-based with automatic alerts at every stage.  The transparency, ability to retrieve information and ability to track the purchase order progress is the most significant advantage of purchase order automation. Simply by establishing a standardized approach to keep track of orders, suppliers, and items, you’ll have access to insights and analytics that can help you plan your next step.

It is equally important to integrate PO Approval Workflow automation within your existing procurement processes. When it comes to selecting a software solution, you have a lot of options, but in general, a great procurement software will integrate with your existing ERP Software in a seamless manner, provide centralized, cloud-based document and data management, and include a mobile app that allows users to access information from a variety of devices.

What’s Wrong With The Manual Confirmation Workflow for Your Purchase Order?

There is a reason why most procurement professionals are switching to digital processes that is because it’s time to optimize purchase order processes.

The problem with manual order confirmation processes is that they are so inefficient. They are not just slow; persistent data entry errors and lack of transparency also mean increased operating costs, inordinate delays, stopping of production lines & internal conflict, and blame games

If the purchase order (PO) is not approved or not approved in time, it is difficult to identify the last contact point. How do you know who is responsible for a failure or delay if you don’t know what went wrong?

Even more worrying is that if you work globally in dispersed or remote groups, you can’t rely on manual purchase approval processes.

Sending back and forth physical papers is simply not realistic in today’s digital age. While relying on emails approvals can quickly get out of order.

Digital purchase order confirmation workflows are the way forward if you want to create a sustainable and scalable foundation. If your processes are digital, you can start repeating repetitive tasks to increase efficiency and stability.

In short, those who do not digitize or automate purchase order confirmation workflows will be left behind.

If you don’t digitize or automate PO approval process, you’ll work hard to keep up the pace. How can you automate the PO Approval Process? Let us discuss this here.

Simple Steps to automate the Purchase Order Approval Process

Following a few basic best practices to ensure improved productivity and efficiency after you’ve chosen your purchase order software is the next step.

• Setup Rules and policies related to the creation of the buy requisition, creation of purchase orders, approval of purchase orders
• Setup rules to move requests through the hierarchy chain without any manual intervention
• Identify and remove any regular points of failure or bottlenecks in every purchase order’s journey, starting with the buy requisition.
• Established performance, reliability, and efficiency benchmarks and requirements including timelines. This holds true for vendor performance, internal business practices, and procurement functionality as a whole. You can employ data analysis to get insights into your overall purchase order approval workflow efficacy and uncover ignored difficulties
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• Workflows shall be used to manage orders  above specified value. An assessment procedure for such purchases will ensure that existing policies are followed while also permitting discretionary purchases/changing buy priorities—for example, deferring a modest non-significant purchase in favour of a major urgent spend. So streamline workflows before you proceed.

PO Approval Software from Spring Time Software

The Purchase Order Approval system from Spring Time Software allows your chosen staff to approve the purchase order before it is sent to the vendor. By automatically and with the press of a button, the tool facilitates strong email communication by sending requests to approve PO to the approving authority, intimation about PO approval to the buyer & rejection to the buyer, and authorized POs in pdf format to the vendor, while keeping a track of all the related communication in an easy to use, simplified and intuitive interface.  Further, since the solution is a combination of a Mobile APP and cloud-based software, and integrates with your existing ERP – it enables the stakeholders to execute and manage the procurement process in an uncluttered and efficient manner. Especially if you are using the VISUAL ERP System from INFOR – the integration is seamless.

By using the Purchase Order Approval procurement software from Spring Time Software helps you for easy purchase order generation. Spring Time Software makes it simple for your teams to connect with suppliers using automatic email communications and a web-based interface for vendors also.

Benefits of Spring Time PO Approval Software

Requesting purchases and approval procedures match the organizational structure of your business, which includes different teams and roles. With Spring Time Software purchase order software,  take full control of your procurement process in an easy and efficient manner. Further, Spring Time Software can be customized to fit your departments’ purchase order approval workflow. To make things even better, smart alerts allow you to approve purchase orders even when on the move, all you need is a mobile or a laptop with an internet connection.

Adopting Automation for Your Business

Implementing automation for a purchase order approval process should not be something that only big companies should do, it should also be done by the small and medium companies who wish to have strict control over the procurement process.

Spring Time Software’s PO Approval Management is workflow management software that simplifies order confirmation and gives you the freedom to focus on more important work. The real power of automation is now Flexible, reliable, and more readily available to all organizations than ever before.

Final Thoughts

As more businesses see the value of purchase automation software, they’re also looking for software that improves the entire procurement process and simplifies the approval workflow process with efficient, easy-to-use features. Spring Time Software can provide the best solution without any doubt.. Customers benefit from cutting-edge capabilities that help them streamline their overall operation. Spring Times Software PO Approval App is more than simply a utility; it’s an investment that will boost departmental interoperability and improve company-vendor communication. Spring Time Software can be trusted for a variety of reasons. It’s simple to use and performs admirably in a variety of corporate settings. In an increasingly digitized environment, it’s a cutting-edge answer. You’ll be in good company because STS offers years of experience in building software solutions for manufacturing and other industries.