Whether you are starting up your own small business or you serve as the department head for purchasing in a long-established company, purchase requisition automation makes sense.
You have a variety of options for purchase requisition solutions.
They are more accessible and affordable than ever before so now is the perfect time to update your purchasing system.
Faster processing times, better control, and cost savings are just a few of the benefits you can take advantage of with an automated purchase requisition platform.
How The Purchase Request and Requisition Process Works
A purchase requisition process refers to the flow of events that are triggered when your department needs to make a purchase.
From the discovery of a business need such as office supplies to the creation of the purchase request all the way through to the delivery of products, there are a number of tasks that must be completed before the purchasing team can fulfill the request.
Using a system for purchase requisition makes it easy for your business to generate purchase requisition documents from nearly any location as long as there is an internet connection.
Steps in a Purchasing Process
After someone in the company has determined and need, they begin the purchase requisition workflow by creating the requisition.
Usually, this involves filling out an internal document called a requisition form.
That purchase requisition form will go through the internal approval process which usually involves approval from the Department head or supervisor.
From there, the requisition is routed to the purchasing department.
The procurement department will review the request. They may approve or reject the case after the review. In the event that it is rejected for lack of information, it is sent back to the requesting department for the necessary changes and then routed back to the necessary approvers.
After the purchase requisition is approved by everyone as dictated by the approval workflow, the official purchase order is created. It includes the specifics such as quantities types and prices that have been previously agreed upon with the chosen vendor.
The purchase order is then sent to the supplier and once it is accepted, the purchase order becomes a legally binding contract.
The supplier delivers the products or services on the specified date. The warehouse or receiving team checks the order for quality and processes any returns that may be required.
A three-way matching process checks the invoice, purchase order, and purchase request to confirm that it is accurate. This ensures that the accounting department is only paying for items that they have both ordered and received.
The purchase order is closed once all of the documentation requirements are met.
At this point, the invoice from the supplier is entered into the accounts payable and will be paid in accordance with the terms and conditions agreed upon between you as the buyer and them as the seller.
Of course, this is the purchase requisition process in broad strokes. In reality, there are a variety of details that could go wrong at any stage of the process of creating and efficiencies and losses.
This is especially true if you are still relying on a manual paper-based solution as things can get lost and delayed as they move from desk to desk in the approval workflow.
Automating your purchasing process is one of the best things you can do for your organization. It reduces errors, improves productivity, and frees the procurement team to focus efforts on other value-added activities.
The Answer Lies in E-Procurement
An e-procurement solution helps streamline your purchase requisition process. Investing in an e-commerce solution that’s tailored to your organization’s needs provides you with a number of benefits such as:
- Elimination of paperwork
- Cost savings
- Shorter purchase-to-pay cycle
- Improved employee productivity
- Better spend visibility
- Improved vendor performance management
- Error reduction
- Transparency of operation
E-Procurement Core Functionality
Hearing that a procurement system can help improve your business process doesn’t seem all that impressive unless you understand how it works.
E-procurement systems have modules that help manage the various procurement functions throughout the organization.
These modules, in turn, build multiple workflows to automate and streamline the process throughout your company.
An e-procurement solution will handle:
Purchase Requisition Processing
Today’s e-procurement software makes it easy to create purchase requisitions and Route them through the necessary approval workflows automatically.
This minimizes delays and bottlenecks in the system. After the requisitions are approved, the software automatically converts them to purchase orders.
Purchase Order Management
Your organization will be able to organize purchase orders the best way you see fit using their e-procurement software.
You can track multiple purchase orders and manage them all in a central location.
You can also use a customized budget, user permissions, workflows, and policies so that everything matches white your employees are already used to doing.
Or, if you find changes are necessary to remove and efficiencies from your current manual process, the software makes it easy for your team to learn the new way to do things.
Vendor Management
Managing your vendors can be quite difficult without a centralized platform to help you. E-procurement offers that centralized database to capture all of your vendor information.
This allows your procurement team to better manage performance, negotiate better deals with suppliers and ultimately ensure quality.
Invoice Management
Invoicing mistakes can be costly and have a major impact on supplier relationships, cash flow, and your bottom line.
Using procurement software helps match invoices and order receipts accurately and Route them through the necessary approval processes to your financial software as quickly as possible to maximize your invoice processes efficiency.
Contract Management
To maximize your procurement process, you must also have a contract management system in place. With an e-procurement system, you can centralize your contract management by attaching documents to each vendor.
You can also control who has access to the information with user-specific permissions, and see who takes what actions and when with the audit trail.
Why Choose PLANERGY for Your Purchase Requisition Process
If you’re looking for an effective way for your company to manage its purchase requisition processes, PLANERGY has everything you need.
With a user-friendly design, you can customize the interface to easily meet your company’s requirements.
PLANERGY allows you to automate your workflows effortlessly to boost productivity and efficiency. The web-based application allows you to access PLANERGY from anywhere on an Internet available device as long as there is an internet connection without a platform-specific app.
This allows you to approve purchase requisitions and purchase orders on the go to avoid delays.
Reporting tools make it easy for you to get actionable and in-depth insights into your process performance so you can make improvements when and where necessary.
Data remains secure in the cloud and with user permissions provides conditional access so that only those who need to see the data are able to.
