When I first joined Compleat, I discovered that some products dedicated to automating the purchase process were tackling problems I had never dealt with in my career as a marketer, but not CompleatOrder. That one hit home.
Here at Compleat, we organise quite a few events every year: In 2016, we exhibited at Charity Finance Summit, the Business Show, and FinTech Connect Live. For each event, I had to deal with many different suppliers, some offering the same products, and some others providing services we could purchase from other suppliers we already had done business with.
How could I stay afloat of every step of the purchasing process, considering that I don’t manage my own budget, whilst always making sure my Director knew which pocket of hers I want to invest for our events?
We are in May and heading to Accountex 2017 this week. Now that we are almost done with organising yet another event, I want to share how dealing with suppliers has changed for me since I started using a tool designed to automate the requisition process.
In my early years as a marketer, every time I had to liaise with a supplier, I needed to keep track of everything I needed to buy, compare prices and, once selected the one offering the best product, or service for the available budget, I would proceed, blindly, with requesting approval for my spend.
The past
When my CEO talks about how Finance is living in the dark ages, I think about the way I used to be forced to submit a pro-forma invoice before the purchase would even be considered. What if the company wasn’t in the position to create one? Countless times, I had to spend way more I had originally planned, simply because the online shop offering the best price could not provide a pro-forma invoice.
After submitting the pro-forma invoice, I would receive a reply from my colleague in Finance asking who the supplier was and if we could please use a supplier already saved in the system. If we had never worked with somebody able to produce an item for us, then I had to fill a “New supplier form” and return it to Finance. They would then notify me and I could finally get another email from them regarding the pro-forma invoice.
The change
Purchasing goods needs to solve problems, not cause nightmares and confusion. Who is my requisition with? Have I already sent all the documents needed to get the supplier approved? So much hustle!
Now that I work with CompleatOrder, raising a requisition means I only need to fill out a form digitally. As I fill the required fields, I immediately know what information we already have about the supplier, if any. This means I won’t have any emails from Finance chasing information I was not aware I should have provided and I won’t be asked to come back to the portal to provide details about the purchase I want to make after having the supplier approved. Everything can be communicated at the same time, dispatched to the relevant departments and processed rather than in a fragmented, time-wasting sequence of actions.
Of course, the system is connected to my inbox, which means I don’t need to wait for a phone call, or to monitor the system until my PO is ready.
Compleat’s range of solutions cover every step of the process needed from purchase to payment, and automating requisitions, new supplier registrations, and purchase orders approvals, is only a small portion of what can be achieved with CompleatP2P.
If you are curious to learn how Compleat can help your business, why not register for our free webinar about purchase-to-pay? You can register for our next free webinar accessing our Events page, or request a personalised demo with our experts filling the form on the contact us page.