SharePoint vs OpenText: The Ultimate Purchase Order Automation Platform in Arlington

Considering the current competitive landscape, organizations of varying sizes must discover ways to increase efficiency and productivity, while lowering expenses wherever necessary.

One of the best places to start is with business process automation (BPA). With BPA, you could simplify tedious and taxing tasks, lessen the load on your colleagues, and upgrade your workflows by developing productivity and amplifying reliability.

There are a variety of tasks and business sectors that can benefit from BPA. Among of the most prevalent adopters are Accounts Payable teams who can use BPA to automate payroll, invoicing, and purchase order processing.

In this piece, we’ll focus on purchase order automation - how it operates, why automation is a great solution for this area, and evaluate two of our preferred PO process automation software: Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

To begin, let us go over what purchase order automation is and how it functions.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Automated purchase order solutions utilize business software equipped with robotic process automation (RPA) technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to automate the purchase order procedure.

Via automation, purchase requests can be generated in a few clicks from pre-formatted layouts, and routing functionality can send authorizations straight to the supply chain contractor after the approval workflow is done.

This removes the need for physical involvement, document filing processes, and makes the operation faster and more controllable.

The Purchase Order Process

Though the purchase order process might differ from company to company, the following provides a great example of a conventional, hand-operated purchase order process.

Step 1: The first step is purchase order creation.

Step 2: Then another colleague will review and approve or reject the purchase order.

Step 3: After that, the purchase order should be forwarded to the merchant.

Step 4: Once finished, the company will then receive its service or product.

Step 5: The organization will then get the vendor invoice.

Step 6: The invoice will need to be verified and confirmed, and payment is delivered to the supplier.

Step 7: The final step of the purchasing procedure is to archive the associated records to provide an audit trail.

This may not seem like a great deal of steps, but for this process to run efficiently, all parties from your AP staff, to sales representatives, suppliers, and executives, must all deliver correct, prompt responses. Several businesses can confirm that this is grueling.

There are several benefits to automating this process, which we will review in the following section.

The Benefits of an Automated Purchase Order Process

There are numerous advantages to adopting purchase order automation software for your business. These include:

• Cost Savings

• Time Saved from Manual Tasks

• Real-Time Insight Into Activities

• A Quicker, More Optimized Purchasing Method

• Reduced Human Error

• Greater Utilization of Human Resources

Now that we have established what purchase order automation entails, the aspects of the procedure that could be automated, and the advantages of purchase order tools, let’s now go over a couple of our preferred automation solutions, OpenText and Microsoft SharePoint.

SharePoint vs OpenText

SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is an enterprise content management software (ECM) that, at its core, is a program for monitoring, collaborating on, and publishing data.

Having said that, with the addition of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can quickly adapt SharePoint’s functionality to incorporate automation to many of your AP procedures.

Pros

• Fantastic UX/UI

• Short learning curve for new users

• Metadata search improves searchability

Cons

• No integrated data capture or imaging capability

• Weak at meeting compliance standards in a few sectors

• SharePoint Online is not made to fulfill Corporate ECM requirements

OpenText Overview

OpenText is also an ECM solution but offers advanced add-ons that allow firms to automate processes, improve organizational activities, and reduce the risk related to administration and intellectual property.

Pros

• A superior option for business with a high level of compliance

• Strong document management, classification, filtering, and access authorizations

• OpenText Documentum expands its features with case and inventory management functionality.

Cons

• Complex UX/UI

• Usually requires expert optimization to guarantee that it satisfies organizational needs

• Can be expensive for enterprise functionality and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Diagram

How Wave Can Assist You in Implementing Purchase Order Automation in Arlington

The fact is that physical workflows in your accounting system basically slow your company down, cause logjams and process headaches, and ultimately hurt your progress and scalability.

Longer than necessary billing cycles can also lead to increased costs associated with purchase order management and invoice processing, limit your visibility and control, and can disrupt your merchant connections.

At Wave, we can assist you in streamlining your accounts payable (AP) processes completely, including data entry, purchase orders, procurement, payments, approval process, invoicing, and even file storage platforms.

We work with SAP, Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, and ERP and ECM tools like the ones we have mentioned in this article and also Xerox, MFiles, Oracle, and much more.

We can assist you in implementing your AP automation solution locally, in the cloud, or in a hybrid framework contingent on your organizational rules, budget, and compliance guidelines.

To learn more, contact us right now for a free consultation.