SharePoint vs OpenText: The Best Purchase Order Automation Tool in Durham

In the current competitive landscape, companies of all sizes must find ways to boost efficiency and productivity, while reducing expenditures wherever possible.

An excellent place to start is with business process automation (BPA). With BPA, you can streamline repetitive and time-consuming processes, ease the load on your staff, and enhance your system by developing productivity and boosting accuracy.

There are a variety of tasks and business fields that could take advantage of BPA. One of the most common adopters are Accounts Payable teams who can use BPA to automate invoicing, purchase order processing, and payroll.

In this post, we’re taking a closer look at purchase order automation - how it works, why automation is a perfect fit for this area, and assess a couple of our preferred PO process automation software: Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

To start, let’s discuss what purchase order automation is and how it works.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

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

With automation, purchase requisitions can be produced in a few seconds using pre-formatted templates, and transmitting capability can deliver authorizations straight to the supply chain vendor when the approval workflow is complete.

This removes any need for human involvement, paper filing methods, and makes the operation faster and more controllable.

The Purchase Order Process

While the purchase order process might differ slightly from company to company, the following offers a good example of a conventional, hand-operated purchase order process.

Step 1: The first step is creating a purchase order.

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

Step 3: Then, the purchase order should be routed to the contractor.

Step 4: Once finished, the organization will then acquire its product or service.

Step 5: Then the company will receive the vendor invoice.

Step 6: The invoice must be reviewed and authorized, and payment is delivered to the supplier.

Step 7: The last step of the purchasing procedure is to file or archive the related records to generate an audit trail.

This might not seem like many steps, but to make this process to operate normally, all parties from your AP personnel, to sales reps, suppliers, and executives, must all provide correct, prompt responses. Many companies can attest that this is easier said than done.

There are many benefits to automating this process, which we’ll discuss in the next chapter.

The Advantages of an Automated Purchase Order System

There are numerous benefits to adopting purchase order automation solutions for your organization. These include:

• Reduced Expenses

• Time Saved from Hand-Operated Tasks

• Real-Time Operational Visibility

• A Quicker, More Efficient Procurement Process

• Reduced Manual Error

• Improved Human Resource Utilization

Now that we’ve established what purchase order automation is, the parts of the operation that could be automated, and the gains of purchase order solutions, let us now talk about two of our favorite automation solutions, OpenText and Microsoft SharePoint.

SharePoint vs OpenText

SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is an enterprise content management solution (ECM) that in its base form, is a program for monitoring, collaborating on, and publishing material.

Regardless, with the inclusion of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can quickly customize SharePoint’s features to include automation to many of your AP processes.

Pros

• Superb user experience and user interface (UX/UI)

• Minimal learning curve for new users

• Metadata search enhances searchability

Cons

• No integrated data imaging or capture feature

• Struggles at following compliance requirements in some industries

• SharePoint Online is not designed to handle Enterprise ECM needs

OpenText Overview

OpenText is similarly an ECM platform but provides powerful add-ons that allow firms to automate tasks, augment business activities, and lower the risk related to management and intellectual property.

Pros

• A better choice for business with a high level of compliance

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

• OpenText Documentum adds case and inventory management capabilities to its feature set.

Cons

• Intricate UX/UI

• Usually demands specialist optimization to guarantee that it fulfills business requirements

• Can get costly for enterprise functionality and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Analysis

How Wave Can Help You Implement Purchase Order Automation in Durham

The truth is hand-operated workflows in your accounting framework just slow your company down, cause hindrances and process headaches, and ultimately hurt your development and scalability.

Longer than necessary billing cycles can also contribute to increased costs associated with purchase order and invoice processing, reduce your visibility and control, and can damage your supplier connections.

At Wave, we can aid you in optimizing your accounts payable processes end-to-end, including procurement, data entry, purchase orders, approval process, invoicing, payments, and even document storage tools.

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

We can help you deploy your accounts payable automation tool on-site, in the cloud, or in a hybrid framework depending on your business regulations, budget, and compliance guidelines.

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