SharePoint vs M-Files: The Solution For AP Efficiency & Purchase Order Automation in Corpus Christi

Creating efficiencies in your business processes is a crucial initial step toward digital switch-over, back-office modernization, and giving your organization an advantage in a growingly aggressive professional landscape.

Concrete operations and fragmented systems with bottlenecks make synergy, productivity, visibility, and responsibility to partners very complicated.

Through accounts payable mechanization, you can achieve paperless arrangements into your organization and simplify tasks like purchase requests, invoicing, payment processing, procurement, and data entry workflows.

Mechanizing these types of business operations creates more efficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), better expenditure cuts, and enhanced application of your human resources.

Within this guide, we’re examining a duo of the most popular platforms used for AP productivity and purchase requisition digitization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our objective is to aid you in selecting the right toolset and cooperate so you may expand and accelerate your AP digital switch-over.

But before we begin with our product analysis, let’s do a quick review of what purchase requisition automation is and how it produces higher capability for your AP processes.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the notion of employing business software with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic technology to mechanize the purchase requisition process and its related workflows.

By means of mechanization, purchase requests could be spontaneously sent to the appropriate party to initiate the approval procedure. After, as soon as the order is authorized, it is automatically forwarded to the vendor.

Though this may not look like much at first glance, mechanizing the purchasing procedure abolishes the need for a manual process, tangible systems, and expedites the usual time-consuming workflow.

As an example, with purchase requisition solution or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, you can produce automated purchase orders that suppliers can acknowledge at which point the information spontaneously incorporated into your accounting tool.

This superficially minuscule aptitude greatly expedites the system, drastically lessens the requirement for manual interference, and consequently, improves productivity inside your Accounts Payable division.

The Benefits of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We talked about a number of the advantages of AP automation in the preceding portion, but to be certain that you get the point, let's dissect these advantages in absolute terms.

• Digitized data entry and storage

• Enhanced productivity via further automation and less manual meddling

• Enhanced reliability due to less human faults

• Enhanced visibility into procedures through your mechanized workflows

• Real-time analytics, auditing, and reporting to continue to improve performances

• Reformed logistics chain and supplier connections and self-operated portal

• Greater capability to oversee for protection and amenability

So now that we’ve reviewed what AP and digital purchase order is, how it functions, and why it’s vital, let’s begin our product evaluation on Sharepoint versus M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

Coming in this chapter, we’re examining a basic breakdown between the costing and capabilities of SharePoint as well as M-Files, succeeded by an in-depth analysis on their AP and purchase order automation qualities.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown

Although this portion gives a decent standard neck-and-neck comparison, it doesn’t tell us much about how these programs handle workflows such as purchase order automation. Therefore in this following section, we’re providing a summary of each solution and how it handles this essential task.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is amongst the most prominent and established enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS tools, owing to its deep connection with diverse famed Microsoft programs like Excel, Outlook, and Word.

As it relates to purchase request mechanization, SharePoint allows you to address all the problems you might be experiencing with your current, physical purchase requisition system.

Order Tracking

To start, by employing Microsoft SharePoint and integrating Office 365 applications, staff may track purchase requests at every level from request authorizations to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also empower your business to tailor your automated purchase request arrangement to your individual directions and necessities.

Elements you may custom tailor within SharePoint involve the layout of the purchase request forms, multi-level approvals, role assignments, line items, and filters appertaining to payment terms, location, type, and more.

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 can also further communication across divisions. As soon as the PO operation has begun, SharePoint may actuate a programmed email to all respective teams to notify them that the procedure has begun and again once it’s accomplished.

Interactive Dashboards

A further significant component of automation is the insight into efficiency and workflow transparency. SharePoint delivers this by permitting you to oversee purchase requisition progress through an interactive dashboard.

With the dashboard framework, you may track purchase requisition history throughout divisions, view the breakdown of approval vs denial percentage, and follow the state of POs in progress.

Vigorous Integrations

Furthermore, SharePoint offers great flexibility in that it can incorporate with most solutions between departments for increased synergy.

For example, if a department submits a purchase requisition for a network printer; when the order is handled, SharePoint can mechanically generate an entry in your finance software for the new IT asset.

Now that we’ve seen what SharePoint is capable of in terms of aiding you in digitizing your AP workflows, let’s proceed to M-Files.

M-Files Overview

M-Files is a powerful enterprise content management (ECM) system that offers both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid version depending on your business demands.

Its interface is modeled off the Windows Explorer web engine making it simple to understand and implement for parties that are comfortable with the Windows interface.

Moreover, M-Files offers innovative functionality that enables companies to automate workflows and processes like purchase order automation. Let’s examine those competencies.

Input

With M-Files you could gather invoices from central or assigned sites and automate the collection of essential data associated with your purchase request and confirmation undertaking.

Data entry

As a continuation of the input competence, M-Files enables customers to pinpoint and pull out details from purchase request areas to expedite the mechanization and conveying process. Moreover, M-Files enables you to input any appropriate business codes, confirmation details and contains archive lookups to assist in guaranteeing veracity across the procedure.

Matching and coding

As a cutting-edge functionality, M-Files can perform matching of POs and GL coding of non-PO statements in your ERP procedure to facilitate structure and routing.

Mechanized approvals

The M-Files solution can control and automate as much of the authorization workflow as you wish. This contains overseeing, routing, response, queues, and aging accounts. Any purchase request that falls short of the authorization procedure can be revised physically and then put back into the automation flow for validation.

Automatic storage of approved POs

Once approval has been issued, purchase orders can be sent to finance automatically to wrap up handling and storage in a primary repository.

How Wave Can Aid You in Executing Your Purchase Order Automation Solution in Corpus Christi

Holding your business fierce nowadays means simplifying your operations and removing the hindrances from your undertakings that work to diminish your capability and efficacy. Additionally, it involves selecting the appropriate business systems to achieve your calculated growth aims.

At Wave, we can be of assistance by analyzing the fundamental pieces of your business and via gradual digital transformation and organizational system automation, reform them.

We apply a blended set of innovations appertaining to your company requirements to digitize your repetitive workflows around gathering, regulating, and registering data so that it's uncomplicated to find and use whenever, from wherever.

We can help you to custom-tailor your AP automation solution to satisfy your company’s specific demands and we willingly collaborate with over 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS platforms including M-Files, SharePoint, OpenText, and Oracle.

If you’re interested in learning more, contact us today and we can arrange a time to chat.