SharePoint vs M-Files: The Solution For AP Proficiency & Purchase Order Automation in Virginia Beach

Creating competencies in your business workflows is a pivotal first step toward digital switch-over, back-office modernization, and supplying your company an upper hand in a progressively cutthroat professional industry.

Tangible operations and incoherent systems with impasses make cooperation, efficacy, transparency, and accountability to partners very difficult.

Through accounts payable mechanization, you could carry out dematerialized systems into your business and simplify duties like purchase orders, procurement, invoicing, payment processing, and data input processes.

Mechanizing these forms of company workflows produces more capacity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), higher cost savings, and enhanced employment of your manpower.

In this guide, we’re reviewing two of the most famous tools geared toward AP proficiency and purchase request digitization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our target is to assist you in selecting the proper toolset and collaborate so you can expand and speed up your AP digital transformation.

But prior to beginning our product assessment, let’s talk through what purchase requisition digitization is and how it produces further productivity for your AP workflows.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the concept of employing business software with machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to digitize the purchase requisition operation and its synonymous workflows.

Via automation, purchase requests could be mechanically sent to the appropriate party to initiate the validation procedure. Then, as soon as the order is confirmed, it is mechanically transmitted to the merchant.

Though this may not appear to be significant at first glance, automating the purchasing operation eliminates the requirement for a physical process, materialized systems, and expedites the often laborious workflow.

For instance, with purchase order solution or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, you can create automated purchase requisitions that contractors can comprehend at which point the data spontaneously fused into your accounting software.

This presumably small aptitude significantly streamlines the workflow, dramatically diminishes the requirement for by-hand interference, and thus, enhances efficiency inside your Accounts Payable section.

The Perks of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We covered various of the gains of AP automation in the preceding section, but to be certain that you get the idea, let's dissect these advantages in the simplest terms.

• Mechanized data entry and storage

• Greater productivity through more automation and less human intervention

• Improved accuracy due to less physical error

• Enhanced transparency into operations with your digitized tasks

• Current-time analytics, auditing, and reporting to uphold the development of capacities

• Enhanced distribution chain and vendor affinities and self-service portal

• Enhanced aptitude to regulate for protection and conformity

Since we’ve reviewed what AP and electronic purchase order is, how it works, and why it’s vital, let’s begin our platform review on Sharepoint vs M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

Within this section, we’re reviewing a basic evaluation between the rate and aptitudes of SharePoint along with M-Files, succeeded by an extensive review on their AP and purchase request digitization qualities.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown

While this section provides a good general simultaneous comparison, it doesn’t tell us much about how these programs handle processes like digital purchase order. Thus in this next chapter, we’re going to do a synopsis of each tool and how it handles this essential operation.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is one of the most widely known and endorsed enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS solutions, due to its deep connection with different prevalent Microsoft solutions like Excel, Outlook, and Word.

In the context of purchase order digitization, SharePoint sanctions you to handle all the issues you may be facing with your current, by-hand purchase order scheme.

Order Tracking

To begin, by utilizing Microsoft SharePoint and combining Office 365 tools, personnel can monitor purchase requests at every stage from request authorizations to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also empower your organization to customize your digital purchase request system to your particular guidelines and needs.

Elements you can personalize within SharePoint comprise of the template of the purchase request forms, line items, multi-level approvals, role assignments, and filters appertaining to location, type, payment terms, and more.

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 can also facilitate correspondence among departments. As soon as the PO procedure has started, SharePoint can actuate a programmed email to all appropriate parties to inform them that the procedure has begun and once more as soon as it’s complete.

Interactive Dashboards

One more critical aspect of mechanization is the insight into capability and workflow transparency. SharePoint provides this by allowing you to supervise purchase order progress with an interactive dashboard.

Through the dashboard system, you may oversee purchase order history among sections, see the evaluation of approval vs denial ratio, and monitor the status of ongoing POs.

Robust Integrations

Moreover, SharePoint provides great adaptability in that it can integrate with most tools across departments for greater cooperation.

For example, if a branch delivers a purchase request for a network printer; as soon as the requisition is processed, SharePoint can spontaneously generate an entry in your finance software for the new IT asset.

Now that we’ve learned about what SharePoint can accomplish in terms of aiding you in digitizing your AP tasks, let’s continue to M-Files.

M-Files Overview

M-Files is a powerful enterprise content management (ECM) tool that presents both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid variant depending on your company needs.

Its interface is derived from the Windows Explorer internet browser making it convenient to figure out and perform for departments that are comfortable with the Windows ecosystem.

Additionally, M-Files offers state-of-the-art functionality that enables organizations to digitize workflows and processes like purchase requisition automation. Let’s examine those competencies.

Input

With M-Files you could acquire invoices from central or allocated areas and mechanize the gathering of important data related to your purchase request and authorization processes.

Data entry

As an extension of the input capability, M-Files enables users to distinguish and pull out details from purchase requisition areas to expedite the digitization and conveying process. Moreover, M-Files permits you to input any relevant organizational rules, confirmation specifications and incorporates database searches to help ensure veracity during the procedure.

Matching and coding

As a state-of-the-art functional scope, M-Files can execute conforming of POs and GL coding of non-PO statements in your ERP operation to facilitate structure and transmission.

Automated approvals

The M-Files platform can regulate and mechanize as much of the approval workflow as you wish. This includes handling, routing, response, queues, and aging accounts. Any purchase order that falls short of the authorization procedure can be revised physically and then restored into the automation flow for authorization.

Automatic storage of approved POs

Once validation has been granted, purchase requisitions can be transmitted to finance spontaneously to wrap up processing and storage in a central repository.

How Wave Can Help You Implement Your Purchase Order Automation Tool in Virginia Beach

Holding your organization cutthroat these days requires streamlining your operations and eliminating the impasses from your workflows that work to diminish your proficiency and efficacy. Additionally, it requires choosing the appropriate business tools to complete your calculated growth objectives.

At Wave, we can help by examining the essential elements of your organization and with incremental digital switch-over and organizational process automation, transform them.

We apply a combination of technology in accordance with your company needs to automate your tedious tasks around gathering, regulating, and filing data so that it's simple to locate and access whenever, from wherever.

We can assist you in customizing your AP digitization solution to fulfill your organization’s particular needs and we happily collaborate with more than 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS tools including M-Files, SharePoint, OpenText, and Oracle.

If you’re ready to learn more, contact us today and we can schedule a time to chat.