Enterprise Purchase to Pay

A typical EPP business paradigm includes software solutions for the following major categories: Purchase Management, Invoice Automation (EIPP), Supplier Portals, and Management/Reporting. 

Companies generally select one or more of these solutions to work together to satisfy their business needs for a “transparent purchase and payment process”.  Because most software companies specialize in only one or two components of the entire process, consumers are faced with a confusing and fragmented buyers market.  Within each fragment, the software package that best meets a customer’s specific business requirements with an attractive ROI dictates the best fit.

Purchase Management (ePurchasing & eProcurment, eSourcing, Contract Lifecycle Management)

Purchase Management Solutions are a suite of software tools that typically consist of one of the following components:  RF (I,P,Q) Management software provides for the management of effective sourcing and tendering processes. Contract Lifecycle Management software allows for managing and leveraging contracts effectively. eProcurement/eSourcing software is used for creating an efficient purchasing cycle, and Supplier Network solutions and services are implemented for easy supplier connectivity.

Purchase Management Solutions also help organizations improve and automate time-consuming and error- prone manual procurement processes that may result in poor spend visibility, lack of process control, or wasted opportunities for leveraging corporate spend. Procurement Solutions allow an organization to focus on the core elements of procurement – shortening time-to-sourcing savings, increasing spend control and compliancy, leveraging contracts, and improving competitiveness through more efficient purchasing.

Invoice Automation (EIPP- Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment)

Invoice Automation products streamline the invoice-to-pay process by intelligently capturing supplier invoices, automatically validating them against supporting purchase orders (POs) or routing them for approval (NonPO’s), and loading them into ERP systems for vouchering and payment. EIPP solutions reduce labor requirements while increasing processing speed, accuracy, visibility, and controls.

Supplier Portals
Supplier Portals enable suppliers to manage catalogs, orders and invoices related transactions via a secure and easy-to-use web interface. Typically these portals allow suppliers to receive and respond to purchase orders, confirm delivery dates, and track goods receipt. Many of these portals will allow suppliers to create invoices for electronic submission to their customers EIPP system and will provide them the ability view the status of their own invoices throughout the process.

Management/Reporting
Enterprise Purchase to Pay platforms also include reporting tools that enable organizations to easily manage and maintain visibility of the entire process from a single dashboard. These reports provide real-time cash flow and spend management analysis enabling organizations to quickly adapt to changing market conditions.