SharePoint vs M-Files: The Platform For AP Proficiency & Purchase Order Automation in Denver

Developing efficiencies in your business processes is a pivotal opening phase toward digital transformation, back-office modernization, and granting your business an edge in a progressively cutthroat professional landscape.

Tangible operations and fragmented workflows with impasses make cooperation, efficacy, transparency, and responsibility to partners quite difficult.

By means of accounts payable digitization, you can achieve cloud-based arrangements into your organization and simplify tasks like purchase orders, procurement, invoicing, payment processing, and data input processes.

Mechanizing these types of business operations generates more proficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), better cost reductions, and improved application of your human resources.

Within this handbook, we’re reviewing a couple of the most prevalent solutions used for AP proficiency and purchase request mechanization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our goal is to assist you in selecting the proper solutions stack and collaborate so you may develop and accelerate your AP digital revamping.

But prior to beginning our product review, let’s talk through what purchase order automation is and how it produces higher efficiency for your AP operations.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the notion of using business tools with machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to digitize the purchase request system and its corresponding workflows.

Via digitization, purchase requests may be spontaneously transmitted to the fitting team to begin the approval routine. Later, immediately after the request is confirmed, it is mechanically sent to the merchant.

Though this may not look like much at first glance, digitizing the procurement operation removes the requirement for a manual process, paper-based arrangements, and expedites the usual labor-intensive workflow.

As an example, with purchase requisition software or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, you can develop electronic purchase requisitions that vendors can acknowledge at which point the details spontaneously incorporated into your accounting software.

This presumably small ability greatly streamlines the process, drastically diminishes the requirement for manual interference, and thus, enhances efficiency inside your Accounts Payable division.

The Advantages of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We discussed several of the advantages of AP digitization in the former portion, but to be certain that you get the idea, let's break these benefits down in the simplest terms.

• Automated data logging and storage

• Greater productivity through more digitization and less human meddling

• Greater precision because of less physical blunders

• Greater perceptibility into systems with your mechanized processes

• Current-time reporting, analytics, and auditing to continue to improve capacities

• Reformed distribution process and vendor connections and self-operated portal

• Greater aptitude to oversee for safety and compliance

So now that we’ve gone over what AP and purchase order automation is, how it works, and why it’s significant, let’s get into our platform evaluation on Sharepoint vs M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

Coming in this chapter, we’re reviewing a straightforward evaluation between the costing and capabilities of SharePoint along with M-Files, and then a deeper dive on their AP and purchase request mechanization potential.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown

Though this section provides a fine conventional side-by-side analogy, it doesn’t educate us on how these tools manage tasks namely electronic purchase order. So in this succeeding portion, we’re going to do a summary of each program and how it administers this significant operation.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is one of the more widely known and accepted enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS solutions, owing to its close relation to other famed Microsoft tools like Excel, Outlook, and Word.

In the context of purchase request digitization, SharePoint enables you to resolve all the concerns you could be experiencing with your present-day, by-hand purchase order scheme.

Order Tracking

To initiate, by utilizing Microsoft SharePoint and integrating Office 365 applications, staff may track purchase orders at every phase from request authorizations to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also enable your organization to customize your electronic purchase order arrangement to your individual directions and requirements.

Aspects you may custom tailor within SharePoint comprise of the layout of the purchase order forms, role assignments, line items, multi-level approvals, and filters attributed to payment terms, location, type, and more.

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 could also further connection between divisions. When the PO operation has begun, SharePoint can trigger a mechanized email to all appropriate parties to inform them that the process has started and once more as soon as it’s accomplished.

Interactive Dashboards

One more significant aspect of mechanization is the clarity into efficiency and workflow transparency. SharePoint provides this by permitting you to monitor purchase requisition progress via an interactive dashboard.

Via the dashboard setup, you can monitor purchase requisition history across divisions, view the analysis of approval vs denial ratio, and follow the state of existing POs.

Vigorous Integrations

Furthermore, SharePoint provides superb flexibility in that it can work with with most programs among departments for increased collaboration.

Such as, if a department delivers a purchase request for a network printer; as soon as the requisition is actioned, SharePoint can mechanically develop an entry in your finance software for the new IT asset.

Now that we’ve discussed what SharePoint can accomplish in terms of assisting you in automating your AP tasks, let’s continue to M-Files.

M-Files Overview

M-Files is a robust enterprise content management (ECM) solution that presents both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid version determined by your organizational demands.

Its interface is derived from the Windows Explorer web engine making it simple to learn and perform for parties that are comfortable with the Windows operating system.

Moreover, M-Files offers advanced functionality that allows companies to automate operations and processes such as purchase request automation. Let’s study those capabilities.

Input

With M-Files you could acquire invoices from main or distributed sites and digitize the collection of significant data related to your purchase order and approval undertaking.

Data entry

In addition to the input competence, M-Files allows customers to identify and pull out information from purchase requisition domains to promote the automation and conveying process. Furthermore, M-Files enables you to input any relevant organizational rules, confirmation specifications and incorporates database searches to assist in ensuring accuracy throughout the operation.

Matching and coding

As a cutting-edge feature-set, M-Files could execute corresponding of POs and GL coding of non-PO billing statements in your ERP operation to streamline organization and transmission.

Mechanized approvals

The M-Files system can manage and automate as much of the authorization procedure as you desire. This involves overseeing, routing, response, queues, and aging accounts. Any purchase requisition that flunks the validation procedure can be amended by hand and then reinstated into the digitization flow for validation.

Automatic storage of approved POs

As soon as authorization has been issued, purchase orders can be sent to finance automatically to finalize processing and storage in a main cache.

How Wave Can Help You Implement Your Purchase Order Automation Platform in Denver

Holding your organization cutthroat today requires streamlining your processes and eliminating the impasses from your systems that mitigate your capability and efficacy. Moreover, it means selecting the proper business tools to accomplish your calculated growth goals.

At Wave, we can be of assistance by studying the essential elements of your business and through step-by-step digital transformation and organizational process automation, revamp them.

We apply a consolidation of innovations appertaining to your company necessities to digitize your repetitive tasks around gathering, arranging, and filing data so that it's easy to track down and use whenever, from wherever.

We can be of assistance in individualizing your AP digitization solution to fit your organization’s precise needs and we gladly collaborate with over 60 industry-recognized ECM and DMS solutions including OpenText, M-Files, SharePoint, and Oracle.

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