Five Reasons to Consider an Advanced Procurement Solution

Are Your ERP’s Procurement Capabilities Enough?

For the past two decades, we’ve worked with hundreds of Microsoft ERP customers looking to complement their ERP capabilities. With integrations to Microsoft Dynamics GP, SL, NAV and AX, and more recently to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, our procurement solution provides the deep, workflow-intensive capabilities that most ERP solutions simply don’t offer.

More recently, we’re working with several Sage Intacct customers seeking to augment the cloud ERP’s feature set, adding more sophisticated procurement functionality. Two questions I’m frequently asked during interviews, ERP events and users’ groups are, “Are my ERP procurement capabilities enough?” and “When should our organization consider a more advanced procurement solution?” The answer depends on an organization’s workflows, processes and business growth plans. When it comes to Sage Intacct, there are (at least) five reasons to consider a more advanced procurement solution to augment the procurement functionality of the ERP application:

1. We have conditional, multi-department, or complex approval rules or paths

One of the most common frustrations Sage Intacct customers due to that seek us out are experiencing is the inability to support complex and conditional approval paths. While straightforward approval routings are easily accommodated, it’s when the approval path varies by individual, amount, expense type, department, account number or dimension value that things get tough.

PairSoft solves for this by supporting unlimited levels of approval and unlimited approval paths. A single request can be routed to multiple departments and multiple stakeholders based on an extensive list of conditions. Need even finer control? PairSoft supports line-level approvals. What’s more, requests and approvals are supported on our mobile app, meaning staff can keep the process moving even while away from the office.

2. We’re looking to speed and simplify routine purchasing

Everyone welcomes tools that speed and simplify the procurement of routine purchases such as office supplies. PairSoft incorporates convenient tools that make it simple for users in your organization to buy from preferred vendors—saving time while keeping more spend under your direct control.

• Guided Buying Catalogs: Make it easy for shoppers to buy from preferred suppliers by setting up guided buying catalogs. These catalogs can be organized by vendor, by department, by functional area, or other meaningful grouping and include predefined vendor items, pricing, and accounting information. The catalogs provide a simple and intuitive interface option for users to select items with a few clicks and automatically submit them for approval simply by checking out of their shopping cart.
• PunchOut: With PunchOut, users can browse and shop a supplier’s catalog in real-time on the vendor’s website, populating their requisitions automatically, resulting in quick, error-free processing. After approval, purchase orders are created and routed automatically to the appropriate vendor.
• Mobile catalogs: PairSoft provides full mobile requisition entry, including both free-form and catalog-based requisitioning. Users can browse and shop their catalogs, save items to a shopping cart to process, or submit as a requisition directly from the mobile app. Busy managers and executives can approve or disapprove pending requisitions with a single touch. Employees can view the status of open mobile requisitions from their mobile devices, anywhere, anytime.

3. We need better GL budget visibility and control

Your best efforts at spend management can be thwarted when purchases exceed budgeted amounts. Employees may simply not be aware of budget constraints when requesting items or budget values may be unavailable to them.

PairSoft incorporates and advanced budgeting engine that enforces your corporate budget throughout the entire requisition and procurement processes. Users gain visibility into GL budgets setup in Sage Intacct and can witness the impact on spending against that budget throughout the entire procurement process, including pre-encumbered, encumbered and actual.

4. We want to ensure support for Sage Intacct dimensions

Sage Intacct perfects the use of dimensions—those bits of user-defined information associated with any transaction. PairSoft solutions are fully integrated with Sage Intacct and support dimensions throughout the procure-to-pay cycle. In fact, you can even route for approval based on dimensions.

5. We want to take advantage of advanced OCR capabilities

PairSoft uses a combination of OCR, machine learning and AI to automate and accelerate entering and approving routing invoices as well as the validation, matching and approval of requisitions and purchase orders. A smart invoice capture function is capable of recognizing invoices and capturing the data down to the line-level. It eliminates inefficiencies, speeds and streamlines the P2P cycle, reduces the time users spend keying and correcting data, allowing procurement professionals to focus on high-value projects.

By adding PairSoft to your Sage Intacct solution, your organization can gain more control over the procure-to-pay cycle while supporting and enforcing your workflows and business processes. You can login from anywhere, anytime with your desktop, mobile, or tablet and have total control and visibility into your data wherever you are.  Learn more about our integration with Sage Intacct here.