SharePoint vs OpenText: The Ultimate Purchase Order Automation Tool in Anchorage

In today’s competitive landscape, organizations of varying sizes must find ways to enhance efficiency and productivity, while lowering costs wherever necessary.

An excellent place to start is with business process automation (BPA). With BPA, you can expedite tedious and taxing processes, reduce the load on your team members, and improve your system by adding efficiency and boosting accuracy.

There are a variety of operations and business sectors that could take advantage of BPA. Some of the most common adopters are Accounts Payable departments who can utilize BPA to automate purchase order processing, payroll, and invoicing.

In this article, we’re taking a closer look at purchase order automation - how it operates, why automation is an excellent fit for this area, and compare a couple of our preferred PO process automation software: Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

To start, let us go over what purchase order automation is and how it functions.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Automated purchase order platforms employ business software integrated with machine learning (ML), robotic process automation (RPA) technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the purchase order procedure.

With automation, purchase requests can be generated in a matter of seconds using pre-formatted templates, and transmitting functionality can deliver approvals straight to the supply chain contractor when the approval workflow is done.

This removes the need for physical involvement, document filing processes, and makes the process simpler and more manageable.

The Purchase Order Process

Although the purchase order process can differ from one organization to the next, the following provides an excellent example of a conventional, hand-operated purchase order process.

Step 1: The first step is purchase order creation.

Step 2: Then another team member will evaluate and approve or reject the purchase order.

Step 3: Then, the purchase order must be routed to the contractor.

Step 4: Once filled, the business will then obtain its service or product.

Step 5: Then the company will receive the vendor invoice.

Step 6: The invoice will need to be verified and approved, and payment is released to the vendor.

Step 7: The final step of the purchasing procedure is to archive or file the associated files to provide an audit trail.

This may not seem like many steps, but in order for this process to go smoothly, all participants from your AP staff, to sales agents, vendors, and executives, must all provide correct, timely responses. Several firms can testify that this is way harder than it sounds.

There are numerous advantages to automating this procedure, which we’ll review in the next section.

The Advantages of an Automated Purchase Order System

There are numerous benefits to adopting purchase order automation tools for your business. These include:

• Cost Savings

• Time Saved from By-Hand Processes

• Real-Time Visibility Into Operations

• A Faster, More Efficient Procurement Procedure

• Decreased Human Error

• Better Use of Human Resources

Now that we’ve established what purchase order automation is, the aspects of the procedure that could be automated, and the gains of purchase order solutions, let’s now talk about a couple of our favorite automation tools, Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

SharePoint vs OpenText

SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is an enterprise content management solution (ECM) that, at its core, is a program for managing, collaborating on, and sharing data.

However, with the integration of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can easily customize SharePoint’s capabilities to incorporate automation to many of your AP procedures.

Pros

• Fantastic user experience and user interface (UX/UI)

• Short learning curve for new users

• Metadata search improves searchability

Cons

• No integrated information imaging or capture functionality

• Weak at fulfilling compliance requirements in some sectors

• SharePoint Online not equipped to handle Corporate ECM requirements

OpenText Overview

OpenText is an ECM tool as well, but provides powerful add-ons that allow organizations to automate workflows, improve organizational functions, and decrease the risk related to governance and intellectual property.

Pros

• A superior option for business with a high level of compliance

• Robust document management, classification, filtering, and access authorizations

• OpenText Documentum adds case and inventory management capabilities to its feature set.

Cons

• Intricate UX/UI

• Usually requires specialist configuration to guarantee that it fulfills organizational requirements

• Can be pricey for enterprise capabilities and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Comparison

How Wave Can Help You Implement Purchase Order Automation in Anchorage

The reality is manual workflows in your accounting system just slow your business down, create bottlenecks and process headaches, and consequently hurt your growth and scalability.

Longer than necessary billing cycles can also contribute to greater costs associated with purchase order and invoice processing, reduce your insight and control, and can damage your merchant connections.

At Wave, we can help you to streamline your accounts payable processes thoroughly, including purchase orders, procurement, data entry, invoicing, payments, approval process, and even file storage platforms.

We work closely with SAP, Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, as well as ECM and ERP solutions like the ones we have examined in this piece and also Oracle, Xerox, MFiles, and many others.

We can help you deploy your AP automation software locally, in the cloud, or in a hybrid framework depending on your business rules, budget, and compliance guidelines.

To discover more, reach out immediately for a free consultation.