SharePoint vs OpenText: The Best Purchase Order Automation Tool in San Jose

Given the current competitive marketplace, businesses of all shapes and sizes must find ways to increase productivity and efficiency, while lowering expenditures wherever appropriate.

An excellent place to start is with business process automation (BPA). With BPA, you could streamline tedious and taxing processes, ease the burden for your team members, and improve your processes by developing productivity and raising accuracy.

There are several tasks and business sectors that can take advantage of BPA. One of the most frequent adopters are Accounts Payable teams who can utilize BPA to automate purchase order processing, payroll, and invoicing.

In this piece, we’re going to hone in on purchase order automation - how it operates, why automation is a great option for this area, and evaluate two of our favorite PO process automation tools: Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

To begin, let’s talk about what purchase order automation is and how it functions.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

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

With automation, purchase requisitions can be produced in a matter of seconds using pre-formatted templates, and forwarding functionality can send approvals directly to the supply chain vendor when the approval workflow is finished.

This removes the need for manual interference, paper filing methods, and makes the operation faster and more controllable.

The Purchase Order Process

While the purchase order process can differ from one business to the next, the following offers a good example of a standard, by-hand purchase order system.

Step 1: The first step is creating a purchase order.

Step 2: Then another colleague will assess and approve or reject the purchase order.

Step 3: Following that, the purchase order must be sent to the vendor.

Step 4: Once finished, the business will then acquire its product or service.

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

Step 6: The invoice should be reviewed and authorized, and payment is released to the supplier.

Step 7: The final step of the purchasing procedure is to file the related files to create an audit trail.

This might not seem like many steps, but to make this workflow to operate normally, all participants from your AP staff, to sales representatives, vendors, and supervisors, must all provide accurate, timely responses. Several organizations can confirm that this is way harder than it sounds.

There are numerous advantages to automating these steps, which we will review in the next section.

The Benefits of an Automated Purchase Order Process

There are a number of advantages to utilizing purchase order automation solutions for your business. These include:

• Cost Savings

• Time Saved from Manual Tasks

• Real-Time Insight Into Activities

• A Faster, More Optimized Procurement Method

• Decreased Physical Error

• Greater Use of Human Resources

So, now that we’ve reviewed what purchase order automation entails, the aspects of the process that could be automated, and the gains of purchase order solutions, let us now take a closer look at two of our preferred automation tools, OpenText and Microsoft SharePoint.

SharePoint vs OpenText

SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is an enterprise content management platform (ECM) that in its base form, is a tool for monitoring, collaborating on, and publishing data.

Having said that, with the addition of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can easily customize SharePoint’s features to incorporate automation to most of your AP operations.

Pros

• Excellent UX/UI

• Minimal learning curve for new users

• Metadata search enhances searchability

Cons

• No native data capture or imaging capability

• Weak at following compliance guidelines in some sectors

• SharePoint Online is not designed to handle Enterprise ECM needs

OpenText Overview

OpenText is also an ECM solution but offers powerful add-ons that enable businesses to automate tasks, enhance business functions, and lower the risk associated with administration and intellectual property.

Pros

• An excellent alternative for compliance-heavy organizations

• Powerful document filtering, management, classification, and access restrictions

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

Cons

• Complicated UX/UI

• Typically demands specialist tuning to guarantee that it meets organizational requirements

• Can get costly for corporate functionality and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Diagram

How Wave Can Aid You in Implementing Purchase Order Automation in San Jose

The fact is that manual processes in your accounting system just slow your business down, create hindrances and process issues, and sooner or later hurt your growth and adaptability.

Prolonged billing cycles can also lead to greater costs associated with purchase order management and invoice processing, impede your transparency and control, and can disrupt your supplier partnerships.

At Wave, we can aid you in optimizing your accounts payable processes end-to-end, including procurement, data entry, purchase orders, approval process, invoicing, payments, and even file storage platforms.

We work with Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Netsuite, Oracle, as well as ERP and ECM systems like those we have discussed in this piece and also Xerox, MFiles, Oracle, and more.

We can aid you in implementing your accounts payable automation solution on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid model depending on your business rules, budget, and compliance guidelines.

To find out more, connect with us right now for a free consultation.