SharePoint vs OpenText: The Ultimate Purchase Order Automation Platform in Philadelphia

In today’s competitive landscape, firms of all shapes and sizes must develop ways to enhance efficiency and productivity, while reducing expenditures wherever possible.

One of the best places to start is with business process automation (BPA). Via BPA, you could streamline repetitive and time-consuming tasks, reduce the burden for your team members, and enhance your processes by developing efficiency and raising precision.

There are several tasks and business sectors that could make use of BPA. Among of the most frequent adopters are Accounts Payable units who can utilize BPA to automate purchase order processing, payroll, and invoicing.

In this post, we’ll focus on purchase order automation - how it functions, why automation is a great fit for this area, and evaluate two of our favorite PO process automation platforms: Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

To start, let’s go over what purchase order automation is and how it performs.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

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

Via automation, purchase requests can be created in a few seconds using pre-formatted layouts, and forwarding functionality can deliver authorizations directly to the supply chain vendor once the approval process is finished.

This eliminates the need for manual intervention, paper filing methods, and makes the process faster and more manageable.

The Purchase Order Process

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

Step 1: The first step is to create a purchase order.

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

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

Step 4: Once completed, the organization will then obtain its service or product.

Step 5: The organization will then get the vendor invoice.

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

Step 7: Then the final step of the purchasing procedure is to file or archive the relevant documents to provide an audit trail.

This might not seem like many steps, but for this procedure to go smoothly, all individuals from your AP staff, to sales reps, vendors, and managers, must all provide accurate, timely responses. Several organizations can testify that this is way harder than it sounds.

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

The Advantages of an Automated Purchase Order System

There are numerous advantages to implementing purchase order automation software for your business. These include:

• Lower Costs

• Time Saved from By-Hand Tasks

• Real-Time Visibility Into Operations

• A Quicker, More Streamlined Purchasing Process

• Lessened Human Error

• Greater Use of Human Resources

Now that we have reviewed what purchase order automation is, the aspects of the procedure that could be automated, and the benefits of purchase order solutions, let’s now go over a couple of our preferred automation options, Microsoft SharePoint and OpenText.

SharePoint vs OpenText

SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is an enterprise content management solution (ECM) that, at its core, is a tool for handling, collaborating on, and distributing material.

Regardless, with the addition of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can simply modify SharePoint’s functionality to include automation to most of your AP operations.

Pros

• Superb user experience and interface

• Short learning curve for new users

• Metadata search aid searchability

Cons

• No native information capture or imaging functionality

• Weak at fulfilling compliance requirements in some sectors

• SharePoint Online is not made to handle Enterprise ECM needs

OpenText Overview

OpenText is similarly an ECM platform but offers powerful add-ons that allow companies to automate tasks, enhance organizational functions, and reduce the risk connected to management and intellectual property.

Pros

• A superior alternative for compliance-heavy organizations

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

• OpenText Documentum expands its features with case and inventory management functionality.

Cons

• Complicated UX/UI

• Usually demands specialist optimization to ensure it fulfills business requirements

• Can be expensive for corporate features and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Diagram

How Wave Can Aid You in Implementing Purchase Order Automation in Philadelphia

The fact is that physical workflows in your accounting framework simply slow your organization down, cause hindrances and process inefficiencies, and consequently hurt your growth and adaptability.

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

At Wave, we can aid you in optimizing your AP processes completely, including purchase orders, procurement, data entry, approval process, invoicing, payments, and even document storage tools.

We collaborate with Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Netsuite, Oracle, and ECM and ERP solutions like those we’ve mentioned in this piece and also MFiles, Oracle, Xerox, and many others.

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

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