Month: May 2012

Limits on free Purchase Order Software

My credit card number was stolen a few weeks ago and my bank issued me a new card.  They also lowered my credit limit (to reduce the chance of fraud going forward, I guess) but without notifying me, so naturally I was surprised when my card was declined at a gas station over the weekend.  To make things worse, a $25 “over limit fee” shows up on my statement.  So they lower my limit without notice and then charge me for using their service.  Very nice.

Recently we’ve had quite a few questions about the “limits” on the free version of SpendMap.  Despite our best efforts to explain that the software is totally free, quite a few of you are still calling it the “demo” version and asking about the limitations in the free software, like if there are limits on the number of suppliers or items you can add, or how many Purchase Orders you can process, or how long the trial period is.

There are no limits.  It’s totally free.  Forever and always.  Really.  Really really!

The only limits are those that are imposed by the technology itself.  Since it is a desktop application, it’s not really suitable for a large number of users.  If you need to roll out your e-procurement system to hundreds or thousands of users, you should really be looking at our web-based system.

The only other limit, if you can call it that, is the limit on what you can accomplish on your own with the software, in between the duties of your regular business day.  But if you don’t have time for a do-it-yourself e-procurement project, we’re offering an affordable Service Plan so that you can directly engage our Client Services Team to make faster progress.

And no, there won’t be any surprise charges when you cut your 100th PO.

Q1 Results: Free Purchase Order software is spreading around the world

The long weekend here in Toronto was a great chance to reflect on our accomplishments and make plans for even better things to come.

For those of you that are following the Free-Procurement Project, I thought you might be interested to see our progress for the first three months…

For comparison, here’s what it looked like two months ago.

How to set up PO access by user in free Purchase Order Software

I was speaking with Gwen in Connecticut about setting up user accounts in SpendMap for 20 or 30 of her staff.  Gwen wondered if there was a way in SpendMap to only display information on each user’s own Requisitions and Purchase Orders but not orders that the other staff had placed.

While it’s common for managers/approvers to have visibility over an entire department or across a division, sometimes policy requires a more restricted view at the end-user (requisitioner) level, while sometimes document level filters are put in place just for ease of use (e.g. to simplify searches).

You can limit the scope of documents that each user will have access to by locking the document filter option on the way into View PO Status, View Requisition Status, the Receiving utility, etc.

Just use “Add/remove individual menus and pop-up prompts” and navigate to the applicable utility, then select “Lock-out this option” and select the desired filter…

If the user will need access to all documents within their cost center, you can specify their default cost center in the [Settings] folder of the User Master File.

On a related note, there’s also a setting in PO Processing Settings to hide pricing (dollar amounts) in these areas in case your pricing information is confidential but you need users to view other people’s orders, which is not uncommon in some central Receiving and Accounts Payable environments.

TIP: Use your Testing System to play around with this stuff without fear of messing up your Live System. When you run the Testing System, it will give you an opportunity to copy your Live System’s data into the Test System, including all the user accounts, settings, etc.

Free Webinars for your free Purchase Order Software?

May we have your feedback on something?

We’re considering replacing (or augmenting) our free one-on-one setup/training sessions with group webinars.  We’re thinking that a group setting might allow you to learn from other people who are using the free version of SpendMap, in addition to the advice that our internal staff can provide.

Please take this 30 second survey to let us know which direction to go.

Thanks!

Control Spending with a No PO No Pay Policy

When we first started offering the free Purchase Order Software a couple months ago, I did a blog post on the use of Purchase Orders as Step #1 on the path to controlling your company’s pending.

I didn’t set out to outline a three-step process for spend control but good things do come in threes, so here’s Step #2…

Once you have a reliable and efficient system in place for staff to request items and get them approved in a timely manner and you’re using Purchase Orders to keep track of your spending, the next thing you’ll have to work on is a way to get people to use the system.  User adoption is critical to the success of an e-procurement initiative.

There are countless ways to encourage user adoption of your new Purchasing System but if I had to pick one, it would be the No-PO-No-Pay Policy.

Basically, you inform all the parties involved (end-user requisitioners, the folks in Accounts Payable and, most importantly, your suppliers) that you will not pay invoices unless there is an approved Purchase Order for the goods or services.

Harsh?  Perhaps.  Difficult to enforce?  Sometimes.  Bound to be exceptions?  Maybe.

My goal for this blog post was not to give you all the ins and outs of implementing a No-PO-No-Pay Policy, but rather just to make you aware of it as an option to help control your company’s spending.

As it turns out, a good many organizations use policies like this, so maybe it will work for you.

If you would like to learn more, just Google “no PO no pay” and you’ll see lots of information and blog posts on this topic, like this one.

Stay tuned for “Step #3” in an upcoming post…