We’ve been getting quite a few questions about the differences between the Free and Pro Versions of SpendMap, so we put together this little video for you…
You can try our Pro Version in the Cloud here.
And you can download a copy of the Free Version here.
Interesting data from Spend Matters and American Productivity & Quality Center,
If we’re crunching the numbers correctly, automating your procure-to-pay process can:
As if you needed even more motivation to implement our Free Purchase Order Software.
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…
We’re positioning the Free-Procurement Project as free “Purchase Order software” for a bunch of reasons that I won’t go into here but the free version of SpendMap actually includes all 12 modules, including requisitioning, receiving, supplier invoice approval, even inventory control and asset management.
If all you want to do is automate your Purchase Orders, that’s fine – just stick with the Purchasing Module. The functionality is compartmentalized, so you don’t need to use all features/modules if you don’t want to.
But if you’re up for it, you can use SpendMap to automate everything from initial requisition all the way through to the approval of the supplier’s invoice and integration with your Accounts Payable system. This is commonly referred to as “req-to-check” or “purchase-to-pay” (P2P for short).
If you intend to branch out into these other optional areas, however, you should be prepared to present a business case to decision makers and other departments that will be affected, such as the folks in Accounts Payable, department managers who will be approving orders online, perhaps even end-user staff members (requisitioners).
To help you get started building a business case, here’s a list of how e-procurement software can improve your business results at each step of the procurement process…
The Free-Procurement Project 