SharePoint vs OpenText: The Ultimate Purchase Order Automation Tool in St. Louis

In today’s competitive landscape, companies of all shapes and sizes must develop ways to boost productivity and efficiency, while reducing costs wherever appropriate.

One of the best places to start is with business process automation (BPA). Through BPA, you could streamline repetitive and taxing processes, reduce the load on your staff, and upgrade your processes by adding productivity and raising precision.

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

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

To begin, let us talk about what purchase order automation is and how it works.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

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

With automation, purchase requests can be generated in a few clicks from pre-formatted templates, and routing functionality can send approvals directly to the supply chain contractor after the approval process is finished.

This eliminates the need for physical intervention, record filing systems, and makes the process faster and more efficient.

The Purchase Order Process

Though the purchase order process might look slightly different from business to business, the following offers a good example of a conventional, hand-operated purchase order process.

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

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

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

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 verified and authorized, and payment is released to the vendor.

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

This may not seem like a lot of steps, but to make this procedure to run efficiently, all participants from your AP personnel, to sales agents, merchants, and executives, must all deliver correct, timely responses. Several businesses can confirm that this is grueling.

There are several advantages to automating these steps, which we’ll explore in the next section.

The Advantages of an Automated Purchase Order System

There are a number of benefits to implementing purchase order automation tools for your company. These include:

• Cost Savings

• Time Saved from Hand-Operated Processes

• Real-Time Operational Visibility

• A Faster, More Optimized Purchasing Procedure

• Decreased Manual Error

• Greater Human Resource Utilization

So, now that we have established what purchase order automation is, the aspects of the procedure that can be automated, and the advantages of purchase order solutions, let us now talk about two of our preferred 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 tool for handling, collaborating on, and publishing data.

However, with the inclusion of Microsoft PowerApps Power Automate, you can quickly modify SharePoint’s features to incorporate automation to many of your AP procedures.

Pros

• Excellent UX/UI

• Short learning curve for new users

• Metadata search adds improved searchability

Cons

• No integrated information capture or imaging feature

• Weak at following compliance guidelines in some sectors

• SharePoint Online is not designed to fulfill Enterprise ECM needs

OpenText Overview

OpenText is similarly an ECM platform but offers advanced add-ons that empower businesses to automate tasks, enhance organizational operations, and lower the risk associated with governance and intellectual property.

Pros

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

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

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

Cons

• Complicated UX/UI

• Typically requires specialist configuration to guarantee that it satisfies organizational needs

• Can be expensive for corporate capabilities and add-ons

SharePoint & OpenText Pricing & Features Diagram

How Wave Can Assist You in Implementing Purchase Order Automation in St. Louis

The reality is hand-operated processes in your accounting framework simply slow your organization down, cause bottlenecks and process inefficiencies, and consequently hurt your growth and scalability.

Prolonged payment cycles can also contribute to greater expenses associated with purchase order management and invoice processing, reduce your insight and control, and can disrupt your vendor connections.

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

We work closely with Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, as well as ECM and ERP solutions like those we’ve examined in this piece and also Xerox, MFiles, Oracle, and more.

We can help you deploy your accounts payable automation tool on-site, in the cloud, or in a hybrid model contingent on your business rules, budget, and compliance guidelines.

To learn more, contact us today for a free consultation.