How to cut costs with purchasing software
Do you find it difficult to control your company’s purchasing? Of course, this administrative management involves many important tasks that are difficult to manage optimally. That’s where the benefits of purchasing software come in. This management tool facilitates and digitises your purchasing process, from purchase orders to the receipt of your supplier invoices.
Better still, these new solutions guarantee you cost savings, because they control the management of internal requests. This kind of expense management is good for your company’s financial health. Find out more about the scope of purchasing software for effective cost reduction.
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How does purchasing software work?
Before you know how purchasing software can reduce your costs, it’s important to understand how it works. Depending on the technology, it may need to be installed, but the most effective way of doing this is to opt for SaaS mode, i.e. without installation, which offers intrinsic advantages such as included updates. You should also be aware that this is a tool, more or less complete, which implements or is modelled on your purchasing process. For example, this management solution lets you create purchase requisitions,organise workflows andrecord all the data relating to your purchases so you can summarise them more easily. It offers a wide range of functions, including :
- Approval workflows
- Budget tracking
- Supplier invoice and payment tracking
- Receiving purchase orders and tracking deliveries
- Supplier management and evaluation
- Contract management
Purchasing software offers the advantage of digitising your orders and purchasing files on a dedicated, centralised medium, making them easier to process. Payments can also be tracked easily and in real time. It provides a global view of the transactions made and the provisions to be made.
In addition to this, having purchasing management software optimises the management of orders as well as your cash flow forecast in real time. Visibility into theprogress of orders and projects in progress, as well as the centralisation and traceability of all data, makes it easier for your organisation. All these actions are immediate, because they are made possible by centralisation. In other words, you save precious time. So make sure that the purchasing software you choose provides a range of functions that meets your expectations. Without making it too complex for the reality of your organisation.
Efficient purchasing management for substantial savings
The first good reason to use purchasing software is that it is a source of savings. In most cases, it allows you to control your budgets effectively. Controlling the software means controlling management costs as well as your organisation’s operating costs. Because you have all the data at your fingertips, you can reduce wastage by having a clear view of the items or products being purchased. All business sectors are affected by this phenomenon.
Purchasing software also helps to reduce structural costs, and naturally helps you to find the best suppliers on your panel. This way, you can easily access an indicative price for the items in their catalogue. Know at a glance the best price or the best evaluated. The history of incidents also allows you to take a quality/price approach. Lastly, although it should not replace the human element, management software can save on human resources costs (salaries, compulsory allowances). Only those employees involved in the purchasing process will use the software, and operating costs will be reduced. Sometimes the optimisation of a position or a management control generates a significant reduction in costs.
To benefit from all these advantages, it is important to choose your software carefully. Not all the tools available on the market have the same positioning, depending on your challenges and objectives.
Purchasing software to boost productivity
As well as effectively reducing costs, the main role of purchasing software is to boost your company’s productivity. Because it manages all your purchasing and other related functions, you can concentrate on more strategic tasks. This way, you and your team can be more productive, whatever the size of your business. You can devote 100% of your time to these value-added tasks.
Automation makes this possible. Long advocated by ERP systems for direct purchases of raw materials, it is now essential to pay the same attention to all types of company purchases. Overheads in particular. If overheads are included in expense account management, then you are missing out on a segment of analysis that is relevant to your structure, even for small businesses.
Finally, with management software, you can create dashboards that summarise your monitoring and performance indicators. This enables you totake effective action in real time. Measure your volume of purchase requests, for example, and make the right decisions. Give your company a head start. This is important whatever your sector of activity.
Save time with purchasing software
In spite of itself, purchasing management involves a protocol that can sometimes be time-consuming: unclear procedures, cumbersome paperwork, employees making advance payments using an expense account to facilitate the process. The good thing about purchasing software is that you save a lot of this time, which has benefits for your business. It considerably reduces the time spent transmitting purchase requisitions and finding the right suppliers. It’s all done in no time at all. Digitising requisition management with a high-performance tool saves you a lot of time. You can also avoid late payment by your suppliers, which in turn increases the confidence of your partners.
Finally, certain models can reduce the time spent on calls for tender. There are even software packages that take care of the administrative and commercial procedures for you. These are very time-consuming and require a great deal of attention. With purchasing management software, this can be done as quickly as possible. But the best part is that it considerably reduces the time spent tracking orders.
Of course, purchasing software is essential if you want to make managing your purchases as easy as possible. To benefit from all its advantages, it’s very important to choose it taking into account the criteria that are essential for your organisation. Make your benchmark with Weproc, SaaS purchasing management software that has all the features you need to guarantee your purchasing performance.
Want to learn more about our procurement management software Weproc? Contact us or request your free 15-minutes demo below!
Weproc is a SaaS software specialized in digitizing the procurement process of companies. From purchase requests to supplier invoicing, through the validation process, Weproc is designed to simplify the purchase management of SMEs and mid-sized companies by centralizing all purchase-related activities.