SharePoint vs M-Files: The Tool For AP Productivity & Purchase Order Automation in El Paso
Generating capabilities in your organizational processes is a pivotal first step toward digital switch-over, back-office upgrading, and supplying your organization an edge in a progressively competitive professional industry.
Paper-based systems and disjointed workflows with impasses make collaboration, efficiency, transparency, and liability to shareholders very complex.
Through accounts payable automation, you could implement cloud-based operations into your organization and simplify tasks like purchase orders, invoicing, payment processing, procurement, and data input processes.
Digitizing these types of company operations produces more capacity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), better cost savings, and enhanced utilization of your personnel.
Within this handbook, we’re evaluating a couple of the most popular platforms designed for AP efficiency and purchase request digitization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our goal is to aid you in selecting the appropriate toolset and partner so you could augment and expedite your AP digital switch-over.
But prior to starting our product assessment, let’s do a quick review of what purchase order mechanization is and how it generates further efficiency for your AP operations.
What is Purchase Order Automation?
Purchase order automation is the concept of using business tools through machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to mechanize the purchase request system and its related undertakings.
Via digitization, purchase orders may be spontaneously forwarded to the appropriate team to start the approval process. After, as soon as the order is confirmed, it is mechanically transmitted to the vendor.
Though this may not seem like much at first read, automating the buying operation abolishes the necessity for a by-hand process, paper-based schemes, and streamlines the often laborious workflow.
For example, with purchase request software or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform, you can create electronic purchase requests that contractors can identify and then have the information mechanically integrated into your accounting software.
This presumably minor aptitude greatly simplifies the system, drastically lessens the need for human interference, and consequently, amplifies proficiency through your Accounts Payable section.
The Advantages of AP and Purchase Order Automation
We talked about several of the benefits of AP automation in the previous section, but to be certain that you get the point, let's take these advantages apart in absolute terms.
Automated data entry and storage
Greater productivity with extra mechanization and less by-hand intervention
Improved accuracy because of less physical error
Increased perceptibility into procedures through your automated tasks
Real-time auditing, reporting, and analytics to uphold the development of efficiencies
Reformed distribution network and merchant relationships and self-operated portal
Greater aptitude to regulate for protection and amenability
So now that we’ve discussed what AP and digital purchase order is, how it operates, and why it’s vital, let’s get into our product review on Sharepoint versus M-Files.
Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review
Coming in this chapter, we’re examining a basic analysis between the pricing and capabilities of SharePoint and M-Files, followed by an in-depth analysis on their AP and purchase request digitization potential.
Basic Price and Features Breakdown
Though this section presents a good conventional side-by-side comparison, it doesn’t tell us much about how these solutions administer tasks namely electronic purchase order. Therefore in this following portion, we’re providing an overview of each program and how it handles this important undertaking.
Microsoft SharePoint Overview
SharePoint is one of the more prominent and endorsed enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS solutions, due to its strong association with different famed Microsoft programs like Word, Excel, and Outlook.
As it relates to purchase order mechanization, SharePoint allows you to address all the concerns you might be facing with your current, manual purchase requisition scheme.
Order Tracking
To begin, by utilizing Microsoft SharePoint and incorporating Office 365 applications, staff can oversee purchase requests at all phase from request approvals to delivery.
Customization
SharePoint and Office 365 also allow your company to customize your digital purchase request arrangement to your individual guidelines and needs.
Aspects you could custom tailor within SharePoint include the format of the purchase request forms, role assignments, line items, multi-level approvals, and filters based on type, payment terms, location, and more.
Communication
SharePoint and Office 365 can also facilitate connection among sectors. As soon as the PO operation has commenced, SharePoint can trigger an automated email to all respective teams to inform them that the process has commenced and once more as soon as it’s complete.
Interactive Dashboards
Another important component of digitization is the foresight into efficiency and workflow perceptibility. SharePoint delivers this by allowing you to oversee purchase order progress via an interactive dashboard.
Via the dashboard framework, you can oversee purchase order history across sections, view the breakdown of approval vs denial proportion, and follow the position of POs in progress.
Vigorous Integrations
Moreover, SharePoint provides great versatility in that it can work with with most tools across departments for greater cooperation.
Such as, if a branch submits a purchase requisition for a network printer; as soon as the requisition is actioned, SharePoint can spontaneously develop an entry in your finance solution for the new IT resource.
Now that we’ve learned about what SharePoint can do in terms of helping you automate your AP tasks, let’s proceed to M-Files.
M-Files Overview
M-Files is a vigorous enterprise content management (ECM) solution that presents both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid version determined by your business demands.
Its interface is based off of the Windows Explorer web engine making it simple to understand and perform for teams that are comfortable with the Windows operating system.
Moreover, M-Files grants innovative functionality that allows organizations to mechanize operations and processes like purchase order automation. Let’s examine those competencies.
Input
With M-Files you may capture invoices from main or allocated sites and mechanize the ingestion of significant data related to your purchase order and approval workflows.
Data entry
As an extension of the input competence, M-Files allows clients to distinguish and pull out information from purchase request domains to expedite the digitization and transmission process. Furthermore, M-Files enables you to input any pertinent company codes, approval specifications and contains database lookups to help ensure veracity throughout the procedure.
Matching and coding
As a cutting-edge functionality, M-Files could perform matching of POs and GL coding of non-PO invoices in your ERP procedure to simplify arrangement and routing.
Automated approvals
The M-Files solution can control and automate as much of the authorization process as you want. This includes managing, response, queues, routing, and aging accounts. Any purchase order that fails the approval process can be revised physically and then restored into the mechanization flow for approval.
Automatic storage of approved POs
As soon as authorization has been issued, purchase requisitions can be forwarded to finance mechanically to finalize handling and storage in a main repository.
How Wave Can Assist You in Enforcing Your Purchase Order Automation Platform in El Paso
Keeping your organization cutthroat these days involves simplifying your procedures and eliminating the hindrances from your systems that mitigate your efficiency and efficacy. Additionally, it requires choosing the proper business systems to complete your strategic growth objectives.
At Wave, we can assist by examining the fundamental pieces of your company and through gradual digital transformation and company process automation, reform them.
We apply a blended set of solutions appertaining to your business requirements to automate your repetitive workflows around capturing, regulating, and registering data so that it's uncomplicated to find and access whenever, from any location.
We can be of assistance in individualizing your AP digitization tool to fit your business's particular requirements and we gladly work with more than 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS solutions including SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files, and Oracle.
If you’re ready to learn more, connect with us today and we can set up a time to chat.