SharePoint vs M-Files: The Platform For AP Proficiency & Purchase Order Automation in New Orleans

Developing capabilities in your business processes is a pivotal initial stage toward digital switch-over, back-office upgrading, and supplying your company an upper hand in a growingly aggressive professional industry.

Paper-based operations and fragmented processes with impasses make collaboration, productivity, perceptibility, and accountability to stakeholders very complex.

By means of accounts payable digitization, you can carry out cloud-based arrangements into your business and simplify tasks like purchase requests, payment processing, procurement, invoicing, and data logging workflows.

Mechanizing these forms of organizational workflows produces more proficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), better cost savings, and improved application of your manpower.

Included in this handbook, we’re reviewing a couple of the most prevalent solutions used for AP productivity and purchase requisition mechanization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our objective is to aid you in selecting the appropriate toolset and cooperate so you could develop and expedite your AP digital revamping.

But before we begin with our product review, let’s talk through what purchase request automation is and how it produces greater productivity for your AP processes.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the concept of employing business software with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robotic technology to digitize the purchase requisition system and its related tasks.

By means of mechanization, purchase orders may be automatically forwarded to the fitting company to start the approval routine. Later, as soon as the request is confirmed, it is automatically forwarded to the vendor.

While this may not appear to be significant at first glance, mechanizing the purchasing procedure removes the necessity for a by-hand process, materialized arrangements, and streamlines the often labor-intensive workflow.

As an example, with purchase order software or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, you can produce electronic purchase orders that contractors can comprehend at which point the information mechanically integrated into your accounting software.

This seemingly small ability greatly streamlines the process, dramatically reduces the need for human intervention, and therefore, enhances proficiency through your Accounts Payable division.

The Advantages of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We covered a number of the advantages of AP mechanization in the former chapter, but just to make sure you understand, let's take these advantages apart in absolute terms.

• Digitized data logging and storage

• Greater efficiency via further digitization and less manual meddling

• Improved accuracy due to less human error

• Increased perceptibility into systems through your automated workflows

• Current-time reporting, analytics, and auditing to sustain the betterment of capacities

• Enhanced supply network and merchant connections and self-managed portal

• Enhanced ability to monitor for protection and amenability

So now that we’ve discussed what AP and digital purchase order is, how it works, and why it’s important, let’s start our software assessment on Sharepoint versus M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

In this portion, we’re reviewing a basic breakdown between the pricing and competencies of SharePoint as well as M-Files, and then an extensive review on their AP and purchase order automation potential.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown

Although this chapter gives a fine conventional side-by-side comparison, it doesn’t educate us on how these tools manage processes like electronic purchase order. So in this succeeding portion, we’re providing an overview of each tool and how it administers this significant undertaking.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is one of the most recognized and established enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS solutions, because of its strong association with other prevalent Microsoft tools like Word, Excel, and Outlook.

As it relates to purchase request automation, SharePoint sanctions you to resolve each one of the concerns you could be experiencing with your current, physical purchase order system.

Order Tracking

To start, by employing Microsoft SharePoint and integrating Office 365 programs, personnel can track purchase requests at any stage from request authorizations to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also allow your company to tailor your electronic purchase request scheme to your specific directions and necessities.

Aspects you may custom tailor within SharePoint involve the format of the purchase request forms, multi-level approvals, role assignments, line items, and filters appertaining to location, type, payment terms, and more.

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 could also further communication across divisions. Once the PO procedure has started, SharePoint could prompt a programmed email to all respective parties to alert them that the operation has started and once more when it’s complete.

Interactive Dashboards

A further significant component of digitization is the foresight into efficiency and workflow transparency. SharePoint delivers this by authorizing you to supervise purchase request progress through an interactive dashboard.

Via the dashboard framework, you could oversee purchase requisition history among sections, view the evaluation of approval vs denial ratio, and follow the state of POs in progress.

Vigorous Integrations

Moreover, SharePoint offers superb flexibility in that it can incorporate with most tools across departments for increased collaboration.

For example, if a division delivers a purchase request for a network printer; as soon as the request is processed, SharePoint can automatically generate an entry in your finance tool for the new IT resource.

Now that we’ve learned about what SharePoint can do in terms of assisting you in automating your AP processes, let’s move on to M-Files.

M-Files Overview

M-Files is a powerful enterprise content management (ECM) solution that presents both on-site, cloud solutions, or a hybrid version depending on your organizational demands.

Its interface is modeled off the Windows Explorer web engine making it convenient to figure out and execute for teams that are used to the Windows ecosystem.

Furthermore, M-Files grants advanced functionality that allows companies to digitize workflows and processes like purchase request automation. Let’s study those capabilities.

Input

With M-Files you can capture invoices from central or assigned locations and mechanize the gathering of essential data linked to your purchase requisition and authorization workflows.

Data entry

In addition to the input aptitude, M-Files enables customers to distinguish and withdraw data from purchase requisition fields to promote the digitization and conveying process. Moreover, M-Files permits you to input any pertinent organizational regulations, validation specifications and incorporates directory searches to assist in guaranteeing precision during the procedure.

Matching and coding

As a cutting-edge functionality, M-Files can perform matching of POs and GL coding of non-PO billing statements in your ERP procedure to simplify arrangement and delivery.

Automated approvals

The M-Files system can regulate and automate as much of the approval procedure as you wish. This contains overseeing, queues, routing, response, and aging records. Any purchase requisition that falls short of the approval process can be corrected by hand and then reinstated into the mechanization flow for validation.

Automatic storage of approved POs

Once authorization has been granted, purchase requests can be transmitted to finance mechanically to wrap up handling and storage in a central repository.

How Wave Can Aid You in Executing Your Purchase Order Automation Tool in New Orleans

Holding your company cutthroat today involves streamlining your processes and eliminating the impasses from your undertakings that decrease your proficiency and output. Additionally, it involves choosing the proper business systems to achieve your tactical growth aims.

At Wave, we can assist by analyzing the foundational elements of your business and through incremental digital conversion and organizational process automation, transform them.

We utilize a combination of solutions in accordance with your business needs to automate your tedious tasks around collecting, regulating, and registering data so that it's simple to find and use whenever, from any location.

We can be of assistance in individualizing your AP mechanization solution to fulfill your company’s specific demands and we willingly collaborate with upwards of 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS platforms including SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files, and Oracle.

If you’re interested in learning more, reach out today and we can set up a time to chat.