Serge Labouyrie of Ariba explains how procure-to-pay can offer an FD peace of mind.
The benefits of enterprise research planning (ERP) and procurement are demonstrated in thousands of companies every day. ERP processes financial transactions and delivers accurate financial reporting, while procurement ensures optimal supplier relationships and smooth processes across partner transactions.
However, poor coordination between purchasing and accounts payable is costing companies time and money. In recent decades, companies of all shapes and sizes have focused significant effort on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their accounts payable organisation. Yet most finance executives remain unsatisfied with the current levels of correction work, manual processing, filing and matching activities still required within their organisations.
Manual or paper-based processing of purchase orders, invoices and payments is cumbersome and error-prone. Using multiple, dissimilar systems to manage these documents can lead to missed savings opportunities and weak compliance and lack of line-item purchase order (PO) and level three Pcard (a corporate purchasing card) data integration may extend the reconciliation process and increase the need for manual intervention. (Level three refers to the kind of data that a company gets, so rather than just getting information on what hotel they stayed at and what it cost, it is a complete itemisation.)
But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Companies that take a streamlined, coordinated approach to managing the procure-to-pay process can realise immediate efficiencies and drive cost savings directly to the bottom line. procure-to-pay (P2P) solutions that link appropriate purchasing and finance applications drive this approach as they give companies the ability to automate, monitor and control the complete purchasing life cycle from requisition to payment using a single system.
What a procure-to-pay system achieves
An integrated P2P solution integrates all spend information, including out-of-system data, to enable automated expense reporting, line-item level reconciliation and complete visibility across categories. The result is a closed loop between procurement and accounts payable, an end-to-end process with built-in approval workflows and policies that minimise maverick buying and support compliance initiatives.
A closed-loop system P2P system can:
Automate, monitor and control spend
There are multiple sources of spend data in every company that must be reconciled against contract terms, spend management policies and authorised requisitions. This data can come from POs, invoices (PO and non-PO) and Pcard data. Many companies reconcile this data using a variety of manual means and disconnected systems. This can lead to processing inefficiencies, missed contract savings and unchallenged maverick spend.
A P2P solution that integrates all spend data into a single system allows a company to automate, monitor and control its spend throughout the purchasing lifecycle. Additionally, the integration of level three Pcard data directly from the card association makes it possible to automate expense reporting, reconciliation, approval and payment, while flagging exceptions in real time for more timely and efficient resolution.
Benefit from integrated P2P solutions
Procurement organisations work very hard to identify the correct vendors and negotiate optimal contract pricing. Without a closed loop system, many of these hard fought terms can either be lost or ignored through maverick spending. An integrated P2P solution can solve this problem by:
Increasing visibility
Understanding what is being purchased and from whom is also a critical priority. Unless companies have clear visibility into what they are spending and where they are spending it, it is impossible to clearly target savings opportunities and money ends up being left on the table.
Access to level three Pcard data is critical to gaining full visibility into spend so that off-contract purchases can be easily identified, flagged and pre-empted. Fully integrated P2P solutions provide such visibility by incorporating level three Pcard data containing such details as hotel folio data or supplier and tax details. This data can then be fed into a P2P analysis tool to aggregate by supplier, identify travel/spend patterns within the company and provide enhanced reporting and analytics.
Companies can also reap the rewards of process efficiencies that P2P solutions can create including:
P2P solutions not only close the gap between procurement and payment by bringing PO and invoice processing into a single, closed-loop system, they enhance visibility into all spend by integrating level three Pcard spend data. To create an effective P2P integration, ERP and procurement functions must work together to:
Companies must avoid the trap of being satisfied with simple PO creation and invoicing capabilities – necessary functions, for sure, but not ones that provide vision necessary for budget planning. To maximise these automated functions, level three Pcard needs to be integrated with the rest of the company's spend data to ensure full, line-item reconciliation and visibility into a company's entire spend spectrum.
In summary, by closing the loop between finance and procurement, companies eliminate inefficiencies in invoice reconciliation and expense reporting processes, streamline reconciliation and accounts payable processing, improve control over maverick spending and enhance overall policy compliance. And although finance and procurement provide great value to companies by themselves, neither are being utilised to their greatest potential if they do not work together.
Serge Labouyrie is Senior Manager, AR/AP EIPP Business, Ariba EMEA., a leading provider of Spend Management Solutions