SharePoint vs M-Files: The Platform For AP Productivity & Purchase Order Automation in Minneapolis

Creating capabilities in your company operations is a pivotal initial step toward digital transformation, back-office innovation, and supplying your business an advantage in a progressively competitive professional landscape.

Paper-based operations and fragmented systems with impasses make synergy, efficacy, visibility, and liability to shareholders notably complex.

By means of accounts payable mechanization, you could carry out paperless operations into your company and simplify workflows like purchase requests, invoicing, payment processing, procurement, and data input processes.

Digitizing these forms of organizational operations generates more proficiency in enterprise resource planning (ERP), better expenditure cuts, and reformed utilization of your manpower.

Included in this guide, we’re examining two of the most popular tools used for AP productivity and purchase requisition mechanization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our target is to assist you in selecting the appropriate toolset and partner so you could augment and accelerate your AP digital revamping.

But prior to beginning our product analysis, let’s do a quick review of what purchase request automation is and how it generates further productivity for your AP processes.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the concept of utilizing business solutions via machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to mechanize the purchase order process and its synonymous workflows.

By means of mechanization, purchase orders may be spontaneously forwarded to the appropriate company to start the approval process. Later, as soon as the order is approved, it is mechanically forwarded to the supplier.

Though this may not seem like much at first read, digitizing the procurement process eliminates the need for a manual process, materialized arrangements, and streamlines the standard time-consuming workflow.

For example, with purchase order software or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, you can create electronic purchase orders that contractors can identify followed by having the data automatically fused into your accounting tool.

This superficially small ability greatly expedites the process, dramatically lessens the need for by-hand intervention, and therefore, amplifies proficiency within your Accounts Payable section.

The Benefits of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We talked about several of the gains of AP mechanization in the preceding chapter, but to be certain that you understand, let's break these benefits down in absolute terms.

• Mechanized data logging and storage

• Greater efficiency through more automation and less manual interference

• Greater reliability on account of less physical blunders

• Increased visibility into procedures with your digitized workflows

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

• Enhanced logistics network and vendor connections and self-service portal

• Improved capability to regulate for safety and compliance

Now that we’ve gone over what AP and electronic purchase order is, how it operates, and why it’s vital, let’s start our software review on Sharepoint vs M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

Within this section, we’re reviewing a fundamental analysis between the rate and competencies of SharePoint along with M-Files, succeeded by an extensive review on their AP and purchase request automation potential.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown

Although this portion gives a fine conventional neck-and-neck evaluation, it doesn’t inform us on how these solutions administer processes like purchase order automation. Therefore in this next section, we’re providing a summary of each solution and how it handles this essential operation.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is one of the most recognized and accepted enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS solutions, because of its close relation to diverse popular Microsoft solutions like Excel, Outlook, and Word.

When it comes to purchase order automation, SharePoint sanctions you to resolve all the problems you may be confronting with your present-day, manual purchase request scheme.

Order Tracking

To initiate, by utilizing Microsoft SharePoint and combining Office 365 applications, staff can oversee purchase orders at all phase from request approvals to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also enable your business to tailor your automated purchase requisition arrangement to your particular instructions and requirements.

Aspects you could individualize within SharePoint comprise of the layout of the purchase order forms, role assignments, line items, multi-level approvals, and filters appertaining to location, type, payment terms, and more.

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 may also promote correspondence between sectors. When the PO process has commenced, SharePoint could prompt a programmed email to all respective parties to alert them that the process has begun and once more when it’s complete.

Interactive Dashboards

Another critical element of mechanization is the clarity into productivity and workflow transparency. SharePoint enables this by permitting you to oversee purchase order progress through an interactive dashboard.

With the dashboard system, you can track purchase request history among departments, view the breakdown of approval vs denial ratio, and follow the status of POs in progress.

Vigorous Integrations

Moreover, SharePoint provides superb adaptability in that it can incorporate with most solutions among departments for improved cooperation.

For example, if a branch submits a purchase request for a network printer; once the request is actioned, SharePoint can mechanically produce an entry in your finance solution for the new IT asset.

Now that we’ve discussed what SharePoint can do in terms of assisting you in automating your AP tasks, let’s continue 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 adaptation contingent on your business requirements.

Its interface is modeled off the Windows Explorer web browser making it easy to understand and perform for departments that are comfortable with the Windows interface.

Additionally, M-Files grants state-of-the-art functionality that empowers organizations to automate workflows and processes such as purchase requisition automation. Let’s examine those aptitudes.

Input

With M-Files you may capture invoices from primary or distributed areas and automate the ingestion of important data associated with your purchase request and authorization processes.

Data entry

As an extension of the input capability, M-Files allows users to distinguish and pull out data from purchase requisition areas to facilitate the mechanization and transmission process. Furthermore, M-Files enables you to input any appropriate organizational regulations, approval details and incorporates archive lookups to help ensure veracity throughout the process.

Matching and coding

As a state-of-the-art functionality, M-Files may execute conforming of POs and GL coding of non-PO statements in your ERP procedure to streamline structure and transmission.

Automated approvals

The M-Files platform can manage and mechanize as much of the approval workflow as you desire. This includes overseeing, queues, routing, response, and aging records. Any purchase request that falls short of the authorization process can be amended by hand and then put back into the automation flow for approval.

Automatic storage of approved POs

Once approval has been issued, purchase requisitions can be sent to finance mechanically to wrap up handling and storage in a primary cache.

How Wave Can Assist You in Enforcing Your Purchase Order Automation Platform in Minneapolis

Keeping your business competitive these days involves simplifying your processes and eliminating the bottlenecks from your systems that work to diminish your proficiency and output. Additionally, it involves picking the appropriate business tools to complete your strategic growth objectives.

At Wave, we can assist by analyzing the fundamental elements of your organization and via incremental digital conversion and company system automation, reform them.

We apply a combination of technology appertaining to your company needs to automate your laborious workflows around capturing, arranging, and cataloging data so that it's uncomplicated to find and utilize whenever, from wherever.

We can assist you in customizing your AP automation solution to fit your organization’s particular requirements and we willingly work with more than 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS platforms including SharePoint, OpenText, M-Files, and Oracle.

If you’re ready to learn more, reach out today and we can schedule a time to chat.