Leading industry analysts report that “Spend Under Management” ranges from 89% for best in class to an industry average of 66% and 32% for laggards.
Efforts over the past decade have greatly improved the Spend Management and Procurement processes, with requisitions, approval workflows, budget controls and vendor contracts. ERPs and ISV add-on solutions record items or services received, and match invoices to receipts, purchase orders, and vendor contracts.
Despite all efforts to increase spend under management, many organizations receive a large number of non-PO invoices. Examples are emergency spending, legal services, consultants, facility services, repairs, utilities or taxes. If you were surprised with over budget invoices for snow removal last winter, you are not alone!
Non-PO invoices typically end up in Accounts Payable. AP determines the authorized approvers, and sends the invoice for approval by paper mail circulation with an approval slip, by e-mail, or using generic tools like SharePoint. Document Management systems can be tailored for the document approval process, but are often not cost-justified for AP Invoice applications alone, or may not have the necessary tight integration with the ERP’s General ledger distribution, vendor contracts, or budgets.
Typical pain points associated with processing non-PO spending invoices are:
- Manual approvals – lost or misplaced invoices, late payment charges or lost discounts.
- Excessive time for entering and tracking invoices.
- Failure to correct invoices discrepancies or enforce vendor contracts.
- No historical tracking for audits.
A Check Request process applies the same discipline as transactions originated by Requisitions and Purchase Orders. This includes
- Approval workflows based on customizable criteria, most often the amount, department, type of expense, GL account, company, project, vendor contract, and budget status.
- Inline view of the invoice document along with the transaction, secure document storage and retrieval for research.
- Tracking of invoices to vendor contract commitments and detection of variances.
- Automatic interface for a fully coded and approved transaction to AP for payment.
About Paramount Technologies
Paramount Technologies is a leading global provider of web-based / mobile spend management and workflow automation solutions for midmarket and enterprise organizations. Our WorkPlace solutions automate Requisition, Procurement, AP Invoice Automation, Materials Management, Project Time, as well as Travel and Expense transactions. The WorkPlace suite of products can be deployed on premise or in the cloud and is universally accessible from any browser-enabled device. WorkPlace 2014 integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Blackbaud and other financial systems. Established in 1995, Paramount is a private company headquartered in Walled Lake, MI with regional offices across the United States and Canada.
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