Automating A Purchase Requisition Process With Bpm


by Invensys Skelta - Date: 2010-07-27 - Word Count: 669 Share This!

A purchase requisition is a process of requesting and authorizing procurement of goods and services by a department in the organization. It contains a description and quantity of the goods or services to be purchased, a required delivery date, account number and the amount of money that the purchasing department is authorized to spend for the goods or services.
As part of an organization's internal financial controls, the accounting department is accountable for a purchase requisition process to manage request for purchase of goods and services. These requests are documented and routed for approval within the organization and then delivered to the accounting group.
The challenges faced by an organization in implementing a purchase requisition process
Organizations' may incorporate a purchase requisition process to help manage requests for purchases but in order to control expenses and be in line with the rigid accounting policies of the state, The process needs to be adopted across the whole organization. However, occasional requesters of goods and services have little awareness of how to source their needs, or what corporate policies are in place, budgets or spend limitations, understanding of process or accounting requirements. Additionally, any attempts to enforce rigid purchase requisition processes or rules inevitably results in those procedures being circumvented, but adhoc expenses without proper documentation still remains a cultural problem in the organization.

In addition, a manual paper-based process is laborious as the requests are manually typed, rekeyed, logged, validated, routed, and stored. It results in inefficient and error prone processing that burdens users and administrators. The data is scattered across all systems and locating relevant information, causes a user to waste time, resulting in slow requisition cycles. Manual notification, tracking, and reporting contribute to inefficiency and prevent effective control of the procurement cycle.

For a purchase requisition process to be truly encompassing, it should have the following characteristics:
• A single, unified requisition process for all types of spend
• Bring people and systems on the same platform to collaborate effectively
• Accountable for all types of supply sources and processes
• The purchasing requisition process has to be integrated with sourcing
• Simple in use and contextual
• Provides visibility to users to incorporate buying policies
• It has to consider the planning of future purchases
• Clear visibility of the financial impact of a purchase
• Scalable to accommodate a growing organization

A solution is needed to absorb the complexity of a sophisticated purchasing solution and present it in a simple and contextual manner and ensure compliance with organizational sourcing and authorization policies. The system should be able to get real time data and bring all stakeholders on the same platform for effective collaboration.

The benefits of automating a purchase requisition process
Organizations' can automate purchase requisition processes to drastically reduce administrative costs and better manage vendor payouts. If the requisition process is built on a business process management platform, organizations can easily integrate their ERP and other core business systems with automated purchase requisition processes. As a result, organizations can shorten approval cycles, reduce administrative overheads, and effectively control and expedite the requests while being compliant.

• Increase resource efficiency and productivity by streamlining purchase process
• Scalable system to accommodate unnatural growth
• Eliminate manual handling and minimize processing errors
• Approval cycles are shortened by real time alerts to stakeholders, build KPI's and SLA levels
• Monitor and make changes to the process to optimize it to the best levels
• Be compliant with all corporate and governmental policies
• Eliminate human intervention and increase accuracy of data
• Integrate with existing and legacy applications
• Provide contextual actionable alerts to ensure streamlined process
• Reduce administrative and delivery costs.
• Ensure document accuracy, security, and reliability
• Permission based access to users
The solution built on a good BPM product will minimize administration costs with total process automation. By bringing the stakeholders on the same platform and making the process visible to everyone, the approval times are considerably shortened. The BPM solution will effectively enforce purchasing policies to reduce the cost of goods and services.
The solution should not only provide for fulfilling current requirements but also be sympathetic in its approach to changes in policies, document types, users and connecting systems and be approachable in adopting several current standards.

Related Tags: business process management, bpm, accounts payable, purchase requisition, purchase requisition workflow, purchase requisition process, accounts payabl

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