August 17, 2021

SharePoint vs M-Files: The Solution For AP Proficiency & Purchase Order Automation in Hialeah

Generating competencies in your company operations is a critical first phase toward digital transformation, back-office modernization, and granting your organization an upper hand in a growingly competitive professional industry.


Concrete operations and disjointed processes with logjams make cooperation, efficiency, visibility, and accountability to stakeholders very difficult.

By means of accounts payable automation, you can carry out cloud-based systems into your business and expedite workflows like purchase orders, invoicing, payment processing, procurement, and data input processes.

Mechanizing these types of business workflows creates more capacity in enterprise resource planning (ERP), greater expenditure cuts, and improved utilization of your human resources.

Within this handbook, we’re examining two of the most prevalent tools used for AP efficiency and purchase requisition digitization: SharePoint and M-Files. Our target is to aid you in selecting the appropriate tech stack and collaborate so you could expand and speed up your AP digital revamping.

But prior to beginning our product review, let’s do a quick review of what purchase order mechanization is and how it creates greater capability for your AP workflows.

What is Purchase Order Automation?

Purchase order automation is the process of employing business solutions through machine learning (ML), robotic technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) to digitize the purchase order operation and its related workflows.


Via mechanization, purchase requisitions may be spontaneously transmitted to the relevant company to initiate the authorization process. Later, as soon as the order is authorized, it is mechanically transmitted to the supplier.


Although this may not seem like much at first read, mechanizing the procurement operation removes the necessity for a manual process, paper-based schemes, and streamlines the often time-consuming workflow.


For example, with purchase order software or your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, you can create automated purchase orders that contractors can acknowledge at which point the details automatically integrated into your accounting software.


This superficially minor aptitude greatly streamlines the workflow, dramatically lessens the demand for manual interference, and therefore, amplifies proficiency inside your Accounts Payable section.

The Benefits of AP and Purchase Order Automation

We talked about a number of the benefits of AP mechanization in the former section, but just to make sure you understand, let's break these benefits down in plain language.

  • Digitized data logging and storage

  • Enhanced competence with extra automation and less by-hand intervention

  • Improved reliability due to less human blunders

  • Enhanced visibility into operations with your automated processes

  • Actual-time auditing, reporting, and analytics to uphold the development of efficiencies

  • Improved logistics process and supplier relationships and self-operated portal

  • Greater capability to monitor for protection and compliance

Since we’ve discussed what AP and electronic purchase order is, how it functions, and why it’s significant, let’s begin our product evaluation on Sharepoint versus M-Files.

Microsoft SharePoint Online vs M-Files Review

Within this chapter, we’re examining a straightforward breakdown between the costing and competencies of SharePoint and M-Files, succeeded by an extensive review on their AP and purchase requisition mechanization qualities.

Basic Price and Features Breakdown



Microsoft SharePoint

M-Files

Pricing

Starting at $5 p/month

By quote

Features

Android/iOS Mobile Apps

Access Services

Compliance-Capable

Customized Web Parts

Durable Links

e-Sign Off

Encrypted Connections

Fast Site Collection Creation

Image/Video Preview

Large File Support

Mini Roles

Network Folders

Site Templates

Storage Library

User Rights Management


Android/iOS Mobile Apps

Check-in/out

Co-authoring

CRM, Accounting, ERP

Document Templates

Dynamic Views

Email Notifications

e-Sign Off

File Scanning and Capture

Full Text or Metadata Search

Log and Audit Trail

Network Folders

Shareable Links

User Rights Management

Versioning

Workflow Automation


API Integrations & Add-ons


Microsoft Office Products

(Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive, etc)

Microsoft PowerApps

ERP

Business Intelligence

CRM

Microsoft Office Products

(Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive)

Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Salesforce CRM

AutoCAD

SAP

Support Options

Email & Phone

Email & Phone


While this portion presents a decent conventional simultaneous analogy, it doesn’t tell us much about how these tools manage processes namely digital purchase order. Therefore in this next chapter, we’re going to do an overview of each solution and how it administers this essential task.

Microsoft SharePoint Overview

SharePoint is one of the most recognized and established enterprise content management (ECM) and DMS tools, owing to its close relation to different popular Microsoft tools like Word, Excel, and Outlook.


As it relates to purchase requisition mechanization, SharePoint allows you to handle the entirety of issues you may be confronting with your existing, physical purchase requisition arrangement.

Order Tracking

To begin, by using Microsoft SharePoint and incorporating Office 365 applications, staff can track purchase requisitions at every phase from request approvals to delivery.

Customization

SharePoint and Office 365 also enable your business to customize your digital purchase requisition scheme to your individual directions and requirements.


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

Communication

SharePoint and Office 365 may also facilitate connection among departments. When the PO procedure has begun, SharePoint can trigger an automated email to all relevant teams to alert them that the procedure has started and once more as soon as it’s carried out.

Interactive Dashboards

One more important element of automation is the clarity into productivity and workflow transparency. SharePoint provides this by authorizing you to oversee purchase requisition progress with an interactive dashboard.


With the dashboard system, you could monitor purchase request history across sections, see the breakdown of approval vs denial proportion, and monitor the state of ongoing POs.

Robust Integrations

Moreover, SharePoint provides great versatility in that it can work with with most tools among departments for improved synergy.


For instance, if a department submits a purchase order for a network printer; once the requisition is actioned, SharePoint can mechanically develop an entry in your finance tool for the new IT resource.


Now that we’ve seen what SharePoint can do in terms of helping you automate your AP processes, let’s move on to M-Files.

M-Files Overview

M-Files is a vigorous enterprise content management (ECM) system that offers both local, cloud solutions, or a hybrid adaptation depending on your company requirements.


Its interface is based off of the Windows Explorer web engine making it simple to understand and execute for departments that are comfortable with the Windows ecosystem.


Moreover, M-Files offers innovative functionality that allows organizations to automate operations and processes like purchase request automation. Let’s study those competencies.

Input

With M-Files you may acquire invoices from main or assigned areas and digitize the collection of essential data associated with your purchase requisition and approval processes.

Data entry

As a continuation of the input capability, M-Files empowers users to distinguish and pull out information from purchase requisition fields to promote the automation and transmission process. Furthermore, M-Files permits you to input any pertinent organizational regulations, confirmation specifications and includes database lookups to help ensure precision during the operation.

Matching and coding

As a state-of-the-art functional scope, M-Files may perform conforming of POs and GL coding of non-PO billing statements in your ERP operation to simplify organization and delivery.

Automated approvals

The M-Files system can regulate and digitize as much of the authorization procedure as you want. This includes managing, response, queues, routing, and aging accounts. Any purchase order that flunks the validation course can be corrected physically and then reinstated into the digitization flow for validation.

Automatic storage of approved POs

As soon as authorization has been granted, purchase orders can be forwarded to finance spontaneously to wrap up development and storage in a main cache.

How Wave Can Help You Implement Your Purchase Order Automation Tool in Hialeah

Holding your company cutthroat today means rationalizing your procedures and eliminating the bottlenecks from your workflows that work to diminish your proficiency and productivity. Moreover, it involves choosing the appropriate business systems to accomplish your calculated growth goals.


At Wave, we can help by analyzing the fundamental aspects of your company and via step-by-step digital conversion and business process automation, transform them.

We use a blended set of technology appertaining to your company needs to mechanize your repetitive processes around collecting, arranging, and cataloging data so that it's uncomplicated to track down and use at any time, from anywhere.

We can help you to custom-tailor your AP digitization tool to satisfy your business's specific requirements and we gladly collaborate with more than 60 industry-accepted ECM and DMS solutions including OpenText, M-Files, SharePoint, and Oracle.

If you’re interested in learning more, contact us today and we can schedule a time to chat.