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How EqualLevel GO “Levels the Playing Field” for Small & Disadvantaged Businesses

When making purchases, procurement professionals expect the same functionality they experience as consumers shopping online at home. They want a seamless experience between their purchasing or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, and their approved vendors’ most up-to-date product and pricing information. In order to do this, businesses need to have a PunchOut store or the capability to PunchOut. Because this can be technologically complex, public sector organizations often inadvertently favor larger, more sophisticated vendors with this capability, and small businesses can get left in the dust. 

“Every year since we have had our PunchOut store, sales have increased.”

Robin Peterson
Midwest Technology Products

How can small/disadvantaged vendors compete against the big guys, especially if don’t have an online presence already?

EqualLevel GO gives small OEMs or distributors, who may have limited IT capabilities, the opportunity to establish a PunchOut catalog store, or PunchOut store, that integrates with ERPs. This allows small companies to appear alongside their larger competitors.

A PunchOut store is a web-based, supplier-managed catalog storefront. The PunchOut store can be custom built on top of an existing eCommerce site or, more commonly, managed for the supplier by a third-party solution provider. Buying organization employees can access the supplier’s PunchOut store directly from their eProcurement marketplace, also known as “punching out” to the supplier’s site, or “PunchOut.” PunchOut allows the organization to maintain full control over order approval and payment.

How PunchOut works

The customer connects, or “punches out,” from their company’s system to a supplier’s eCommerce site. The PunchOut site identifies the buying organization and displays the appropriate products and prices. The shopper searches and selects goods they wish to purchase and adds them to their cart on the PunchOut site. At the end of the shopping session, the shopper checks out, which sends descriptions and prices of the goods placed in their cart to their ERP system.

Benefits of EqualLevel GO

EqualLevel GO’s PunchOut commerce site is scalable, easy-to-use and administer, and is provided at no charge to sellers when combined with EqualLevel’s buy-side eProcurement Marketplace solution. 

EqualLevel GO customers experience tangible benefits, such as:

Increased Average Order Value

PunchOut catalog store, combined with up-selling and cross-selling, is a powerful combination that increases total and average order value. Suppliers can show related and complementary products in their PunchOut store shopping cart and can anticipate and make adjustments that will increase the average sale.

Greater Ability to Attract Big Customers

When it comes to gaining large customers, a PunchOut catalog store is a win-win. Big enterprises are often on the lookout for suppliers who can allow them to order directly through their ERP procurement system. For many large organizations, PunchOut is a ”must-have” for engagement.

Improved Sales Productivity

A PunchOut catalog store streamlines the sales process because it produces more accurate orders. This means less time is spent correcting orders, which improves response times and overall productivity.

Improved Customer Relationships

By simplifying the purchasing process, suppliers strengthen customer relationships by receiving and responding to orders more quickly.

Click here to learn more about EqualLevel GO.

Further Reading

Small/disadvantaged customers like Midwest Technology Products, GBEX, and El Paso Office Products have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, EqualLevel GO to ensure their products are showing up in the search results of big buyers. Below are their stories:

Supplier Spotlight: Midwest Technology Products

Supplier Spotlight: El Paso Office Products

Supplier Spotlight: GBEX

Blog

The Benefits of Invoice Automation

Many public sector Accounts Payable departments grapple with the invoice reconciliation and approval process. It can be considered the most laborious, time-consuming, and error-prone part of the procurement cycle, especially for those organizations still relying heavily on paper and manual processes. Fortunately, advancements in technology, namely the widespread use of cloud computing and increased accessibility to eProcurement solutions, have given rise to invoice automation.

Managing invoices that are received via email, postal mail, or fax can be tedious and cumbersome. Data must be manually entered into the organization’s financial system, and the documents scanned and uploaded. One or more full-time dedicated employees are often required to enter and reconcile hundreds or thousands of invoices on a weekly basis.

EqualLevel’s eInvoicing Solution

EqualLevel’s eInvoicing solution provides a means to seamlessly and electronically exchange invoices between software systems and automate key portions of the invoice reconciliation process. With invoice automation, suppliers may generate an electronic invoice from their own system, or from a system made available by the eProcurement provider who services the buying organization. All invoices can then be sent electronically, directly to the buying organization’s eProcurement application, regardless of the supplier’s technical sophistication, greatly simplifying the process.

ERP Integration

EqualLevel’s eInvoicing solution may be integrated with an organization’s existing accounting or enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to replace an inefficient, paper-based invoice approval process with a convenient online system. The invoice reconciliation and approval process may take place within the eProcurement system, the organization’s ERP system, or in both through a two-step hybrid approach. In the hybrid approach, the eProcurement system will match the invoices and automatically reject those that violate predetermined exception rules, including but not limited to invalid invoice items, incorrect tax or shipping additions, and substantial price increases. Invoices that pass these initial rules are then transmitted to the ERP system for final reconciliation, where less critical exceptions can be routed for manual review before payment approval. Options for transmitting invoices to the ERP system will depend on the flexibility and robustness of the solution from the eProcurement provider, but some possible options include sending the invoices via cXML, pulling the invoice data via an API integration, or an automated export/import of an invoice data file.

Benefits of Invoice Automation

Automating the invoice to payment process helps organizations more easily manage the entire invoicing lifecycle. Some of the key benefits of eInvoicing include:

  • Automating invoice entry and reconciliation.
  • Receiving structured and uniform invoices.
  • Reducing data entry and document handling costs.
  • Reducing errors caused by manual data entry.
  • Monitoring transactions in real-time.
  • Slashing invoice processing times.
  • Eliminating late payment charges.
  • Taking advantage of early payment discounts.

Digitizing the invoicing process streamlines the entire workflow and frees up valuable time for financial professionals to spend on more strategic tasks.

Click here for more information regarding EqualLevel’s eInvoicing solution.

Blog

Time is Money: Learn How to Save Both with an Online Procurement Platform

Manual and paper-based procurement processes have been plagued with inefficiencies. Whether it be requisitioning, ordering, invoice reconciliation, or payment processing, the outdated, inflexible, and costly purchasing systems in use restrict the ability to conduct broad-based procurement with the supply community. But what if there was an “easy” button for the procurement process? EqualLevel’s online procurement platform allows organizations to quickly implement a cloud-based, multi-vendor, procure-to-pay marketplace that ensures compliance and can be accessed anywhere, at any time. With increased transparency, efficiency, and compliance, the marketplace enables organizations to conduct business in the office or remotely, and it provides greater access into an approved, fully digital supply network.

Over the last two decades, eCommerce has exploded in the consumer world with companies like Amazon making buying almost anything as easy as 1-2-3. By digitizing the procurement process, the shopping experience for businesses can be just as simple and can lead to increased savings and operational efficiency.

The marketplace seamlessly integrates with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems so that all approved suppliers/vendors and all goods and services managed by procurement are located in one easy-to-use, easy-to-administer system. It spans the entire procurement lifecycle, from punch-out commerce solutions to shopping for goods or services, approval workflow, catalog and contract pricing, purchase order automation,and receipt-invoice matching.

The Benefits of An Online Procurement Platform

Organizations that have implemented an eProcurement marketplace have quickly recognized the many benefits of digitizing the procurement process. To list a few:

Efficiency: By automating a significant portion of the procurement process, an eProcurement marketplace leads to faster cycle times and improved productivity. The elimination of paper and manual steps also frees up time for employees to focus on more value-added activities.

Cost Saving: Cost-saving with an eProcurement system comes not only from ordering through preferred vendors but also from increased spend visibility. The EqualLevel Savings Advisor (ELSA) analyzes quotes to ensure the best value and uses machine learning to become smarter with every purchase. Utilizing a real-time, federated search across punchout sites, similar to Travelocity or Orbitz, data is collected from distributed sources and artificial intelligence (AI) technology uses this data to identify savings opportunities.

Compliance: Implementing a one-stop, multi-vendor punchout marketplace of all approved suppliers and contracts ensures compliance with state and federal regulations. The system automatically creates a three-bid process to determine product price, select the supplier (among approved vendors), and create the requisition or shopping cart for approval.

Transparency: eProcurement also makes it easier to conduct and analyze reports on procurement systems in order to ensure that the procedures conform to established policies. Real-time visibility into what supplies employees are purchasing and from which vendors provides valuable business insight and eliminates maverick spending.

Innovating an outdated procurement process with an online eProcurement marketplace provides a single, seamless platform to facilitate the shop-order-pay transaction. It provides employees with a more streamlined and efficient experience so they can optimize every dollar spent and every moment doing so.

When it comes to procurement, time is money. Neither time nor money should be wasted. Isn’t it time for your organization to hit the easy button and jump in?

Learn more about the EqualLevel eProcurement marketplace here.

Case Study

Purchasing Execs Share Their Experiences Extending ERP With eProcurement Marketplace

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when stockpiles of critical supplies like personal protective equipment (PPE), hand sanitizer and toilet tissue were quickly diminishing, and options for replenishment were growing scarcer by the day, Bruce Collins, Purchasing Director for the City of El Paso in Texas, received an unexpected phone call. A supplier from one of the City’s approved purchasing cooperatives wanted to know if Collins was interested in buying some extra PPE he had on hand due to a last-minute order cancellation. “I told him I would take the whole truckload,” Collins recounted.

That call, and others like it that Collins received over the past nine months, was more than just a lucky break. Collins contends that these goodwill gestures were the result of the strong relationships his department has fostered with vendors over the years, and in particular, since launching the City’s eProcurement marketplace in 2015. The eProcurement platform technology was designed by EqualLevel, a leading provider of public sector procure-to-pay solutions.

“A commitment to open, fair and respectful engagement with all of the City’s suppliers has always been a foundational principle of the City of El Paso’s purchasing and strategic sourcing department,” said Collins. “But we have really taken our supplier relationships to the next level since we deployed the EP marketplace.

Suppliers clearly appreciate how much more economical it is for them to support our business through this technology and they see the effort we have put into onboarding them to the platform.

So, I think we saw the payback for that effort when supply chains were broken and we were the first customers suppliers would call with extra inventory. This was unquestionably an unexpected benefit of the marketplace implementation, and a real blessing, too.”

Work Smarter, Not Harder
Collins explained that his primary goal in implementing their EP marketplace was to help his team “work smarter, not harder” to leverage the savings potential of the 13 purchasing cooperatives the City of El Paso City Council had approved to fulfill the City’s procurement needs. El Paso is the nineteenth largest city in the United States and Collins and his team are charged with sourcing the supplies and services necessary for the City’s nearly 26 departments that support roughly 700,000 citizens.

“The use of cooperatives is a best practice for city management,” he noted. Unfortunately, when the City Council first approved the use of the 13 co-ops, Collins’s team was hamstrung by legacy processes that kept them from reaping the cost savings and operational efficiencies the co-op contracts made possible. “We were still primarily using paper catalogs or going online to individual vendor sites to find supplies,” Collins said. “It was really inefficient both for our internal users and for our vendors.”

One Cloud-Based, Cross-Searchable Storefront
With the EP marketplace, Collins saw an opportunity to utilize technology to streamline access to approved suppliers and to reduce product and administrative costs. The platform consolidates punch-out and Web storefront links into one cloud-based, cross-searchable storefront, allowing users to comparison shop across online sites, to source from approved contracts, and to ensure they are following correct compliance steps. The solution spans the entire procurement lifecycle, from punch-out commerce solutions through requisitions/shopping for goods or services, approval workflow, catalog and contract pricing, purchase order automation, and receipt and invoice matching.

Cook County and the City of Houston
As the former Chief Procurement Officer for both Cook County, Illinois, and the City of Houston, Lourdes Coss was fortunate to never have to contend with a pandemic. But, like Collins, she experienced the frustration of trying to improve compliance and efficiencies with tools and processes that were either outdated, or not suited for the needs of a modern, strategic sourcing program.

For example, while with Cook County, Coss noted that her efforts to realize savings from strategic contracts was stymied by a lack of visibility into the true extent of “maverick” off-contract activity. “Whenever a purchase bypassed the approved contract it was a missed opportunity to capture savings. But the processes we had in place did not allow us to track the items purchased outside of contracts.”

Inefficient use of staff resources was also a significant issue for Coss’s Cook County team. “Our staff was spending more than 80 percent of their time on transactions that accounted for only about 16 percent of our spend.”

After deploying the EqualLevel eProcurement platform, Coss realized the system’s automated reports on items purchased provided valuable data that enabled her team to make more informed decisions.

Cycle times dropped from between 60 and 90 days, to just one day, and deliveries that used to take up to two weeks, were received in just one or two days.

By reducing staff time on small-order POs, cycle times on larger projects improved as well.

Coss Turns to an e-Procurement Marketplace Solution Again for the City of Houston
The e-procurement implementation was so successful in Cook County that Coss once again turned to EqualLevel when she was tapped to help centralize the procurement operations for the City of Houston— the fourth largest city in the U.S., with more than 2.3 million residents. One major difference between the Cook County and City of Houston deployments was Houston’s use of a P-Card Program. Coss noted that since the e-procurement solution they implemented leverages existing ERP business rules, the City of Houston had no issues enabling the use of P-Cards for approved contracts in their marketplace.

Quick Adaptation
Both Coss and Collins reported that users quickly acclimated to the new marketplace technology and processes because the platform’s e-commerce experience is modeled after typical consumer online shopping. “Our users appreciate the opportunity to obtain the goods and services they need without having to formally submit documentation through procurement,” said Collins. Coss added that because the system eliminated procurement delay issues, goodwill from end-users was immediate, which helped accelerate the momentum of the change processes in both the City of Houston and Cook County.

Naturally, there are always those who resist change. “In the early days, there were a few users who told us outright that they would never use the marketplace,” Collins related. “Ironically, some of those same individuals are now our most prolific users and the biggest advocates of the platform. To me, this is such an incredible testament to the value of this solution.”

User Buy-in Through Outreach
To ensure maximum buy-in, Collins and Coss both executed aggressive outreach efforts that included a variety of training workshops and system demonstrations. Collins and his team first introduced the system internally to department heads and other deputy city managers. “We felt it was important to get buy-in from the top of the organization first,” he noted. From there, they implemented an extensive demonstration schedule with different departments and then worked with individuals as needed.

Coss noted that in both of her experiences with the e-procurement marketplace solution, the implementation of the system was “fairly simple,” but she advised others considering the technology to take their time and make sure end-users have a chance to “digest” the change and become comfortable with it.

Supplier Outreach and Onboarding
With suppliers, the City of El Paso team took a two-pronged approach. First, after a vigorous spend analysis, Collins’s team reached out to key suppliers and invited them to join the marketplace. They also sent notices to the cooperative agencies, encouraging them to invite members with a City Council-awarded cooperative contract to join. Team members Veronica Gomez, Software Specialist, and Lupe Valenzuela, Business Systems Analyst, then worked to onboard those suppliers who wanted to participate.

Valenzuela noted that while some suppliers already had a sophisticated e-commerce capability and full, online punch-out systems, others barely had a corporate Web presence, and little to no capacity to transact online. “In the beginning a lot of these smaller vendors were worried they did not have the resources to develop a Web catalog.”

But over the years, with support from their platform provider’s supplier enablement group, the El Paso team has successfully onboarded hundreds of suppliers. “EqualLevel has been very supportive in helping us to bring suppliers into the marketplace,” said Gomez. “The whole process has given us the opportunity to interact more directly with many of these suppliers, and as Bruce noted, we now have such great relationships with them.”

In addition to the technical onboarding efforts, Collins’s team also holds regular workshops through different partners, like the Chamber of Commerce, to help local suppliers understand the benefits of joining a cooperative, and how they can engage with the City of El Paso through the marketplace. “Typically, when an organization does a contract for office supplies, for example, it is going to be with one of the big box stores because of their pricing models,” Collins noted. “But having the co-op contracts in the marketplace, we have the flexibility to funnel some business to some of the smaller, and minority- and women-owned businesses while still getting the quality goods and services our users depend on.”

As a result of these various supplier outreach efforts, the number of suppliers participating in the City of El Paso’s marketplace has grown from 28 to more than 300. While all cooperative members can join the marketplace, they are not obligated to do so, Collins stressed. “If a supplier has a cooperative contract and they choose not to join the marketplace, we can still purchase from that supplier,” he said. “But there is no question that it is more efficient for both sides to do business through the marketplace, and those that have joined have clearly found it to be beneficial.”

Results
In 2015, the first year the e-procurement platform was in use, Collins’s department issued 694 purchase orders through the marketplace for a total spend of $365,000. In fiscal year 2020, more than 6,000 purchase orders were issued through the marketplace, accounting for over $38 million in spending. The cost of issuing a purchase order dropped from an average of $132 to $15, and time and effort to execute a purchase order dropped by an estimated 87 percent.

The City of El Paso’s implementation of the marketplace has also dramatically reduced incidences of rogue spending that put the department’s compliance at risk. In fact, Collins said that when the system is utilized, he is “100 percent confident” that the spend is within compliance. “I know 100 percent seems unreal, but our ability to do the compliance before the contract is input and loaded into the system ensures that users are only ordering items that have been awarded to the supplier. And our team is dedicated to monitoring this monthly to look out for expired contracts, etc.”

Ongoing Enhancements
Unlike many technology investments that begin depreciating in value as soon as they are implemented, the EP marketplace solution continues to get better and more valuable with use. “The technology is very flexible and scalable, and as purchasing folks across the country utilize the system, more meaningful features are continually added,” Collins explained.

“A Real Game Changer for Us”
Looking back to when they each were first introduced to concept of e-procurement, both Coss and Collins say that the solutions they have deployed have far exceeded any benefits they could have hoped for. “I have implemented the EqualLevel system twice already and if the opportunity arises in the future, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again,” Coss said. Collins concluded, “Imagine having departments that source all of the items approved in a budget through one tool. Or picture yourself doing a demo for City Council and the calculations of the cost avoidance to date starts ringing up to the millions of dollars. This is our experience with this platform. It has been a real game changer for us.”

This article was first published on the “NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement” blog. The original article can be found here.

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How to Reduce Cost Per Invoice by 200 Percent

During an organization’s ordering process, there are typically a plethora of intricate steps and factors to consider before an actual order can be placed. Purchase orders (POs) often involve complex approval workflows, multiple budgets, hundreds if not thousands of suppliers and contracts, endless data, and millions of dollars. Organizations often struggle with how to manage this process without losing both visibility and control. Adding in procurement’s  interdependence with other departments makes it even more challenging to determine where improvements, such as reducing cost per invoice, can be made.

In a 2018 study conducted by Levvel Research, over 400 organizations were surveyed to determine the latest trends surrounding procurement management. The following main points were uncovered:

  • Inadequate technology
  • Procedural differences across departments and/or locations
  • Frequent off-contract or off-budget spending
  • Too much paperwork
  • Disjointed systems
  • A lack of visibility and/or control over spending

Firms Benefit from Utilizing Email to Send POs

An organization’s control over spending is significantly impacted by PO format and how it is submitted to suppliers. Fortunately, most organizations surveyed are either using eProcurement software or email to send POs. These methods provide more visibility and greater control compared with those organizations using manual or uncontrolled methods, such as over the phone or ad-hoc online ordering.

Reduced Cycle Time: Greatest Benefit to Procurement Automation 

Most mainstream organizations have some kind of automation in place, whether it be a homegrown procurement tool or a built-in tool that is embedded within their ERP system. While these companies have a more efficient way of processing their POs than novice companies, their cost per PO still remains high.

Organizations utilizing cloud-based eProcurement tools on the other hand, have very little manual involvement in their procurement process and can therefore process POs at a much lower cost. In fact, their cost per invoice is almost 200 percent less when compared to that of novice and mainstream companies.

Aside from lowering processing costs, other major improvements and benefits to procurement automation include reduced cycle times, improved visibility and transparency, and enhanced control and security.

Is your firm looking to reduce cost per invoice? Click here to learn more about EqualLevel’s AP automation and eInvoicing services.

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