With the bleak economic downturn affecting sectors of every markets all over the world, business’s are looking to reduce their purchasing / procurement costs They are turning to electronic purchasing systems and specialized eProcurement Software.

Purchasing systems organize their employees into groups who are authorized to purchase goods and services on behalf of their organization. The problem here is that not much formal investigation has been done on sorting out the good systems from the bad systems.

So what hot button items does one look for ? Well in this brief article I go into some of the key factors that you should consider I know this because I performed the same exercise for my own employer.

Without getting too functionally specific, firstly look for a software company that has been around a longer than 2 or 3 years and has good technical support based in the country in which you are operating. This is most important unless you want to be placing support calls to India.

Look for low operational and training costs and also ask what are the costs to modify the software to your own specifications.

Find out how the software vendors approach the required tasks for example if any custom software is required do they send a programmer to sit with you or do they sub-contract to a firm overseas that you have to trust your hopes and wishes to ?

Functionally speaking, purchasing software can contain is a focused set of tools, the specific functions you should be looking into are remote requisitioning, on-line approvals (multi-level), electronic creation/dispatch of a purchase order, goods receiving, 3-way invoice matching and accounts interfacing these are all the obvious areas.

Purchasing systems also contain some non-obvious tools what about facilities for say a supplier portal ? This is a more flexible approach than a punch-out application which is highly vendor specific, or providing a register of assets so that your capital goods do not have to be manually entered into your accounts for year end depreciation calculations.

You need to examine which metrics are available for you to measure the success and performance of your new eProcurement system !

When our company went through the exercise of selecting a new eProcurement system we zeroed in on a select few and finally wound up by choosing a system from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions they met our overall criteria and seemed to have a detailed idea of what we were seeking. We also thought about systems from Sap, IBM and Oracle, all who had a deep understanding of the procurement system cycle but nevertheless rather missed the point from the small business perspective.

This article is not intended to be a shopping list of issues but rather a pointer to get you thinking along out-of-the box lines and help your business weather the current financial climate.

With the bleak economic downturn affecting sectors of every markets all over the world, business’s are looking to reduce their purchasing / procurement costs They are turning to electronic purchasing systems and specialized eProcurement Software.

Purchasing systems organize their employees into groups who are authorized to purchase goods and services on behalf of their organization. The problem here is that not much formal investigation has been done on sorting out the good systems from the bad systems.

So what hot button items does one look for ? Well in this brief article I go into some of the key factors that you should consider I know this because I performed the same exercise for my own employer.

Without getting too functionally specific, firstly look for a software company that has been around a longer than 2 or 3 years and has good technical support based in the country in which you are operating. This is most important unless you want to be placing support calls to India.

Look for ongoing operational and training costs and also ask what are the fees to change the software to your own specifications.

Find out how the software suppliers approach the required tasks for example if any custom designed software is required, do they send an analyst/programmer to sit with you or do they sub-contract to a firm in India that you have to relay your design ideas to ?

Functionally speaking, purchasing software can contain quite a specific set of tools, the specific functions you should be looking for are remote requisitioning, on-line multi-level approvals, obviously electronic creation and dispatch of your purchase orders, goods receiving, invoice matching and interfacing with accounts these are all the obvious areas.

Purchasing systems also contain some non-obvious tools what about facilities for say a supplier portal ? This is a much better approach than a ‘punch-out’ application which is supplier specific, or providing an asset register so that your capital goods do not have to be manually entered into your accounts for depreciation calculations at the year end.

You need to examine which metrics are available for you to measure the success and performance of your new eProcurement system !

When our company went through the exercise of selecting a new eProcurement system we zeroed in on a select few and finally wound up by choosing a system from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions they met our overall criteria and seemed to have a detailed idea of what we were seeking. We also thought about systems from Sap, IBM and Oracle, all who had a deep understanding of the procurement system cycle but nevertheless rather missed the point from the small business perspective.

This of course by no means an fully extensive list of issues but rather a pointer to get you thinking along out-of-the box lines and help your business weather the current financial climate.

With the bleak economic downturn affecting sectors of every markets all over the world, business’s are looking to reduce their purchasing / procurement costs They are turning to electronic purchasing systems and specialized eProcurement Software.

Purchasing systems organize their employees into groups who are authorized to purchase goods and services on behalf of their organization. The problem here is that not much formal investigation has been done on sorting out the good systems from the bad systems.

So what does one check for ? Well in this brief article I go into some of the key factors that you should consider I know this because I undertook the same exercise for my own organization.

Without getting too functionally specific, firstly look for a software company that has been in business for a number of years and has good technical support based in the country in which you are operating.

Look for low operational and training costs and also ask what are the fees to modify the software to your own specifications.

Find out how the software suppliers approach the required tasks for example if any custom designed software is required, do they send an analyst/programmer to sit with you or do they sub-contract to a firm in India that you have to relay your design ideas to ?

Functionally speaking, purchasing software can contain quite a specific set of tools, the specific functions you should be looking for are remote requisitioning, on-line multi-level approvals, obviously electronic creation and dispatch of your purchase orders, goods receiving, invoice matching and interfacing with accounts these are all the obvious areas.

Purchasing systems also contain some non-obvious tools what about facilities for say a supplier portal ? This is a more flexible approach than a punch-out application which is highly vendor specific, or providing a register of assets so that your capital goods do not have to be manually entered into your accounts for year end depreciation calculations.

You also need to work out what metrics are available for you to measure the success and performance of your new purchasing system !

When our business went through the exercise of selecting a new purchasing system we focused in on a select few and finally wound up by choosing a system from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions they met all our criteria and seemed to have a good knowledge of what we required. We also looked at systems from Sap, IBM and Oracle, all who had a very good understanding of the procurement system cycle but nevertheless rather missed the point from a small company perspective.

This article is not intended to be a shopping list of issues but rather a pointer to get you thinking along out-of-the box lines and help your business weather the current financial climate.