Spend Management
Capability highlights
CODA Financials offers you a truly end-to-end spend management solution, covering the whole cycle from requisition through to payment.
Our Spend Management module reduces costs by providing fast, controlled, online access to key procurement functions to all employees, and also delivers accurate budgetary control over expenditure. It helps a company establish controls and consolidate purchasing activity, and positions it to leverage the full buying power of the organization.
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Requisitioning – leveraging our familiar browser and Outlook interface
Recognizing that end-user adoption is critical to putting more spend under management, CODA Financials provides helpful, intuitive Spend Management tools to each type of user, in the environment that makes most sense to them. This added familiarity ensures that users are quickly up and running – without the need for lengthy initial training or IT support. A range of built-in browser-based document templates are available, so that new users can get started immediately, but the organization can also tailor forms and documents as required.
And – since most corporate users are familiar with Microsoft® Outlook – the CODA Financials team has worked with Microsoft to deliver a truly market-leading Spend Management solution – for the first time, dedicated buying tools are embedded within Microsoft® Outlook. This makes it feel familiar and straightforward for users at all levels in the business – not just the finance team. In particular, it supports buyers in the environment they know well, instead of having to log into a separate procurement system.
Authorization workflow
Any purchase-to-pay process involves the moving of key documents and requests around the organization, so that they can be reviewed and approved with the minimum of effort and delay. In each process, there are a number of approval and authorization requirements. Now you can make document, data and task authorization quicker and easier for all involved. An integral part of the Spend Management solution’s efficiency is our powerful Workflow application. This is specifically designed to automate cumbersome, repetitive manual administration processes, such as the flow of accounting documents for approval and authorization − sending them direct to the desktops of the people that need them. Our integrated system comes with templated workflows, and applies familiar Microsoft® conventions and functions, making it easy for users to work with these powerful tools and get started immediately.
Flexible workflow support not only drives completion of tasks but also keeps participants informed, with permitted users able to see and access approved and pending orders at any time. You can tailor procurement processes to your organization’s specific rules and approval hierarchies. Authorizers only receive purchase requests after they have been validated against purchasing rules and budgets, so no time is wasted assessing requests that are unfunded or “outside policy”. The result is a truly efficient, online procurement process that allows users to access and share real-time financial and purchasing information.
RFQs and ordering
The CODA Spend Management solution has been specifically designed to help everybody in the purchase-to-pay process to work more efficiently and effectively with one another and with suppliers.
Outlook integration
For example, having received an email request for a new piece of equipment, the company buyer can go straight to their procurement toolbar within Outlook to start the sourcing process. Potential suppliers are identified and selected – that might simply be straight from the Outlook contact list or (if these are in place), the company’s approved supplier lists or online catalog.
If an RFQ (request for quotation), requisition or order is raised direct from an email, this original email can be attached to the created document and stored in the central repository, so that it is linked and accessible from that business document, anywhere in the system. This provides an excellent audit trail.
RFQ creation and distribution
The RFQ is created either using or adapting the templates provided, or by taking advantage of the system’s flexibility, to quickly design specific forms to meet the organization’s precise requirements. Having created a single document, it is then sent to each of the selected potential suppliers, as a personalized request – but without any of them knowing who else has received it.
RFQ response handling
Once suppliers have reviewed the RFQ document they click on a hyperlink to enter a secure online form, where they provide their response. The buyer will then receive a system-generated email with a link, which opens up a browser-based Microsoft® Excel® report to review the responses. The buyer can use all of the features of Excel to analyze the information – e.g. price and delivery dates – but the data is still securely stored in the Spend Management system.
Integrated supplier and order processing
After an award decision has been made, the buyer simply “sets the preferred supplier”. This updates the whole procurement system and (if appropriate) can support commitment and encumbrance accounting by updating your finance system at the same time. The order (another system-generated form) is created with the RFQ information pre-loaded into it. The order can be saved for later, and there is the flexibility to amend it or add new items using the task pane – once again from the procurement toolbar in Outlook.
Once ready, the purchase order can be sent for approval. Approval routing can be handled either by UNIT4 CODA’s own powerful workflow engine, or through Windows workflow, or any other workflow system to suit the organization’s broader IT strategy. The exact point(s) at which approvals are sought will vary depending on each organization’s own policies; Spend Management gives the complete flexibility to tailor the timing, type and number of approvals to your requirements.
Other capabilities
These include:
- Auditability – once a purchase order has been approved, built-in version control ensures that any subsequent changes are captured and tracked.
Flexible output options – documents can be output directly from a PC, in various formats, including hard copy, email, XML or to a business-to-business server (e.g. Microsoft® BizTalk®).
User-defined fields – these can be free-format text or links to accounts
Document attachments – delivered with the CODA solution’s document repository. The system has the ability to attach documents and images ensuring increased visibility of relevant information.
Multicurrency – requisitions can be entered with multiple suppliers and multiple currencies.
Services and blanket agreements – supports ordering of services and goods as well as call-offs from blanket agreements.
Centralized contracts – the user can set up and enforce contracts with particular suppliers, including date-sensitive pricing, improving efficiency and having key information available when required.
Item catalog – information about products is available quickly and easily – the catalogue can include suggested items, a relevant product hierarchy and a price matrix.
Punch-out catalog – users can access items on supplier web sites and return items into Spend Management.
Receiving and 3-way invoice matching
Our high-volume invoice matching engine is an integral part of our purchase-to-pay solution. It offers an efficient and accurate way to handle the labor-intensive process of matching either simple or complex transactions. The system provides enhanced online purchase invoice matching and processing facilities. Invoices are entered and matched against the relevant goods received notes (GRNs) and purchase orders. This includes matching multiple, separate documents to a single invoice, in any number of currencies, and it offers the flexibility to do this manually or automatically.
Visibility and budget control
The automation of the purchasing process, from requisition to payment, delivers paperless procurement that is fast and secure, yet permits all users to share the information on a real-time basis. Employees can check the status of orders at any time. Managers can readily match expenditures against budgets, and automatically check purchase requests against budgets using commitment accounting. This means procurement requests are validated against criteria already set in CODA Financials and it enables the sharing of real-time financial and purchasing information by registering each new purchase as soon as it is authorized. Purchases can be committed against a flexible array of budget structures, including projects, leveraging the inherent strengths of the financial model in CODA Financials.