Purchase Order Newsletters

Spring 2023: System Enhancement News:

Price Lists and PO Custom measurements

The ability to import agreed price lists with suppliers has proved to be a popular feature in our latest Purchase Order system UI. It makes line level ordering easier, as full descriptions, prices and minimum order quantities plus catalogue codes are available to choose from, with the selected item filling in the correct line information, automatically, thereby avoiding errors by the PO creator.

The module has been enhanced in 2 ways

Firstly users can search across multiple supplier price lists for a single item, using a product code (assuming it’s common to all lists) or by a description. In doing so the system will present the options and prices by the supplier(s) so the user can select the best price. Additionally, prices can now be altered on single item basis, as opposed to having to import a complete revised price list. This is especially useful where prices are changing frequently, even on a day to day basis. These single item revisions will update the main price list automatically.

Custom Measurement

When ordering items on a line level, users can additionally select from a range of sizes or measurements e.g. bags, Metres, rolls etc. This module can now be customised by a client system administrator, themselves, in order to add new measurements, and if required remove others.

If current clients would like more information on these enhancements, please raise a support ticket to gauge relevance to your system.

Spring 2023: Supplier compliance module

In many industries the selection and continued use of a supplier will depend on them having relevant and up to date standards of industry level accreditations or specific product / services standard accreditations.

Ensuring that the correct standards are held and maintained can be critical in terms of not only their own workforce, but more especially in circumstances where suppliers of all types are used. Finding that a contractor does not have the relevant certifications can prejudice the ability to carry out work. Based on a real client case history, we are now to make available a Compliance Module that will look to reduce this potential issue.

Using our document management module, Clients will be able to upload documentation that confirms the relevant standards that are required for the work are held before ordering from a supplier. This will provide the relevant audit trail of accreditations, that can be viewed and will have a review date reminder that can be selected to advise a system user that reviews are due. In addition, this will be twinned with a ‘traffic light system’ so that when a supplier is selected the system will show green for those who have up to date accreditations and red if they do not have up to date documentation, providing a clear warning to those raising purchase orders as to the status of each supplier before ordering. Supplier status can also be shown on the opening dashboard i.e showing those suppliers where a review of compliance paperwork / accreditation is due, so that contact with the supplier can be made ahead of renewal dates, to amend the relevant documentation held.

This new module will be available to existing clients at a cost of £750 plus vat, to include installation / configuration. Please request more information via the usual support portal, or by emailing sales@cloudb2b.co.uk

Spring 2023: How do you manage your supplier contracts?

We have been asked by several customers about having functionality added to the Purchase Order range that enables tracking of supplier contracts that are coming up for renewal.

From print management, to vending machines, to maintenance agreements there is always a cycle where agreements are coming up for review (and not automatic renewal!). On the development ‘roadmap’ we have a full Contracts Management solution, but comments so far relate to having a more ‘basic’ facility for storing supplier agreements and having workflow reminders (configurable) when contracts are coming up for renewal. This would make use of our current document management tools.

If any clients out there would like to discuss this option in more detail, please let us know. Call us on 01480-356702.

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Spring 2023: Administrator Super Licence

Our licence model works on concurrency. This means that you don’t require an individual licence for each and every user / device registered to use the system. Access to the system is limited to the number of concurrent users you have purchased e.g. you may have 15 registered users, but have purchased 5 concurrent users. If 5 users are actioning something in the system, at the same instant, it uses a licence for each. So, a 6th user trying to access will get a ‘licence exceeded’ message and will need to wait for one of the 5 licences to become free. However, for those with smaller licence pools (say under 5) with increased use of the system, which happens naturally, there can be instances where all the concurrent licences are being used, meaning that even an administrator cannot access the system to take actions that their permissions allow. To cater for this we have introduced an optional Administrator Super licence, which is a single seat licence that can only be allocated to a single system administrator. This licence means that they can log into the system at times even when all the concurrent licences are in use. Apart from having the full functionality their status and permissions allow, it will mean this user can view all current concurrent sessions in use, and if required turn off excess licence use, to free up the main concurrent licence pool. Obviously it would be sensible for the administrator to advise users before taking action, to avoid users losing data!

This new seat licence has a monthly cost of £25 plus vat, but is available only for one Super licence user per system. Clients who have experienced ‘lock out’ issues can request to have this special licence made available by using the usual support portal.

Autumn 2022: Special Projects

As you will know each and every system supplied by us, is customised by varying degrees, to ensure business fit. The current underlaying transactional platform that supports all new and many upgraded systems, is very flexible and has drawn the attention of one of our new clients – Bimson Haulage.

Having taken delivery of a full Purchase Order and Supplier invoice system, the Company approached us to see if we could assist in providing a new web portal system to handle their Subcontractor Management, streamline communications and reduce manual workload alongside improved output. The development team spent a number of days evaluating the needs to provide a phased approach for a totally new range of software, to meet the requirement. Currently in Phase 1 development, this project is anticipated as being just the first that Cloud B2B will be able to provide Bimson, in their drive to create an efficient and scalable IT environment.

If you have a project that could benefit from our business process and system expertise, simply call Graham Light on 0800 840 3336 to have an initial discussion.

Autumn 2022: Reduce finance dept. administration with Ai !

For many customers that handle high volumes of supplier invoices, there is a considerable time overhead in checking and processing, whether they arrive as PDF’s or are scanned images of paper format documents.

We are pleased to announce that we have now made available a new module in our full Purchase Order [&] Supplier Invoice system, that will enable Finance to process and automatically approve invoices using powerful recognition techniques. The system uses Azure AI recognition services, combined with our own Smart Match program, that will match invoices to purchase orders, without intervention. Using a set of definable rules users will find that in a short period of time, up to 98% of invoices can be processed without issue. For those that fail the set standards, they are presented in a QA queue for intervention.

Dan Page commented: ‘ We have been using the system to process all our invoices for the last 3 months and have seen automatic processing up to 99% due to the powerful configuration tools. Whilst there is a per invoice cost for Azure processing (6p plus vat per invoice page) this is a tiny cost compared to the admin cost overhead of the Finance staff.’

The complete module costs £700 plus vat with annual support of £100 plus vat.

There is a PowerPoint presentation that gives an overview of the system that we can send to those interested. We would also run a short trial of client’s own invoices as part of the system set up process.

If interested call us on 0800 840 3336 or email: sales@cloudb2b.co.uk

Autumn 2022: Case study - Sinclair Group

Car dealerships offering multiple motor brands – often from different locations – have, by nature, a wide portfolio of suppliers, so having the relevant digital purchasing systems in place to ensure fiscal controls by brand and outlet is critical.

Controlling variables such as inter branch transport with contractors, body shop requirements (often spread over elongated periods of time), can be difficult. Additionally, ensuring staff across multiple locations all work from agreed price lists, often proves a challenge for sales staff and accounts departments alike.
With a reputation for excellence, The Sinclair Group, operational since 1945, is the largest motor retailer in South Wales with 20 branches offering 9 new vehicle manufacturers brands as well as a wide range of used cars. In 2019 Sinclair took the decision to source a Purchase Order software solution, to replace more manual driven purchasing practices, in order to have greater approval controls and reporting.

Mark Rosser (Group Accountant) with Karen Jones (Group Purchasing Manager) and Sophie Tucker (Management Accountant) wanted to prioritise sourcing a private UK based Cloud Purchasing Solution, to cater for the wide spread of users in different locations, as well as providing the savings on internal IT support overhead, that a hosted solution gives.
Their research (Google of course!) brought them to Cloud B2B’s web site and the range of Purchase and Purchase to pay solutions on offer. Their initial research of the site indicated that Cloud B2B could offer the range of functionality required – including key reporting facilities – as well as a system that offered a flexible licence model to minimise cost per user .
After remote demonstration sessions of the generic systems, Sinclair decided to order the full Purchase Order transactional based solution from Cloud B2B. A full specification session was held and a test system, based on the tailored version required by Sinclair, was passed over for them to do their own testing. The system makes full use of the Budget module to control spend by department, with nominal codes being set at budget level to ensure correct allocations. Delivery notes associated with the correct PO’s was another key feature.

Following this the system went live in September, with the system initially being run just by the Bridgend head office to ensure that the system, not only met the company requirements, but gained acceptance by users there.

As with most clients, it was decided to add more features to the system, to meet additional practical needs. Facilities for Group Approval (so anyone in that group can deal with a PO) Bulk Receipting lines on a Purchase Order and ability to receipt without a formal document, were all added under Change Management.
A meeting of all the key staff at all the other branches led to the deployment of the system to every location with a concurrent licence pool of 40, and the rolled out system has been well received by everyone, adding greater visibility of the financial performance of the branches.

Whilst supplier invoices are currently handled in Keyloop’s REV8 DMS (a core platform) , the ability for the Accounts department to control these better, has come with the insistence that if suppliers do not put a genuine PO number (generated automatically in the PO system) then they will not be paid! The widescale reporting now available allows any odd ‘rogue’ or late invoices to be easily located - saving a lot of time. The forecasting of monthly profitability has also been enhanced, using the extensive system reporting suite.
Another key feature of the PO system is the ability to import supplier agreed prices lists and specifications, which has made the job of raising a purchase order not only faster and more accurate, reflecting Group negotiated prices. From office stationery to car parts, the PO system has created a more structured format to all purchasing.

Whilst Sinclair don’t currently use the Supplier Invoice and Credit note module, this is available to them in the future, which would mean carrying out the whole procurement in one system, with approved invoices and credit notes available for import to any modern accounts system.

Autumn 2022: Accounts system integration

With all our systems, data can be exported in a standard format e.g., a CSV file for importation to virtually any modern accounts system.

As users of our POPIA system ourselves (as you would expect) we have built an API link to Xero (our accounts system) so that approved supplier invoices and credit notes can be automatically imported into Xero. The software also provides a view button within Xero, so you can view the actual invoice in POPIA without leaving your Xero session. Similar links can be built to other systems such as SAGE, QuickBooks and other options if required.