Procure-to-pay process overview

Procure-to-pay is the process of integrating purchasing and accounts payable systems to create greater efficiencies. It exists within the broader procurement management process and involves four key stages:

1. Selecting goods and services
2. Enforcing compliance and order
3. Receipt and reconciliation
4. Invoicing and payment

Procure-to-pay management solutions create approval flows that ensure negotiated savings actually reach your bottom line.

Why is procure-to-pay important?

Digitalising your procurement process with procure-to-pay software solutions can strengthen compliance and control among suppliers, contracts, regulations, buyers, and accounts payable.

Because it helps organisations purchase from preferred suppliers at negotiated prices without the manual paperwork and spreadsheet headaches, process automation with procure-to-pay software can:

• Actively control and improve global expenditure
• Consolidate most manual commercial processes to reduce errors
• Streamline catalogue maintenance, saving time and freeing up resources
• Quickly enable the approval of new suppliers
• Drive savings to the bottom line to maximise the value of sourcing negotiations

Gain valuable insights into essential procurement processes

Digitalising procure-to-pay processes with today’s software solutions can improve procurement management and establish control over global spending. It delivers rapid ROI through catalogue and contract compliance and can identify areas of current and potential concern for further process optimisation.

Procure-to-pay software is the key to better compliance and spending control

Remain flexible and achieve procurement objectives with scalable software that can be adjusted up or down as you require different resources at different times. Procure-to-pay software can provide:

• Simple and elegant shopping experiences
• Efficient and effective integration with ERP systems
• Improved speed, usability, and performance of the procure-to-pay process
• Control over procurement, including complex business services
• Flexible global processes, budget verification, and approvals with dynamic purchasing units
• Supplier, process, payment, budget, and approval management for operations anywhere in the world
• Best practices integrated within the context of the task at hand
• Seamless receipt and reconciliation processes

How does procure-to-pay software work?

Procure-to-pay (P2P) software helps make business-to-business purchasing smoother and faster by integrating with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial systems. When you are ready to purchase goods or services, the software guides you through the selection process with an intuitive user interface that helps ensure your choices are in line with company policies. Once you place an order, the software automatically creates purchase orders and sends them for approval using customisable workflows. Upon approval, the system sends the purchase order to the supplier. The supplier can convert the purchase order into order confirmations, shipment notifications, receipts, and invoices.

After the order is placed, the system helps track delivery and handle receipts. Finally, procure-to-pay software can check invoices for accuracy by matching the delivery against the original purchase order and invoice before any payments are processed.