How To Approve Orders And Invoices From Home
Since working from home became the norm a few weeks ago, many new technical challenges have emerged for businesses to deal with. The speed and efficiency of everyday business practises in this new Covid-19 affected world have understandably been at the forefront of many people’s concerns.
Speaking anecdotally, it does seem like most companies are adapting extraordinarily well to their new environments and dealing with the new challenges that they are facing.
There is one notable exception, however…
‘How do we efficiently get key documents authorised without creating delays and bottlenecks within our business?’
This is a question we have heard repeatedly over the past few weeks.
To offer a real-world example of this challenge, let’s consider the common practises of approvals of purchase orders and payment authorisation of supplier invoices.
It’s often imperative that purchase orders are issued to suppliers as efficiently as possible to comply with order cut-off times to meet next day deliveries. As many businesses are understandably pushing the boundaries of ‘just-in-time’ stock replenishment, the frustration caused by unnecessary credit control complications as a result of non-payment of invoices is a very real threat.
Fortunately, there is a simple answer that can allay such fears:
Implement electronic document approvals and authorisations!
Many ERP systems have the ability to automatically email approval requests to the relevant people. Even if such features do not exist as standard, there are third party solutions that can integrate with your ERP system to get the job done.
These email requests typically contain a hyper-link to the relevant document which are accessed via a browser app.
With a browser app you can access approval requests from anywhere (with internet access). So, whether you’re working from home during the lockdown of 2020 or at a trade event in the future or even away on holiday next year (fingers crossed!), you’ll always have the information and access that you need to hand! This is invaluable.
In summary, even during this unprecedented and trying time, there is no excuse for hold-ups in business processes. We have the means to review the relevant information and make informed choices.
*There have actually been two common questions put to us, but we don’t yet possess the ability to write a blog post answering the very real problem of: “How the hell do I keep my kids quiet when I’m on a Zoom call?”, sorry!
