Cash is priority number one

For a financial director in the current economic climate, cash is priority number one and the stability of their business will depend on their ability to forecast the business cash requirements 8-12 weeks in advance.

Previously, in a growth market, businesses have been slow to replace manual purchase ordering processes with a software-based alternative that offers full commitment accounting, centralised control over the corporate budget and more accurate forecasting of the business cash requirements.

Now, there is greater need for eProcurement and the control and accurate forecasting that this can bring. In response to growing demand for a software-based and largely automated process, eProcurement has entered the mass market and is now within the reach of more financial directors, irrespective of the size of their organisation, the financial systems that they operate, the unique requirements of the business or budget.

eProcurement puts control back into the hands of the financial director, requiring every department and every member of staff to utilise an automated purchase ordering process. The business can stipulate purchase ordering requirements such as who should be asked for authorisation in any given situation, and preferred supplier lists to honour preferred supplier arrangements and to ensure best value.

More importantly, requests outside of the budget can be committed to or denied based on knowledge of every commitment that has been made or is pending on the system, at that time. With eProcurement, financial directors really do have full spend control, and the business can make decisions based on real figures and accurate forecasts, never again to be surprised by an unsuspected invoice.