eProcurement Software Solutions

Multi-Level Approvals Are Not Just For Finance

2011-04-21T10:36:00.001-07:00

The Mikrofax eProcurement solution has a mature process for performing financial approvals before any purchase is actually undertaken within your business.

In other words you may want to purchase a new laptop for your bueinsss - so you complete the correct Request screen and send it up the management hierachy for financial approval - someone has to actually pay for it right ?

So lets say that it goes to your boss ... and he electronically approves it via his Blackberry ..... that triggers an approval email to Finance where someone then checks your required spend against the available budget ...and finds that, yes you can afford it ...so they approve it too .... so you are all set !...........right ?

Not so fast ........ all we are talking about so far ..is financial approval ...but what if the laptop you wish to buy is say a DELL laptop but your company only supports IBM laptops ..... what happens then ?

Its not Finance's job to stop it .. as far as they are concerned ......... provided you have the available budget then you can go ahead and buy it .......

What you need here is a 'Sanity check' approval ...in other words a "yes, we can afford it but does it make sense to buy it" approval.

Mikrofax's eProcurement solution has multiple financial approvals BUT it also has multiple levels of Sanity Check approvals so the Request can, for example, get routed via the IT department or via the Engineering dept to see if they are also happy with the purchase ...........

Makes sense ? We think so !

If you think it makes sense as well then shoot us an email if you would like to see the process in action !

Hundreds of companies around the world use our purchasing software to improve their internal approvals process and budget control.

Mikrofax Purchasing Software : UAE eProcurement case study

2011-03-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Case Study - Mikrofax eProcurement at Crescent Petroleum in United Arab Emirates

The Client :

Crescent Petroleum has been operating as a regional upstream oil and gas company in the United Arab Emirates for almost forty years. It began its activities in the early 1970’s and was the first regional, independent, privately-owned Middle Eastern petroleum company to engage in the acquisition, exploration and development of petroleum concessions; and the production and sale of crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas.

It is headquartered in Sharjah in the UAE, with international offices strategically located in the UK, Iraq and Iran and affiliate offices in Canada and Egypt.

The Problem:

Crescent realized they faced some challenges with their procurement system and set up a project to analyze and solve the challenges they were facing.
Rakesh Edavalath, Supply Chain and Contracts Manager at Crescent stated, that some of the challenges faced were,

Material Requests were on pre-printed hard copies and were very difficult to trace and track. Many times this resulted in dropping the ball on critical requirements. This in turn resulted in additional costs by way of expediting charges, air freight charges, etc..
Though there was a bidders list in electronic form, discipline in following the bidders list was lacking. Buyers used to send RFQs to non- standard vendors resulting in an increase in vendors. In one particular instance, the same MR was forwarded to 2 buyers by mistake and both got quotes from 2 exclusive set of vendors and there was a 20% price difference between the lowest price of the two buyers. Fortunately, this did not result in duplicate ordering.
It was very difficult to train new staff as there was no uniform procedure being followed.
Expediting of orders was a nightmare as there was no electronic tracking of deliveries.
We did not have a good idea of our spend analysis.

Overall, the department was suffering from a negative image though the team was putting in a lot of hard work

The Solution:

When asked what steps he had identified that had to be made to resolve the problem, Rakesh goes on to say,

The first step we took as a team was to create a data base consolidating all the good current suppliers and linked them to material categories. Then we decided that we should adopt a system which can electronically track Material Requests through RFQs to Purchase Orders to Deliveries.

We looked at 3 other solutions before we decided on Mikrofax.

The reasons we chose the Mikrofax eProcurement Solution was,

* Mikrofax is a web based solution
* Mikrofax was very user friendly and had all the features we were looking for. In fact, we did not spend a single dollar on training. All training of staff was hands-on, during the 3 month paid trial period.
* Mikrofax staff were very flexible and supportive and were quick to understand our requirements and provide practical cost effective solutions
* Mikrofax provided several options for cost codes and we could get very useful reports on our spend
* Mikrofax provided a simple multi-company feature which was imperative in our case, as we have several group companies/projects.
* Mikrofax had a work flow with an Outlook interface.
* Very cost effective

In fact the best thing we liked about Mikrofax was the option to have a paid trial and we made full use of the trial period. In fact, we uploaded our vendor database and account codes into the system during the trial and were later transferred to the live system.

We received excellent support during the trial period.

Our team was split into Buyers and Sellers and mock RFQs were created and we went through the whole procurement process. Whenever we had any issues, they were resolved almost instantaneously by the Mikrofax support team.

During the trial period, we made a wish list of features which we would like to have. This was discussed with Mikrofax through web meetings in the presence of the whole procurement team. The team was very much aware that we should restrict the customizations to a minimum. The interaction between the Crescent and Mikrofax teams resulted in some innovative solutions. E.g. We were looking for some modifications around a discount feature. This was resolved without any major customizations by providing us the ability to input negative value line in Purchase Orders without any cost impact.

We decided to opt for a customized solution hosted by Mikrofax as this was the best option suited to our requirements.

Since the system has been installed we have found post sales follow up by Mikrofax to be excellent.

The application is very user friendly and the whole team started using the system fully within a week of installing it and we went live very fast. It is worth mentioning again that we did not need to spend anything on training.

We have received excellent support from Mikrofax they have been attentive to our needs and have responded quickly and accurately and the technical support has been very good.

The system has already been very well adopted and we have not done any manual transactions since we went live. In fact there was an air of excitement in the department once the system went live!!

Key members of staff who were involved in the initial decision phase and also the ongoing management of the system were,

Rakesh Edavalath: As Supply Chain and Contracts Manager, responsible for all the procurement and contracting for the company. Heads the department and was fully aware of the challenges of procuring without an electronic system. Decided to go for a cost effective solution to solve the problems and later presented the case to the management for approval.

Subramanian Sankaran: Supply Chain Supervisor- Was assigned the task of identifying and evaluating the solutions and presenting the shortlisted solutions to the team and management. Instrumental in the successful use of the system during the trial period. His knowledge of the system was very helpful in getting the system live quickly. Acts as System Administrator, also acted as focal point for all communications with Mikrofax.

Hameed Sultan, Procurement Supervisor & Vijay Kumar, Contracts Engineer : Key members of the team who were involved in the trial and were instrumental for quick and successful adoption of the system

For more information about this implementation or others please contact Mikrofax eProcurement directly at sales@mikrofax.com

Visit us for more information at http://www.mikrofax/com

Vendor punchout scores at Mikrofax

2011-03-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

During our product demos we are finding that many clients are not aware of what vendor punchout is ! We demo our purchasing software and during that demo we come to the punchout phase and we have to explain what it is we are showing ... once our clients then realize they see the huge benefit of applying our software to their own Enterprises and end up with a highly professional eProcurement software system !

Mikrofax are not only software developers but we are educators to !

Visit our web site for more information http://www.mikrofax.com

Make intelligent sav

2009-06-26T05:34:00.001-07:00

Make intelligent savings by using smart software Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/nVLi

Purchasing software

2009-06-23T11:23:00.001-07:00

Purchasing software SaaS Asset management and inventory control from Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/uaCt

Purchasing software

2009-06-23T11:19:00.001-07:00

Purchasing software systems from Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/QSnT This communication contains information which is confidential and may also be privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error please inform contact@mikrofax.com then delete the e-mail and destroy any copies. Mikrofax eProcurement Software accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this e-mail or its contents. Please note that neither Mikrofax eProcurement Software nor the sender accepts any responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan any attachments. Any views expressed in this e-mail communication are those of the individual sender and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mikrofax eProcurement Software, and the Company accepts no responsibility for them. v2/09 Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this e-mail.

.Integrated purchasi

2009-06-23T05:22:00.001-07:00

.Integrated purchasing software and professional Asset Management Tools Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/Iloo

Integrated purchasin

2009-06-20T05:17:00.001-07:00

Integrated purchasing software and professional Asset Management Tools Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/rbBw

Professional Purchas

2009-06-17T13:04:00.001-07:00

Professional Purchasing Software available from Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/GWBP

Need SaaS integrated inventory control ?

2009-06-17T05:07:00.001-07:00

Need SaaS integrated inventory control and purchasing software? See Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/Iu8o

SaaS Asset management?

2009-06-16T20:00:00.001-07:00

SaaS Asset management and inventory control from Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/d5a6

SaaS Web based purchasing software

2009-06-16T17:27:00.001-07:00

SaaS Web based purchasing software solutions Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/8Ksh

SaaS Supply Chain Management

2009-06-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

SaaS Supply Chain Management Solutions Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/iVko

Integrated purchasing software

2009-06-16T09:07:00.001-07:00

Integrated purchasing software and professional Asset Management Tools Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/FzrP

Supply chain management

2009-06-16T08:16:00.001-07:00

Supply chain management from Mikrofax eProcurement http://htxt.it/XIPs

Spend management systems

2009-06-16T06:46:00.001-07:00

Spend management systems at http://htxt.it/DjVI

Decreasing the turnaround time of your purchase orders

2009-05-24T05:36:00.001-07:00

I was recently asked to perform an exercise to see if it were possible to cut costs in our procurement department ” it turned out that it was costing us about $48 for every purchase order that we issued out of our business ” Management felt there was a cheaper way to deal this so we looked to automation via software.

We reviewed the flow of information through our business and discovered bottle necks both in the approvals process and in the communications with our vendors. After suitable study we searched the purchasing software marketplace for a tool that could ease the issues we were facing. We discovered numerous purchasing software tools, and some were clearly not up to the task but one or two did rise above the rest in terms of functionality and cost benefit.

The procurement software system we chose, called eProProcure (from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions) had an efficient approval routing tool so that all our department managers suddenly had full control of their own budgets ” they could efficiently see what they had spent to date and more importantly what was left to spend.

Our Finance director and Chef Exec liked that a lot ! Plus there was a much closer audit of who was doing what on the system and our SOX compliance department loved that ! But an interesting added advantage that we hadnt predicted was that our vendors were also happy as they could now receive their orders and update our prices on-line into our system directly ” this meant we were sending out our orders in a timely fashion due to the emailed delivery but also more accurate orders due to the figures always being right on the internal catalogs.

Our cost for raising an order has shrunk to about .10 cents and the turnaround time has dropped; all in all a win-win situation.

About the Author:
Maxwell DeBlanco is an IT specialist working as a systems analyst studying software systems for purchasing metrics at a large IT practice based in Chicago. See more stories on purchasing at Purchasing Software and check out the eProcurement System discussed here.

Wait a minute, thats not what I requested !

2009-05-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Many large organizations around the world do not have a formal process for checking the items they received were in fact the items they wanted. This is a surprising as they go to great lengths to authorize the expense, raise the order and pay the invoice on time but dont check that they actually received what they are paying for. The facts usually do come to light but a long time after the invoice was paid.

To trap this problem before the invoice is paid the organizations needs to follow some form of closed loop purchase audit. There are many ways to do this " one way is to have better controls by way of an eProcurement System like the one our company used from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions.

The Mikrofax purchasing software system ties the Request to the Order to the actual receipt before the invoice can be duly authorized for payment " a process like this has to be the way to go to tighten on costs and avoid costly errors" All buying managers need to implement such closed loop audits within their own organizations " as the savings go to the bottom line.

And in this day and age one also needs to justify ones position if you are not to get cut in the latest round of head-count reductions - implementing a system like this might just show your boss's you are ahead of the curve in the expense reduction game.

Prof. Arnold Whitely-Sobel is privately contracted by organizations of all sizes to suggest new procurement procedures and analyze and improve workflow throughput ; he is also a director at a public engineering company. See more stories on procurement at www.mikrofax.com/news and check out the eProcurement System discussed here.

eProcurement software gives rise to measureable savings

2009-05-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

Many businesses around the world are now seeking to cut expenses wherever they can.

One assumes you are currently doing everything to increase sales and the more obvious things to reduce costs like reduce staff head count etc but have you considered analyzing your spending and wringing out every last drop of opportunity from your supplier base and at the same time extracting every efficiency you can from your existing corporate infrastructure ?

An Enterprise's success is not just measured in terms of rising sales but also in elimination of costs. The bit thats leftover (i.e. the difference between sales and costs), is the survival difference.
Taking a hard look at your organizations purchasing strategy will assist in the above processs with a view to implementing a low-cost electronic workflow tool from one of the numerous vendors out there. Just look for the words eProcurement software in Google and see how many hits come back at you.

You will of course have the big players come up like SAP and Microsoft but sometimes the best results for your dollar spend come from the smaller specialized vendors.

Our company sent out an RFQ to a lot of the big name providers for a new eProcurement system ; we concentrated on three and finally choose a system from Mikrofax eProcurement Solutions ; they met all our criteria and seemed to have a good knowledge of what we required ; the small vendors seem to drill-down more into the core issues and never miss the point from a small company perspective.

Clearly there are multiple different perspectives for helping you streamline your procurement practice. Implementing good workflow tools for purchasing is just one of them that can produce strong analyzable savings.

Dr Janus Kodiak is a research fellow specializing in purchasing metrics and a director at a public engineering organization. See more articles on procurement at http://news.mikrofax.com Software and check out the purchasing system discussed here.

Economic downturn forces companies to look for free Enterprise software

2009-02-02T15:20:00.000-08:00

With the bleak economic downturn hitting all sectors of all markets all over the world, we are increasingly seeing enquiries coming in from prospective clients seeking free ERP software and supply chain management solutions.

As you may know, Mikrofax eProcurement (www.mikrofax.com) are one of the class leaders in providing such types of software and in an effort to alleviate the strain some of our smaller prospective client companies are feeling, we are taking the bold step of donating free Enterprise Software to those on a first come first served basis.

We feel companies need to get a hold of all their costs and analyze them accordingly to help get through the current crisis - we believe our offer will help all who seek it.The donation will equate to a 15 user fully web enabled supply chain management system encompassing electronic requisitions, electronic purchase orders, electronic approvals, goods receiving, budgeting and management reports.

There are one or two minor strings (like having to bear with the odd non-intrusive advert whilst you use the system) but we believe the wider audience we plan to attract will certainly benefit from this approach ....... however, there are not limitless supplies of these systems per year that we can donate (due to technical support conisderations) so you need to act fast!

The system will be available for worldwide access by your user base.The roll-out of this software (to be called TBA-Enterprise Lite) will begin Q1 2009.Any interested parties should initially contact us at sales@mikrofax.com.

Ray Anderson
Mikrofax Sales Associate

Mikrofax now featuring RSShugger for its RSS feeds and Posts

2008-04-04T13:49:00.001-07:00

Please feel free to check out this site for pulling our RSS feed

Mikrofax Software reports UK ID procurement scheme starts

2007-08-14T10:47:00.001-07:00

A milestone in the ongoing initiative to provide a National Identity Scheme in the UK has been reached today as the procurement process officially started. For this and more stories goto www.mikrofax.com - your source for purchase software.

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Mikrofax Software reports on new intranet for Cancer Research institute

2007-08-12T07:42:00.001-07:00

A Web specialist has been chosen to create a new intranet service for the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), cementing its eight year relationship with the organisation.The company, which has already designed a website and scientific extranet for the ICR, was selected through a procurement process. Visti www.mikrofax.com for more stories!

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Mikrofax Software reports on new government eprocurement deal

2007-08-12T07:31:00.001-07:00

The government has struck a new procurement deal that will see at least one ship a year built for the next 15 years, a report claims. See www.mikrofax.com for more details on this and other eprocurement related stories.

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Mikrofax Software reports Education sector saving money with eprocurement

2007-08-12T07:28:00.001-07:00

The education sector is making notable financial gains and savings through the effective use of eprocurement, with many bodies using eprocurement software and systems for operational benefits. For this and more eProcurement related articles vistit www.Mikrofax.com.

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