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The current remote working situation has highlighted the antiquity of our office systems. Invoices being e-mailed back & forth for approval/second approval etc total PITA & unreliable.
We're a fairly small organisation, and just need something simple to produce a PO, get invoice approval from the relevant manager, second approval from director, then to accounts for paying or sending on to client for payment.
Any recommendations?
We're currently using a Share Point system as part of Office 365, you can automate the approval process using Power Automate..
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/
Current process is I open the PO template from Share Point, fill it in and save it back to Share Point. I then select the Excel file and click Automate - then select our process 'PO Approval'. It then automatically works out who needs to approve it and sends a message off to them asking for approval. They respond and if successful it gets passed on to someone to issue the PO to the supplier.
The only hope you have of getting something that works is if it is a tool people are using anyway. That probably means an email where you can click approve unless you use any kind of ticketing / job manangement system that everyone is in.
Beware the pitfalls - we have a system which only works if you are on the vpn at the time. It also doesn’t tell you what the thing is for just a supplier name and total value which is a pita. If you want to know you have to login elsewhere so most get approved automatically. Also beware the bottleneck - there’s nobody else who can sign mine for me (because the people who set it up think I don’t get holidays) so if I am tied up with other stuff the po gets delayed. I sign it and it goes to someone else who also wastes time on it - and suddenly it takes 4 days to order a usb hub! Then people find ways to bypass the system.
I only know what not to go with MSDynamics - horrible thing, keep well away!
Cheers for that. Will (get someone more able than me to) investigate Sharepoint thing. Just want something simple. Kinda feels like it’s a very short mole database record with an image of the invoice on. Just haven’t got the time/skill to invent it!