How does a document management solution support the procurement processes?
In every developing organisation, small or large, interactions with suppliers and, from that created, contracts and other supplier documents will soon be collected and stored around the organisation - in virtual folders and employee’s inboxes. One of the primary objectives of the established procurement department or team will be to ensure these contracts and agreements are gathered in one repository to provide proper insight into the organisation’s engagement with external parties. Doing this will also allow better follow-up and tracking of which engagement might need further pursued or even terminated if no longer in use. Additionally, keeping track of agreements and contracts will allow for a better consolidation of spending and utilisation of agreement discounts - regardless of whether an agreement is for an indirect service supporting the organisation’s daily operations or an employee benefit like restaurant agreements or internal services that the employees should be using.
Is your organisation keeping track of all contract documents?
Having a repository of contracts and agreements in a central location that can be tracked by contract owners and embedded as part of the procurement process is vital for proper utilisation by the organisation. Why would we in Procurement need to spend time negotiating great deals and not utilising those agreements afterwards?
In many procurement solutions, we see a disconnect between contract storage and what the organisational users are allowed to see and do with the contracts. Often, a contract is created and stored, and only a few elements are provided to the organisation - or none. From a practical view, contracts made for commodities that can be put in a catalogue are perfect candidates for only showing items that can be ordered from the supplier to the users, like a webshop. When working with suppliers that provide services, are engaged in project deliverables, or where specific templates are to be used in collaboration with the supplier, many great procurement platforms fail to support these needs adequately.
Contract storage, tracking and transparency in P2Connct
When building P2Connct from the ground up, we have embedded our many years of experience working with Procurement and Purchase-to-Pay processes. We have designed the platform to support visibility towards both end users in the organisation and Procurement. When working with supplier documents, we have made it easy to store relevant documents, track expiration, support timely follow-up, and allow for a targeted selection of which documents should be visible to the organisation. This also means that a category manager will be able to store a negotiated and signed contract in its entire length and keep it stored for later follow-up while at the same time carving out sections or appendices and showing only these to the users - for them to use when working with the suppliers. This will also free up time by procurement being asked contractual questions that users can easily find and read. Thus empowering the organisation to provide more self-service in scoped areas.
How are users in your organisation finding the contracts or suppliers they need to work with?
A contract is not just a contract
Asking a Procurement Pro what a contract is can give you different answers, depending on industry, category or organisation. However, we are not defining that for you. We believe there needs to be some flexibility within the structure to suit our customers’ needs. So, by bringing your SLAs, certificates, SOW templates, pricing sheets, NDAs, or any other contract document scenarios to P2Connct, you can store, track, and select which ones to show to your organisation. And another great feature in the platform? The ownership and follow-up on the documents will follow the owner of the specific subcategory the supplier is assigned to - making it even easier to handle replacements and follow-ups instead of worrying about maintaining gaps in follow-ups. And you will always be able to see who uploaded a specific document through the real-time audit logs.
How can P2Connct provide you with a simple but powerful contract repository and tracking for your company? Get in touch with our team through the chat.