What's Planergy?

Modern Spend Management and Accounts Payable software.

Helping organizations spend smarter and more efficiently by automating purchasing and invoice processing.

We saved more than $1 million on our spend in the first year and just recently identified an opportunity to save about $10,000 every month on recurring expenses with Planergy.

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Cristian Maradiaga

King Ocean

Download a free copy of "Indirect Spend Guide", to learn:

  • Where the best opportunities for savings are in indirect spend.
  • How to gain visibility and control of your indirect spend.
  • How to report and analyze indirect spend to identify savings opportunities.
  • How strategic sourcing, cost management, and cost avoidance strategies can be applied to indirect spend.

Major Procurement Issues And How To Fix Them With Technology

Major Procurement Issues and How to Fix Them with Technology

Major Procurement Issues And How To Fix Them With Technology

An efficient procurement process makes a huge difference for an organization’s supply chain. In addition to streamlining processes and speeding up their operations, it also helps them cut costs and minimize unnecessary expenses. 

That said, many companies still run into procurement issues due to inefficient processes and human error.

Common Procurement Issues

A lot of companies struggle to reduce material and service costs. 

This isn’t always possible, especially since you’re not in control of market rates and supplier charges.

High average supplier lead time can also be a major issue in procurement, along with low-quality incoming materials. 

Working with high-quality vendors can fix most of these issues, but finding them is a challenge in itself.

Companies also experience issues with communication and documentation, which is often a result of incompetent processes and ineffective tools. 

These issues further result in other procurement problems such as procurement fraud and duplicate payments, which can cost your organization.

Businesses in the U.S. are wasting 32 million man-hours every year because they’re using ineffective procurement tools.

The Cost of a Poor Procurement Process

A poor procurement process can be extremely costly for the organization, sometimes increasing costs up to 5X

No one wants to spend more money than they absolutely have so, so this is a major issue that needs addressing with more efficient practices.

Besides monetary loss, companies can also lose time and value because of practices and tools that aren’t up to the mark. 

Businesses in the U.S. are wasting 32 million man-hours every year because they’re using ineffective procurement tools. 

And 54% of companies are still relying on paper-based invoice processing, which can be extremely time-consuming.

Not surprisingly, inefficient processes and manual data entry are among the biggest challenges for 48% of those same companies.

Even in terms of fraud, inefficient procurement tools and practices put companies at a greater risk of becoming victims. 

The easiest targets of fraud are those companies that are less likely to use a centralized digital solution for accounts payable.

This means that small businesses and startups can be the biggest targets. So it’s no wonder that 29% of small businesses have been targets of billing fraud. 22% have been victim to payment tampering and check fraud.

The Need for Automation

It’s clear to see that businesses are facing many procurement issues that are costing them time and money. And many of these issues stem from ineffective tools and processes.

The obvious solution is to optimize your existing processes with more efficient practices. And of course, it’s absolutely necessary to use tools that will minimize human error and the risk of fraud.

Procurement management technology can make a huge difference in reducing these procurement issues. 

It can help you streamline your workflow and automate various repetitive tasks. It also organizes your data to make it easily accessible, which can prevent data duplication and duplicate payment issues.

Automating your invoice processing, for example, can reduce errors by close to 40%. It can also bring down your cost-per-invoice by nearly 90%. 

Plus, it could reduce your invoice exception rate to 10.7%.

To top it all off, automation can help you save significantly more. Automating your accounts payable can help you take advantage of up to 75% of available discounts.

To learn more about the importance of technology in tackling procurement issues, check out the infographic below.

Major Procurement Issues And How To Fix Them With Technology

What’s your goal today?

1. Use Planergy to manage purchasing and accounts payable

We’ve helped save billions of dollars for our clients through better spend management, process automation in purchasing and finance, and reducing financial risks. To discover how we can help grow your business:

2. Download our guide “Indirect Spend Guide”

Download a free copy of our guide to better manage and make savings on your indirect spend. You’ll also be subscribed to our email newsletter and notified about new articles or if have something interesting to share.

3. Learn best practices for purchasing, finance, and more

Browse hundreds of articles, containing an amazing number of useful tools, techniques, and best practices. Many readers tell us they would have paid consultants for the advice in these articles.

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