The traditional approach to vendor management is highly manual, time-consuming, and inefficient. In the age of automation, it’s easy to see why manual vendor management seems so outdated. What was once a matter of keeping track of your vendors on spreadsheets and in email has become an opportunity to keep all your vendors in one place and manage their data without spending hours on paperwork.
With digital process automation (DPA), a single data source means no more disparate systems. No more reconciliations. No more back-and-forth emails.
The vendor management process provides a framework for consistent interactions with third-party vendors
Vendors are a critical part of business success. They often help you run your business by providing the products or services you need to keep things moving smoothly.
But if they aren’t managed closely, vendors can also lead to severe problems. For example, if vendor contracts are poorly written or not followed properly, they can create legal liability for your company and even seriously damage your cash flow. And if you don’t have a system in place for managing vendors, it’s easy to miss essential communications—like requests for an extension on payment terms—or lose track of vendor contracts entirely.
These issues can be avoided by taking advantage of the Vendor Management Process (VMP). Using this process provides a framework for consistent interactions with third-party vendors. It helps you avoid missing deadlines, misinterpreting contract terms, or creating other problems through inconsistent management practices.
How does digital process automation work?
Digital process automation (DPA) uses software to manage and optimize your business processes. DPA can work in various ways and has been shown to increase productivity, reduce overhead costs, and improve profitability for businesses across every industry.
To understand how DPA works, we need to start with what it is. DPA tools work by taking employees’ tasks manually and performing them automatically. To illustrate, if you want to update a customer’s information when they move or change phone numbers, you could enter the new data manually into your system. This process takes time and introduces the possibility of human error.
According to the WorkMarket In(Sight) Report, 78% of business leaders believe that automation increases employee productivity. With DPA platforms, you can automate vendor management. To illustrate, when you receive a notification that a customer’s information has changed, the software automatically updates the data in your system so that everything is up to date.
Digital process automation (DPA) can help your organization manage vendors more effectively and efficiently
When it comes to managing vendors, digital process automation (DPA) can help your organization do so more effectively and efficiently.
If you’re a company that works with many vendors or are looking to increase the number of vendors you work with, you know that vendor management can quickly scale out of control without a robust system in place to manage them.
Traditionally, many companies use spreadsheets to keep track of important information, like contracts and agreements with vendors, but this method is prone to errors and difficult to update. DPA platforms allow you to manage vendors by streamlining all the data and processes associated with them—including contracts, agreements, invoices, approvals, purchase orders, and billing—into one organized system.
It also uses AI/ML, manages connectors, and automates business rules. This can be done by building DPA-powered vendor portals that automatically collect the data needed for vendor management and automate the many tasks associated with onboarding new vendors.
You can also use smart document automation technology to create error-free contracts and agreements on the fly. With these systems in place, you’ll have the confidence that your vendor management processes are much more efficient than they were before—and you’ll be able to support even more vendors if needed.
In addition, a DPA solution can also help your organization improve communication with vendors and better manage the entire vendor relationship lifecycle. This can increase transparency across the organization, strengthen internal controls, facilitate collaboration between departments, reduce risk, enforce compliance – and ultimately help drive positive business outcomes.
Streamlining vendor management processes reduces human error and improving consistency
How many vendors does your business deal with? If you’re like most businesses, the answer is a lot: HR, insurance, accounting, payroll, and more. And for every one of those vendors, you have to manage the relationship—from initial contact through invoicing and payment.
With vendor management, consistency and accountability are everything. DPA can help you streamline your vendor management processes, reducing human error and improving consistency.
- Reduced human error: Our software automatically checks every purchase order against your company’s policies for accuracy. This will save time and reduce mistakes caused by human error or poor communication between departments.
- Improved consistency: Using DPA means that all of your vendor agreements are in one place—and they’re updated regularly so that nothing slips through the cracks. You can even set alerts for important dates like contract renewals!
- Better visibility into spending habits: With DPA, everyone has access to what’s being spent where they need it most—whether during an audit or just because they want more information about their department’s budget.
Enabling real-time analytics, monitoring, and rapid response to issues that arise during the vendor management process
DPA integrates into many existing systems with minimal effort and provides an end-to-end solution for managing vendors, including:
- Vendor registration
- Vendor qualification
- Vendor onboarding and offboarding
- Vendor performance
- Vendor maintenance
Using DPA for vendor management gives you the tools to manage all the details of your vendor relationships from one easy-to-use dashboard, no matter how many vendors you’re working with at any given time.
Process automation platforms can integrate internal and external systems, further streamlining the vendor management process
A centralized vendor management system is key to your business’s success. To help you understand what we mean, we’ve put together a few quick examples of how DPA can help you achieve your goals:
- Integrate internal and external systems through APIs, further streamlining the vendor management process.
- Generate detailed reports on vendor performance and spending, which can be sent automatically to anyone you choose.
- View all vendors and their associated sub-vendors in one place, allowing you to see exactly who is involved in your projects at a given time.
With DPA, you can reach out to vendors outside of your company to provide a better service to your customers.
Final thought
It’s time to take your vendor management to the next level with DPA.
DPA can help you manage your vendors better by:
- Keeping them all in one place, so you don’t have to waste time hunting them down.
- Tracking which companies are spending what and where, and how often.
- Ensuring that you’re always paying the correct amount, on time, without any investigations or follow-ups.
- Helping you keep an eye on costs and set up a budget.
- Giving you access to 24/7 support so that when something goes wrong, someone is ready to jump in and help.
