There are also other ways that E-procurement can help streamline your procurement process. Some ideas include:. To hear more about how to streamline your procurement process, or to request a software demo, contact EC Sourcing Group today at We want you to reimagine the way you think about procurement.

Skip to content Menu. How to Streamline Your Procurement Process from Weeks to Hours When contract management and procurement software first arrived on the scene, overnight it became an easy way to streamline the procurement process.

How to Streamline Your Procurement Process: What Are the Steps Involved? How to Streamline Your Procurement Process: What is E-Procurement? Some ideas include: Make collaboration easy. Sometimes contracts go back and forth quite a few times before you hold the finalized copy in your hand. Ensure that PDF editing software or tracking in MS Word is a part of your contract management process, or readily accessible to your team.

Make your contracts transparent. Everyone on your team should be able to see at what point a contract is in real-time. This avoids confusion, unnecessary emails, waiting for answers, and essentially, wasting time. You can also offer transparency to your suppliers too.

Before tackling any project in business management, you need to assess what the current situation is vs. what the goals are. Then, determine what impediments are blocking the way in between.

To achieve procurement optimization, companies need an established procurement process. This requires ownership of the process and proper management. It also requires the leveraging of technology to facilitate a smooth process. These are effective e procurement steps that business owners take to ensure smooth operations.

The procurement process begins with someone making a request from the purchasing department. In some cases, you might already have established partnerships or vendor agreements with existing companies.

In these instances, sourcing what you need is fairly easy. If you need to find a new supplier, this could require some research. These are some of the most important considerations when making a decision:.

Instead, you decide to purchase Chromebooks. You follow the rule of thumb of getting at least three quotes, so you reach out to Samsung, HP and Best Buy for bids.

In some organizations, the person responsible for procurement might need to seek approval before looking for vendors. Most organizations require procurement to submit the following information for purchase approval :.

Typically, the finance department generates the purchase order, which tells the vendor that an order has been approved. This may or may not be the original amount you requested. If the finance department plans to build a long-term relationship, this step might also include an onboarding process.

In some cases, your company might need to be onboarded as a bulk purchaser as well. The vendor submits an invoice for payment and an order description. This provides you with the opportunity to review the order and determine whether there is an error or you plan to change the order for other reasons.

For example, the finance department might decide to purchase five Android tablets alongside the initial Chromebook orders. The finance department usually sends the payment on behalf of the company. One of the biggest causes of waste and damage is that companies do not always make adequate preparations for delivery.

Consider, for instance, that your company ordered 50 Chromebooks, but it also ordered 50 new desks and chairs. The weather forecast also predicts rain, so storing them temporarily outside is not an option. Your company would need proper measures to eliminate the risk of damage to the brand-new items.

Procurement approval sometimes involves a long wait time, which also affects the purchasing team. Delayed improvements cost businesses lost productivity and time is money. So, what can you do to ensure things move at a faster pace? The more bureaucracy a workplace has, the less agile it is and the more cumbersome it is to get simple things done.

Not all items require purchase approval from the finance department. Organizations often do not have a formal procurement process in place. This can create confusion about who to ask for what when needs arise. Creating a formal process makes it easier for employers to report problems and make requests.

The best way to formalize procurement and track progress is to digitize the entire process. When workers can complete the entire thing online, it simplifies the process of submitting the information and receiving approval.

Technology can also make it easier to create visuals that represent the process during optimization efforts. At Fluix, we provide the technology our clients leverage to streamline their purchasing and procurement processes.

Olga Zakharova is a Senior Product Manager at Fluix, with a track record of over 9 years in the field. Her journey began as a Support Officer, and since then, she has steadily advanced alongside the product, contributing significantly to its development.