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Control spend with a Scalable Purchase Order System

Organisations can quickly scale, adding more people and more complexity. Although the top-line may be growing due to an amazing sales strategy or investment, the bottom line may be shrinking as the discipline that made you successful is stretched. The way to recalibrate is to control costs and the easiest way to do this is scrutiny. Making sure your teams are buying from the right suppliers at the right price, in the right way. And this is where our software comes in. It helps you control your costs with approval workflows. And the good news is that our purchase order system is easy to implement and has a fast return on investment.
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Why do I need a Purchase Order System?

A Purchase Order System will hep you formalise the way goods and services are procured in your organisation. It will add structure and help control costs. If you have a process already, but it's cumbersome and slow, adding a software solution like Zahara will give you an audit trail and record behind every purchase as well. And thats good for compliance and auditing. So say goodbye to the Excel tracker or ad-hoc process made up of 365 PowerApps. Get a full-featured scalable solution with minimum effort.
How We Work:
Create a PO SystemRaise Purchase Order Request Approval for your PORequest Approval Send a PO to your supplierSend PO to Supplier
RaisePORaise Purchase Order
Request ApprovalRequest Approval
RaisePOSend PO to Supplier
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Easy Purchase Order Approvals

Intuitive and simple to use

Your teams will be discerning users of software already. They will know what's good and what's complicated. And quite frankly who wants to waste hours learning something new. If software is designed well, with simplicity in mind, a typical buyer, approver or finance person should be able to create or find purchase orders with minimum effort.

Our software ticks all the boxes for a fast deployment and quick take-up. We have an extensive library of videos and a help articles for those that want to get going right now. But we also provide a full, turn-key onboarding experience from our team who can consult, setup and train you and your users.

Managing your suppliers and product lists

Part of the opportunity with setting up a Purchase Order System is the chance to review your existing suppliers.

Zahara makes it easy to buy better. You can disable suppliers so your buyers can no longer see them, but all of the history is secured. You can categorise suppliers and import whole product catalogues. Ultimatey, you can make sure your buyers are using the right suppliers, with the right terms and buying products with the right price and discounts.

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Supplier Management in your PO System
Control costs with budgets

Why budgets empower teams

Budgets. Where would we be if we didnt have the discipline of spending against a pre-set budget? But are your teams / departments or divisions aware of what they can spend today, next month or next quarter?

That's where Zahara comes in. Budgets can be created for both departments and projects and this can empowers your teams to be more autonomous. Every spend request can be viewed alongside the budget. Approvers cn jump in and take action to prevent a budget being breached or they can be notified to make an approval decision if the budget will be exceeded. It makes for better business process and that adds value to the bottom line as well.

Approval workflows that won't slow you down

Approval workflows that work for you. That's what we offer with Zahara. The ability to create - straight out of the box (if we had one) - a simple or very sophisticated approval flow that doesn't require any code or script or the brain dominance of a rocket scientist. Simply put the steps you want in the right order and any conditions that will determine whether the CFO will need to approve or not.

Our customers have helped us create the multitude of options we offer including steps like approvals, group approvals and sending a purchase order to a supplier. We then have multiple condition options so that people are only asked to approve under the right circumstances. Like price. And we handle all the things you will think of like holiday settings and delegations.

Approval Workflows for PO System
staff expenses

Staff Expense Approval and Payment

You may want approvals for ad-hoc staff expenses without the bells and whistles of a dedicated expenses system. We offer that as well. The ability to create expense claims on a mobile app that are then submitted for approval.

And with our integrated payments module, it will be possible to pay an expense claim instantly following approval. We are committed to providing the best accounts payable automation and invoice processing software we can for a fully integrated purchase to pay solution. The starting point though, is a purchase order system.

What Are the Key Elements of an Purchase Order System?
A Purchase Order System will have the functionality to create a purchase order selecting the supplier and the items you wish to buy. Most important will be layered permissions so only the right people in the organisation are able to create spend requests. The other key part of the PO system is the workflow creator. You will want a process so that spend requests - often called 'purchase requisitions' are approved first. This means you will need perhaps one or more people involved in the "sign-off". You may also want the purchas order to be sent to the supplier automatically. Zahara does all of this and more and also handles the invoice processing and matching if required.
What is a typical purchase approval process like?
Every organisation is different but we do see a lot of similarities. We recommend you divide your company into departments or what we call Divisions. The first approval step is typically the budget holder or division head. The second step might be a senior manager or general manager. There could be a third approval step for the finance head. The workflow can include messaging a buyer with the outcome - "yes place the order" or "order sent to supplier" or on reject telling them what's wrong. The workflow is divided into steps (hence the expression multi-step approval workflows) and each of these workflow steps can have conditions to decide whether to do the step or not.
Why use Zahara and not our finance system?
Is that the sound of clunk we hear? Is your finance system designed for finance people and not everyday buyers? Simply put, Zahara is the kind of software that everyone in the business can use, regardless of their role, no matter how occasional they will need to raise a purchase request. Your finance system may be too complicated or you may find that it's licensing costs are prohibitive. Zahara is a great finance add-on and it will knock spots off the built-in functionality of your clunky finance system
Whats the ROI of a Purchase Order System
Every business is different but there are many cost savings gained from setting up a purchase order system. We think your annual Zahara subscription will be recouped in 3 - 6 months by introducing approval workflows and cutting back on waste - the wrong supplier at the wrong price - and also with efficiency gains from it being much easier to buy something without a paper-trail.
Who is Zahara best suited to?
Without a doubt, Zahara fits in really well with service based businesses. Anyone who buys stock will probably want stock control and may be better suited to use their finance system. If you are a service based business like a charity, construction, real-estate, sport team or events company, reading this, you will likely empathise with our messaging around cost controls and wanting to streamline the way you buy. If you use one of the finance system we already work with then Zahara is a great fit for you and will plugin to your world relatively easily and quickly.

Useful Links

Below are some useful tools we have for your purchase order system journey.

Purchase Order Generator

Purchase Order Template

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