For anyone in the procurement business, manually managing a supplier database is often a time-consuming process. Entering data, tracking vendors, updating promotions, etc. can often be frustrating and can cause unnecessary risks, mistakes, and oversights.
On the other hand, the entire procurement process with the help of a supplier portal is usually more fluid, more agile, more automatic, and can provide up-to-date and accurate information in a matter of seconds. Vendor portal software can be a system that streamlines your company’s procurement process and enables you to talk to your vendors in a secure and efficient online environment.
What does a Vendor Portal do?
To be fair, a supplier portal does many things that will benefit a business in many ways. However, to be precise, such a system eliminates the manual effort required during the procurement process by automating most of the tasks that would normally have to be performed manually by both the company and the supplier.
Now we are going to go into more detail using an example so that you can better understand how powerful and useful such a system can be for a business.
Today, many companies create purchase orders (POs) within their ERP and financial systems. They then email PDF copies to their suppliers.
However, given various factors such as the “size” of the supplier, the process from obtaining an order to receiving and purchasing the supplier’s products can be labor-intensive.
Typically, an order is emailed to a vendor who has not responded for a period of time. Therefore, to meet the expectations of their customers, companies need an estimated delivery date for products.
Unsurprisingly, companies have to search for such information, which in turn leads to more manual work and more effort to retrieve knowledge in the ERP system.
In other words, companies are ready to create orders in an efficient and convenient way for the supplier to gain access, so the process is important for success and a prerequisite for a supplier portal solution.
Additionally, real-time integration with the ERP system is paramount and an essential requirement for accuracy, speed, and troubleshooting.
Vendor Portal processes include:
A vendor management system keeps all Purchase Quotations/Orders raised within the ERP with no external tools required for the merchant to use while allowing the supplier to conveniently access and manage quotations.
Let’s check out how companies enjoy an ERP integrated vendor portal system.
- Vendor portals are self-service portals
- Automatic issuance of purchase orders (PO) and Order Quotations as soon as they have been created
- Provides the supplier with quick access to the order as soon as it is received
- Allows the supplier to verify the order, dates of Convenient delivery, and associated invoices
- Auto updation of the ERP with the expected price and the confirmation of possible delivery dates after the supplier has entered the offer of the purchase order
- Automatic update of the ERP with delivery dates expected after entry in the order by the supplier
- Automatic update of the supplier and the internal Personnel of a change within the order (for example, after entering a delivery date)
- Maintains a transparent record of all related events with the order.
- You can evaluate suppliers in the supplier portal and write comments, and/or so that all questions are resolved. Vendor rating plays a crucial role because if a vendor scores low, you can find another vendor to run the business, and to avoid this, vendors always go out of their way to get good reviews.
- You can easily onboard vendors without manual paperwork, just upload all the necessary documents and go.
- Vendor portals can be easily integrated into third-party applications to avoid opening different applications and having everything under one roof.
These are just the basics of all provider portals. Vendor portals have many advantages and can be tailored to your needs. Sciqus is a leading provider of vendor portal software, and our vendor portals provide a complete experience with a powerful set of feature lists that handle all content publishing effectively and easily.