Category Archives: Vendor Review

Basware: P2P for the Global “E” Part II

Late last fall, we introduced you to Basware, Procure-to-Pay for the Global “E”. Founded in 1985 in Espoo, Finland (as Baltic Accounting Systems), Basware has been delivering enterprise finance solutions for almost 30 years. Since its humble beginnings, it has grown to one of the largest global players in the Procure-to-Pay marketplace with over 2,000 international customers that collectively do business with over 1 Million companies in over 100 countries. In order to support this global customer base, Basware has had to create an operational footprint that spans over 50 countries on 6 continents which includes over 100 partner and resellers, including MasterCard and BravoSolution.

In our initial post, we noted that one of the most unique features of the platform is the fact that it spans the full AP and P2P cycles, whereas many of the smaller P2P and e-Procurement platforms are Procurement centric, with little support for AP. From the procurement side, the platform contains modules for analytics, basic sourcing, contract management, catalog management, e-Procurement, and e-Invoicing. From the AP side, the platform contains modules for e-Invoice Receipt (through the Basware Commerce Network), e-Invoice Processing, e-Invoice Matching, e-Payment, and Analytics. Furthermore, all modules are integrated with a consistent look-and-feel and all modules are available on top of Basware’s new cloud-based Alusa platform that supports (multi-)enterprise private cloud instances.

In that post, we noted we would dive deeper into AP automation and (e-)Invoice processing, matching, and payment capabilities; the Basware Commerce Network (BCN); and the associated analytics in later posts. This is the first post in that series, focussing on the AP automation and invoice processing capabilities.

The invoicing module, which works pretty much as you would expect based upon standard definitions and features implemented by their North American counterparts, has a few unique features that deserve to be highlighted. Namely:

  • full compliance with e-Commerce, Taxation, and Digital Signature Requirements in over 50 countries
  • full Purchase-to-Pay process coverage from the Procurement and the AP perspective
  • integrated plans and workflows

Even though North America might be behind when it comes to e-Commerce and digital signatures, and many of the North American Procurement providers might be behind when it comes to recognition of the various types of taxes and tax codes that exist around the world, Basware, which has been supporting (e-)commerce around the world for over a decade, is up to date on all of the digital signature requirements, tax codes, and audit trail requirements. With Basware’s solution, chances are you’re ready to conduct business in every country you operate in out-of-the-box. Basware has already been integrated with over 250 ERP, MRP, AP, and other back-office systems and e-Document/e-Invoice formats supported include, but are not limited to, Finvoice, Teapps, E2B, eHF, OIOXML, cXML, EDIFACT, UN/Cefact, CSV, EDI ANSI X12 (810), Svefaktura, OIOUBL, UBL, openTrans, and SAP iDOC.

Since the Procurement module directly integrates with the AP module, as soon as the invoice is received, it can not only be automatically matched (against any and all e-Documents that are appropriate), automatically processed for approval using the appropriate user-defined rules, and routed as required for error processing or manual approval, but analyzed from a financial perspective. What is the cash-flow impact of paying early, on time, or late? How long is it taking to get through the manual processing queue versus average processing time and what impact is it having on average cycle time? Are the payment terms in line with organizational standards?

One interesting capability of the AP Automation solution (which includes Basware Invoice, Basware Match-Orders, Basware Match-Plans, Basware Mobile, and Basware Analytics) is the ability to create and manage payment plans. Basware has found that 8% to 15% of invoices in an average organization are both ‘orderless’ and recurring. In order to handle these situations, Basware created plans that can be used to define a recurring invoice and special processing rules for dealing with them. For example, a cell phone bill will come in every month the cell phone is active. There is no reason that it can’t be automatically approved every month if it is within the expected and approved amount for the employee whom the cell-phone is assigned to. For example, the user can be assigned a base plan amount and a variable amount for long-distance charges, data charges, and/or roaming charges. If the amounts are within the maximums, or tolerances, the invoice can be automatically approved. If not, then the invoice will need to be routed to the employee’s supervisor or the budget manager for approval. All of this can be captured in a plan. The plan can define the source of the invoice, the purpose of the invoice, the different line items and charges that can occur on the invoice, different tolerances and limits for the base amount and variable amount, different approval routings for each rule violation, and an appropriate workflow, among other features. In addition, invoices can be flipped into plans. Furthermore, if an invoice contains additional or unexpected line items, they will be pulled out into separate cost allocations, which can then be added to the plan if required. Manual handling of the recurring invoice disappears completely if everything about the invoice is in-line with expectations and is minimized otherwise.

Finally, Basware estimates that it’s e-Invoice solution will bring a best-in-class €10.90 per invoice (and $17 USD) through its Basware Commerce Network, which will be covered in more detail in our next post.

B2BConnex – Connecting Companies the World Over Part II

In our last post, which re-introduced you to B2BConnex, a solution for e-Document Management that was designed to automate the end-to-end purchasing process and targeted at small and mid-sized manufacturing organizations still mired in the world of ERP.

We noted that, since our first posts on e-Document Management and automating the end-to-end purchasing process back in the 2010 time-frame, they have been hard at work and have increased the number of supported document types, added scorecard corrective action reporting (SCAR), the ability to have multiple configurations of the software for different geographies/countries/divisions/departments/plants, an improved shopping cart solution, more integration options out of the box, more usability features, and considerably more customization capability. We then dived into some of the new usability features, UI streamlining, reporting capability and some of the new configuration capabilities.

Today we are going to discuss the improved shopping cart, integration options, configuration options, and a few of the workflows more in depth.

Their catalog-based shopping cart works like you would expect, with the ability to search an individual catalog or all catalogs and be presented with a list of matching products complete with images, (partial) descriptions, price (with volume break) fields, default order quantity and add-to-cart button(s). One unique feature is that the application not only supports multiple languages, but allows each product to be associated with custom descriptions in any language the buyer or supplier chooses. This allows a buying organization to present the same catalog and interface to its users around the world, who can then select the language they want to see results in if the default language isn’t their native language. In addition, currency is also configurable and can be changed by the user as well. When the user goes to check out, the system automatically generates a purchase order template where the user can override the default billing, billing contact, shipping, shipping contact, and (requested) shipping method. Once the user confirms the order, the order, broken down by supplier, will be sent back to the client’s sales order system to generate an order there. Then, through the ERP’s fulfilment functions, the order can be used to generate one or more Purchase Orders which can be sent to the supplier through the B2BConnex Direct platform or Supplier Portal.

Once the supplier receives the PO, they can immediately accept it as is and return a Sales Order Acknowledgement, or, if they can’t deliver (all) of the requested items (at once), they can request modifications to delivery dates and order quantities and even request substitutions. In addition, if the supplier can deliver some products now and some products later, the supplier can split the line items and define the quantity that can be delivered now and the quantity that can be delivered later, each with associated delivery dates, and send the PO back with a modification request.

While the catalog-based shopping cart looks plain and simple with its “old-school” PO style, it’s actually quite sophisticated as it plugs into the B2BConnex Direct platform, which can deliver the purchase orders using a variety of methods, including, but not limited to, delivery through the B2B Supplier Portal, EDI to the supplier’s ERP, and XML or EDI (X12) to the supplier’s order management software. And all of this is configurable by the client in the sophisticated administration panel that allows the customer to define the document types supported, the delivery methods required (down to the plant level if need be), and any required mappings to translate from one format to another (which is important if the customer uses their own units of measure, abbreviations, or terminology and not what is expected in the EDI standard, for example).

In addition, there is a lot of security built in. Not only is there no capability by the supplier or buyer to change fields they have not been given access to (unlike there was in a big system that shall not be named that, for years, didn’t pull in the contract price data from the database but just assumed whatever was in the XML was correct), but there is a lot of security to prevent cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and other common and uncommon hack attacks.

Another neat feature is credit limits, which can be configured for each supplier per order and on aggregate and allow the buyer to be alerted when an order will surpass a credit limit and possibly be rejected by the supplier until Accounts Payable brings the buyer’s account up to date.

Their B2BConnex Direct platform, which functions as their native data mapping middleware, allows them to not only translate document types from one format and standard to another very easily, but also provides an API that they can use to integrate into just about any ERP, finance, procurement, or back-office system of relevance with respect to one of the many e-Document types that are natively supported which include, but are not limited to, RFQs, purchase orders, sales order acknowledgements, ship notices, delivery schedules, goods receipts, invoices, payment reports, payment receipts, RMAs (return merchandise authorizations), and inventory forecasts.

The B2BConnex platform, like the B2BConnex Customer (Buyer) and Supplier Portals, are very configurable — each document type that is sent from and/or delivered to each location can have its own delivery format. For example, if you have one plant offshore that still isn’t on the enterprise ERP, and can’t accept EDI, you can have EDI documents delivered to all plants except that one, which can be required to use the portal.

In addition, customers can manage their own profiles and user base, deciding who has access to what parts of the system and add and remove accounts as necessary. The last thing you want is to have to wait for a vendor to add or remove an account every time someone joins or leaves your organization. While a number of modern systems have this feature, there are still systems out there that work on named-user licenses (and as a solution buyer, you have to watch out for that).

In a nutshell, even though the B2BConnex solution employs an old-school look, it is actually a very modern SaaS application under the covers and definitely worth looking into if you are a small-or-mid-sized organization that is still in the ERP world and need a better solution.

B2BConnex – Connecting Companies the World Over Part I

Since we first introduced you to B2BConnex, a solution for e-Document Management that was designed to automate the end-to-end purchasing process, they’ve been working hard to extend their platform and serve the global operations of their customer base. Even though, as we noted in our first post, their solution was targeted at small and mid-size manufacturing organizations that are still mired in the ERP and need better solutions for their purchasing function, B2BConnex has recently acquired some larger mid-sized companies with global operations and a global supply base. As a result, B2BConnex has been steadily expanding their solution capability and footprint to meet the needs of these larger clients.

As per our post on e-Document Management for Small & Mid-Size Manufacturers, they started out as an e-Document Management solution, implemented as a simple web-based portal solution that integrated with the back-end ERP and/or MRP system, that allowed purchasing and logistics personnel to efficiently manage RFQs, Purchase Orders, Kanban Orders, Shipment Notices, Payment Inquiries, and Invoices and sales to efficiently handle inbound RFQs, sales orders, and inbound shipment inquiries. On top of this, as per our post on automate the end-to-end purchasing process, they built m-way matching and reporting capabilities (and can tell you whether or not the invoice matches the purchase order and / or the goods receipt), scorecard capability, and customer branding capability as well as streamlined Excel integration and a shopping cart that runs on a customer catalog.

Since then they have been hard at work adding more and/or improved document types (including requisitions, specifications, surveys, etc.), scorecard corrective action reporting (SCAR), the ability to have multiple configurations of the software for different geographies/countries/divisions/departments/plants, an improved shopping cart solution, more integration options out-of-the-box, more usability features (such as the ability for a supplier to flip a PO, or line items, into an invoice or ASN and a buyer to flip an invoice, or line items, into a goods receipt), and more customization capability (which allows the entire look-and-feel to be custom skinned, including layout options, by the customer). In today’s post we will talk about the streamlining that B2BConnex has implemented since we last covered their application, the enhanced reporting, and the configuration capability. In tomorrow’s post, we will discuss their improved catalog and shopping cart capability, their B2B Direct solution, and the associated services that B2BConnex offers.

All of the relevant fields of the documents can be edited in-line in the application. For example, once a purchase order has been created, the supplier can request changes online to pricing, quantities, delivery date or other data which are updated in your ERP system once approved . All changes are tracked and a full audit trail is maintained, as well as any or all comments attached to the purchase order. The same holds for the shipment notice, which can be created by a supplier with access to the supplier portal. The shipment notice can be created from a single purchase order or from open line items from multiple orders. Similarly, Corrective Action Requests can be created manually and can reference invoices, shipment notices, or goods receipts and be associated with the requisite line items.

The UI has been streamlined so that when a user logs in, they can quickly view a list of all documents that have been assigned to them and how many of those documents require (immediate) attention. This allows the user — be it a buyer, logistics manager, or supplier — to focus their attention on those items that require immediate attention and prioritize their workday.

In addition, document creation has been streamlined so that a user only has to enter minimal meta-data information, as each document can have as many attachments as is required to create the specification, RFQ, or scorecard. In addition, all documents can be created from Excel sheets, and templates can be exported from the application.

Custom reports can be built on any data in the system, and the reporting capability allows the user to quickly retrieve only those documents that have been recently reviewed, changed, accepted, negotiated, approved, satisfied, etc. and restricted to a supplier, buyer, etc. based on the audit-trails and meta-data maintained by the system. Built-in reports, all of which are configurable, include performance summary, response time, negation detail, time to approval, received unapproved, delivery, price data, first pass yield, open document line, and transit days report — all designed to measure the performance of purchasing.

The configuration capability is quite extensive. The administrator can configure look and feel, fields displayed for view or update, status codes, currencies, languages, scheduling, expediting, user accounts, account policies, logging, file I/O, EDI, portal options, individual geography/department configurations, ERP integration (including users, data field mappings, etc.), partners, partner profiles, items, and catalogues, and other data items of relevance. The solution can be customized to fit the process of the buying organization and the workflow of the applications the personnel are used to.

Come back tomorrow for a review of additional capabilities added by B2BConnex since our last posts as well as a discussion of the services they offer.

A New Year is Upon Us – Do You Have Your SpendHQ Ready To Go? Part IV

In the first three parts of this series, we introduced you to SpendHQ, a spin-off of Insight Sourcing Group (ISG), one of the strongest, but yet most overlooked, players in the spend visibility and analysis space from a software and services solution viewpoint. Introduced is the operative word here as we only reviewed the features of the product at a high level — each tab of each module has many more features, options, and capabilities than we reviewed, as our goal in this initial series was just to outline the capabilities of a solution that has been under development for close to a decade. Unlike most spend analysis solutions that were designed and built by sourcing solution providers, SpendHQ was designed by sourcing and spend experts and implemented by a development team experienced in the implementation, and integration, of sourcing and spend analysis solutions.

The solution, which so far consists of a spend visibility and category management module, soon to be accompanied by a contract (metadata) management module that will allow an organization to track contracts, associated prices, and expiry dates (and associate them with managed spend categories), as any expert in spend visibility and analysis knows, is only as good as the data it contains.

Fortunately, SpendHQ manages the entire process and has a good handle on the matter at hand. From consolidation through normalization, categorization, cleansing, and enrichment to cube building and release, the SpendHQ team is experienced at the end-to-end lifecycle.

And, moreover, they recognize that this process can take time. Even though a spend expert with analytics expertise can map 90%+ of spend by hand with the right tool in a week for even the largest fortune 500, most companies don’t have this spend expertise in a single person, don’t have all of the data available in a single merged instance, and don’t content themselves with 90% of spend when many providers promise 98%+ (even though this increased level of accuracy doesn’t make a difference during an initial spend analysis effort and initial project selection, as an organization always goes after the biggest cost savings opportunities first, which can always be identified with 90%+ mapping accuracy). As a result, while some spend analysis providers will promise to have you up and running in a week (and work their Indian data mapping team to the bone 24/7 in an effort to meet this goal), SpendHQ makes a more reasonable promise of six weeks from initial consultation to final deployment. The SpendHQ team knows it will take time to get data, create merge rules, cleanse, classify, review with the customer, create new rules, re-classify, enrich, get executive sign-off, and roll-out. Sometimes the process only takes a couple of weeks (with a smaller company that’s really on the ball), but, as a consulting firm, they know better than to make promises that are unrealistic (and it’s always better to beat a deadline than to miss it). Considering that they can get to full-deployment for even the largest multi-billion dollar companies with 60+ file formats and 20+ currencies in this timeframe, you don’t have to worry that they won’t be able to turn-around data and mappings as fast as you can get them the data and review the mappings.

ISG has been doing spend analysis engagements since it was founded in 2002 and started working on it’s own spend analysis toolset shortly thereafter (with the first commercialization of its spend analysis product in 2007) and, as a result, ISG and SpendHQ are quite familiar with the fragile data supply chain. Poor data input discipline leading to 200 different supplier names for FedEx in your system? Multiple AP Systems that fragment spend data across the enterprise in different file formats? Accounting oriented categorizations useless for spend analysis? Maverick spend gone wild? They’ve seen it all and can deal with it all. And before the cleansed and categorized data is presented to the customer, it is reviewed by North America and European Union based sourcing professionals — not by a low-cost data-entry tech in an outsourced Indian development shop.

And, as per recent posts, the SpendHQ product is extremely useable — one of the best UIs SI has seen yet for a vendor-managed spend analysis product that is designed to be comprehensible by even the most technology-inept. (SpendHQ believes their UI to be their competitive advantage, and SI agrees.) It’s a great entry point to spend analysis and a quick way to identify your top savings opportunities and get sourcing projects to address them underway. (And then, a few years down the road when you’re ready for do-it-yourself advanced spend analysis, it’s a perfect segway into a product like Opera’s BIQ — which supports multiple categorizations, multiple cubes, and the ability to re-define your own rules hierarchy on the fly — when you’re ready to dive deeper into tougher opportunities.)

A New Year is Upon Us – Do You Have Your SpendHQ Ready To Go? Part III

In the first two parts of this series, we introduced you to SpendHQ, one of the strongest, but yet most overlooked, players in the spend visibility and analysis space from a software and services solution viewpoint. As noted, the SpendHQ solution, which currently consists of a spend visibility and category management module that will soon be accompanied by a contract (metadata) management module, is a good starting point for a company which needs to get up and running with spend visibility quickly.

The category management product has five main components: dashboard, details, order analytics, pricing, and savings.

The dashboard summarizes the spend from spend visibility, the managed spend, the core list compliance, and the pricing accuracy as well as metrics related to company, supplier, item, buyer, location, and budget center, among other identifiers. If the user selects pricing tier, she will see the average order size, total orders, and wholesale spend for the relevant pricing tier. From the dashboard, the user can quickly drill into the top level categories. In addition to the total spend trend graph for the default time period, the user can also see the maverick spend by supplier, ordered by the suppliers who receive the most maverick spend. Or, the user can drill into the metrics.

The details section is designed to allow a user to quickly drill into a category and get the relevant subcategory and item, buyer, or location information related to that category. On the item screen, for example, the buyer can quickly see the total spend, the total unit, the most recent price, the price trend, MSRP (if known), and the date of last purchase.

The order analytics section is designed to allow a user to drill into the order patterns for a category or subcategory and see the average order size and how it changes over time. A user can drill into the components of an average order or into the detail of all orders in the time period.

The pricing section is designed to allow a user to analyze the price paid for an item, or set of items, over time, relative to the price that should be paid. The user can see the total overcharges and undercharges for the time period in question, the net result, and the overall pricing accuracy. This allows a buyer to not only figure out where overcharges are rampant, but where it makes sense to go after them. If the item, or category, also had a significant number of undercharges (because the retail price went down during the time period and the supplier charged retail instead of contract throughout the time period) and the net result is that the net amount lost was small, it might not be a good idea to go after the supplier on those items as they will insist the undercharges be recognized (and be applied against a category where they rampantly overcharged you).

The savings section shows the user how the organization fared on a category, subcategory, or item over time relative to a (set of) baseline price(s) for the category from the comparative time period (before the current prices were put in place).

The details component is broken down into overview, item detail, buyer detail, and location detail subcomponents, allowing a user to see, for the category or categories of interest, the relative spends and then dive in by item, buyer, or location. In the item detail, the buyer can drill down into full purchase history by buyer if she desires.

All-in-all, the SpendHQ solution gives the user great visibility into their category spend, and the drivers of that spend (be it a department, location, or rogue set of buyers) and helps the organization manage that spend.