Communication is essential in every area of life. You meet people, socialize, express yourself, listen, and, in the workplace, buy and sell. It is intrinsic to all human beings. That is why optimizing all communication processes is so important. At easyap, we are aware of its importance and strive to ensure that communication with those you work with on a daily basis is as efficient as possible. Above all, we try to improve your relationship with those who sell you their services. In this article, we explain what a supplier portal is and how it can help your brand thanks to its many advantages.
What is a supplier portal?
Let's start with the basics, or in other words, let's define what a supplier portal is, based on our extensive experience. It is a space where a company's supplier can consult any aspect related to their invoices at any time, as well as communicate with the customer. However, there is one factor that plays a key role in what we understand today as a supplier portal: digital technology.
Until a few years ago, the concept of a supplier portal as we understand it today did not even exist. Any supplier, regardless of the service they provided, would call the customer to ask about the status of an invoice. This process was time-consuming, sometimes requiring several calls, and resulted in a lack of transparency and inefficient communication... until the online boom.
The concept of a portal is associated with this digital boom, as they are located in cloud-based software. They create a common access point for suppliers and customers to which they can turn to make inquiries or report incidents. As you can imagine, for the business world, the arrival of these supplier portals represents a huge improvement in communication due to the optimization of the resources they provide.
Likewise, supplier portals are part of what is currently known as Software as a Service (SaaS). These are platforms that allow users to access and use various cloud-based applications within a single software program, if you'll pardon the redundancy. Therefore, within a SaaS, you can have your supplier portal, a content manager or ERP, a space to record employee expenses, a program for your electronic invoicing...
The 7 advantages of a supplier portal for a business
Therefore, as you will see after understanding what a supplier portal is, we are talking about a service that offers multiple benefits at the business level. It is a tool or software that facilitates communication with suppliers, yes, but its advantages go far beyond that. The main benefits for a business are:
- Promotes digital transformation of the business fabric, which is so important today.
- It is an efficient way to automate business administration, since a task that used to take so much time is now managed by computer. In addition, it significantly reduces the time spent on phone calls and the corresponding economic cost.
- Save time on procedures, as all information is accessible in one place in the cloud and does not require the intervention of several people to consult and manage the data.
- It allows internal resources to be allocated to other valuable tasks and business areas. Company resources are recycled or reused.
- The entire supplier service process is processed and documented, and it can be independent of the knowledge of certain teams or individuals.
- The relationship with the supplier is much more satisfactory, since you will be providing them with the information they need more quickly.
- Dependence on IT departments is reduced, provided that the software is good and well developed.
In fact, in relation to the latter advantage we mentioned, the trend seems to point toward greater investment in SaaS that limits dependence on IT departments. According to Statista, in 2020, more than 48% of national brands invested between 5% and 15% of their IT budget in this type of software. This figure represents a growth of more than 17 percentage points compared to 2019.
All in all, the savings in economic and personnel costs are considerable, which means a real step forward and improvement for your business. In addition, with SaaS you have the possibility of including and managing different types of documents:
- E-invoices, conventional invoices, and accounts payable.
- The orders and purchases you make.
- The receipt of goods and services and all logistics.
- Payments and other files related to treasury.
- The promotions you carry out and their resulting outcomes.
- Your employees' expenses during their workdays, commutes, and trips.
And, of course, you can also note down and indicate any incidents that may arise with each of these documents.
Why does a supplier portal facilitate the invoicing process?
However, at easyap we are experts in online invoicing. That is why we want to take a moment to explain what a supplier portal is and what it entails within the complex process of invoice management.
We are aware that supplier management is one of the pillars of business accounting. And we know that, at times, it can cause many complications: incidents, delays, anger, payments to be made... All of this ends up hindering and slowing down invoicing.
However, with a program like the one we developed at easyap, you can solve and avoid many of these problems. Your billing will be much more efficient, as the software we design for you will have the following features:
- We implemented a complete circuit in which the supplier can access information at each stage of the process.
- We outsource the process and eliminate unnecessary burdens for the IT and accounting departments.
- We automate the most frequent user processes that occur with suppliers. We are referring to registration, incident management, filing of invoices , maintaining contact details, etc.
- The supplier can download their tasks as a portal user.
- We offer a unified view of all documents in one place, regardless of the source.
- The system is multi-channel, so that all types of incidents can be managed. It is bidirectional and can be accessed and used at any time of day and independently (24/7).
If we add the general advantages of a supplier portal, as explained in the previous point, to the benefits of invoicing with a system such as easyap, we find a software tool that facilitates communication with suppliers with tremendous potential.
More reasons to install your portal with easyap
And beyond what a system like ours offers your suppliers and the benefits for your accounting and billing, we're going to give you more reasons to do business with us. First of all, with easyap you'll be choosing a company with more than two decades of experience developing this type of digital solution.
On the other hand, we have undertaken this type of projects in different parts of the world (Spain, Europe, North Africa, America, etc.) and in different sectors. Our system works efficiently in companies in markets as diverse as telecommunications, automotive, marketing, banking, and finance. We are "all-rounders" and adapt our solution to each client.
Another of easyap's strengths is that we adapt to companies of different sizes and turnover volumes. Why? Because with our solution, you pay for each invoice processed rather than a monthly fee that many businesses can easily afford but others cannot. We also convert a fixed cost into a variable one.
Don't you think these are more than enough reasons to get in touch with us and digitize your invoicing by installing a supplier portal and efficient, high-quality software?
