How Does RPA Make a Difference in Procurement?

RPA in procurement can be used to completely automate the procure-to-pay process. Procure-to-pay is highly transactional and it needs a great amount of investment of time and resources in order to streamline. 

The implementation of RPA in procurement helps organizations to save significant amounts of time and money. Additionally, it can automate most of the procurement tasks by reducing human interaction within its processes. 

How does it start? 

The first step in the implementation of RPA in procurement is to check what procurement functions will likely benefit from it. The next step will involve the creation of a business case and an investigation of the top RPA vendors and their case studies. ‘’

When RPA is correctly implemented, it can automate multiple procurement processes. This will give the company more profits, free-up time, and make employees focus more on important responsibilities. 

Uses of RPA in Procurement

1. Purchase request to purchase order

In the past, the procurement department or team had to process the purchase request and create a purchase order manually. This led to delays and errors in making a purchasing order. 

The integration of RPA in the procurement process will shorten the amount of time in processing purchase requests and creating purchase orders. Software robots can streamline the processes that will make them fast and easy. 

The software robots can automatically implement the steps in your workflow once you receive a purchase request. This will allow the business to process more purchase requests that are beneficial for its profitability. 

2. Inventory management

Inventory is important for every company as it needs to be carefully monitored to accurately match the demand of customers. 

RPA helps the procurement department to monitor inventory levels and notify when the supplies get low. This will allow the procurement department to order products immediately to meet the demands of customers. 

Additionally, it helps the procurement department to see a real-time report on the inventory levels at any time. This allows the company to identify the current needs and forecast future demands. 

3. Planning demand and supply

RPA in procurement helps the end-to-end management of demand and supply planning. The software robots can help to centralize the processes by taking out the division of the different departments in the organization. 

4. Work order management

Work order is usually a task assigned to the procurement department for the convenience of customers. 

RPA ensures that the procurement team is able to monitor the request of customers. When the procurement team is not able to finish the complete order, it will lead to a revenue loss.

Companies adopt RPA in their work order management to get notified when work orders are created. This allows the procurement team to know when it will pick up the work order for execution. 

Once the work order is completed, the RPA closes it and notifies the client of the status. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of RPA