How to use Purchase Order Automation to Streamline Your Business Operations with Docsumo

Purchase Order Automation provides greater visibility into the supply chain level and helps business owners get great deals with suppliers. PO Automation reduces the need to send traditional paper-based purchase order requests to vendors and streamlines the entire shipping process by routing purchase order acquisitions to the appropriate staff members. Using purchase order data extraction software makes it convenient for accounts payable departments to track expenses, approve payments, retrieve key information, and allow vendors to acknowledge invoices faster. 

What is the purchasing order automation?

Purchase Order Automation refers to the process of automating workflows involved in managing purchase orders. It is essentially software used by organizations to track their expenses and see how much they’re spending.

It is a technique used for automating the purchase order entry and approval process when it comes to handling shipments. The process involves collecting invoices, forms, receipts, and converting them into a digital format for processing. Purchase order automation streamlines business operations and makes processes more efficient by preventing bottlenecks in deliveries, delays, and speeds up information structuring and organization.

Steps to automate PO processing with Docsumo

Automating your PO processing with Docsumo takes just following a few simple and easy steps. It starts with training an API module and letting it learn how to structure and read your documents. 

Here is how you train Docsumo’s API and teach it to automate PO processing:

1. Upload your documents to Docsumo by visiting app.docsumo.com and logging in. Hit Create New Document Type and train the API by guiding it via creating bounding boxes around key fields
2. Docsumo lets users annotate key value pairs and create sections for reading documents. Assign the correct data types when creating these on the dashboard. You can also create tables in order to capture line-items.
3. Once you are done scanning and reading all the fields, click on Save and Close. The app will ask if you want to apply the changes to only new documents or both - new and existing ones. Select your preference and exit.
4. At this point, your purchase order is annotated. After that, go back to 'Document Types' and 'Upload' at least 20 payslips. Once uploaded, you can ‘Review' the uploaded files. All the uploaded files have keys listed and you can find values extracted for some of them. If you don't see the value extracted for a data variable, help the software capture the value for it.
5. Once all the fields are extracted accurately, 'Approve' it. Repeat the process for a few purchase orders. After doing it for a few times, Docsumo starts to capture data for all the fields accurately. Go ahead and 'Review' and 'Approve' at least 20 documents.
6. Next time you want to automatically read and extract data from your purchase orders, simply enable the Purchase Order API by accessing the APIs & Services tab. Upload your documents to the PO API module under Document Types and let Docsumo do the rest.
7. If any details are missing or information doesn’t meet data validation requirements, the PO API module will flag it and send users alerts which request them for a manual review. 
8. You can now upload your PO files in bulk and automatically extract data for PO invoice processing next time by using these steps.

Why should you consider PO Automation

Manual data entry is limited by the number of keystrokes per minute an employee can type. An average KPM rate of 78 keystrokes per minute is realistic but in reality, it is not possible to maintain this speed round the clock. Purchase order data automation platforms like Docsumo make it convenient to store documents electronically, manage them, and remove the need for repeated corrections and reviews. There is no need to worry about making mistakes while entering data or missing details since machine learning models are very efficient and enter data field-by-field.

Other benefits of purchase order automation when compared with manual data entry are:

1. Significant Cost Savings

If you are having trouble keeping up with paperwork and spending too much money in transporting documents, using purchase order automation software can help you. PO automation removes manual data entry and increases the overall efficiency of business operations

2. No human error

Purchase order automation workflows are not prone to human error, unlike manual data entry. Docsumo’s proprietary algorithm uses previous records to cross-reference and fact-check data, thus ensuring whatever is entered gets validated. There are no delays faced in sending invoices to vendors and the reduction in processing times makes it easy to manage deliverables as well

3. Zero hidden costs

Manual data entry has hidden costs such as extra hours spent on corrections, reviews, and re-entering missing information.

4. Various file formats

If you’re using Docsumo for your PO automation, you can save your purchase orders as PDFs, JSON, XML, and in a variety of other file formats. Docsumo supports migration of data from legacy systems and makes it easy to store data electronically on the Cloud.

5. Secure encryption and privacy

If you’re worried about your PO data falling into the wrong hands or getting lost during transportation, PO automation can help prevent that. All data is securely stored on Docsumo’s servers and enjoy secure encryption. This means only you, as the authorized user, have access to your purchase order data and no one else

Conclusion

Using online purchase order software like Docsumo for data extraction and automation can help safeguard the privacy of your data and protect it from access by third-parties and unintended agents. Businesses can prevent leaks, password protect their invoices, and streamline product shipments by automating their purchase order entry workflows. 

Sign up for a free demo with Docsumo today and find out how productive you can get with our PO automation tools.