How to Improve Your Supplier Onboarding Process

New supplier onboarding and vendor onboarding can sometimes be a slow-starter. Capturing payment information and tax details while getting new vendors up to speed on your systems, policies, and procedures can cause delays in payment processing, holding up your day-to-day business operations in ways you would likely prefer to avoid.

What is the true cost of onboarding?

Having a dedicated person on staff to walk new vendors and suppliers through your onboarding process is certainly one solution, but in today’s fast-paced business climate, do you really have the time or the resources to allocate to this task?

When onboarding a new supplier, the flurry of emails and the ensuing questions are something that many companies see as an unavoidable cost of doing business. In an enterprise scenario, delays such as these can end up costing thousands of dollars. Small businesses stand to lose as well, as the cash flow they depend on can be stuck in limbo while systems are put into place and the inevitable kinks get worked out.

Strategic vendor management is the key to ongoing success

In many industries, strategic supplier information management is the foundation that supports growth and innovation. However, effective communication in the enterprise is often impeded by data silos that are caused by multiple teams in as many locations, some of whom may not be using the same systems to collect and leverage data.

In a typical vendor onboarding process, there may be multiple departments that need to be involved, each with their own data requirements to support their day-to-day activities. In order to be effective, you need a solution that can facilitate collaboration and enable a timely response when and as needed. From international tax issues to legal agreements, purchasing, supply chain, logistics, fulfillment, accounting, and more, documents and data need to be accessible to the appropriate people when they need it most.

Having a supplier portal available simplifies these activities, giving stakeholders on both sides of the coin a centralized, barrier-free solution that reduces risk and provides value from end-to-end.

The most obvious advantage to a vendor portal is that the vendor master data is centralized, along with invoicing, order, and payment history. This eliminates potential data silos, lifting barriers and enabling teamwork across a global landscape.

As it relates to your accounts-payable and accounts-receivable software and processes, this translates to a more streamlined workflow that is both labor-sparing and dynamic. It provides financial metrics in real-time, offering dependable business intelligence and affording your decision-makers the ability to move forward with confidence. Being able to take advantage of opportunities when they arise is the key to growth, and the faster and more efficiently you can get your new vendors on board, the more such opportunities will become available.

A viable solution for today’s business demands

A self-serve supplier/vendor portal is a viable solution that provides value for all stakeholders, as it offers both your vendors and your in-house accounting team a simple, easy-to-use web-based interface that they can access at any time, from anywhere.

A supplier/vendor portal that offers dynamic web forms that connect to your AP/AR software is even more valuable, as it eliminates several steps in the on-boarding process, creating a seamless experience for your vendors and providing your finance team with a more streamlined way to acquire the information they need.

Vendor master data needs only to be entered once and your system will be automatically updated with the new information. This helps you to save time as well as money, as your staff can refocus their efforts to higher-value tasks.

Benefits of onboarding with a self-serve portal

Both you and your vendors will enjoy the many benefits of onboarding using your self-serve supplier/vendor portal. Just some of these advantages include:

• More accurate data entry
• Get paid faster: invoices are available and can be managed in real time
• No duplicate entries or redundancies
• 66 percent reduction in payment errors
• More timely payments
• Collect vendor master data once, update when needed
• Suppliers can access their secure self-serve portal anytime, anywhere
• Transparency in payment and order processing
• Global payment solutions with support for 49 countries
• 11 different languages supported
• Current tax and VAT solutions reduce reporting errors at tax time
• Support for SWIFT and IBAN bank routing
• Built-in fraud protection
• Optimize your payment systems
• Boost your team’s productivity
• Automate repetitive tasks
• Customize with your brand’s imaging and identity
• Web-based or API
• Easy and intuitive self-service option promotes fast adoption