Are your staff buying products or services that they shouldn’t, or spending more money than you would like them to? Do you feel that you are losing control of your company spend? You are certainly not alone, according to PreferredCFO.com, 82% of small businesses fail because of poor cashflow management. Yes, you want to empower your staff and you certainly don’t have the time or inclination to approve every penny that is spent, but as the manager of the company’s finances you need to be in control of managing your procurement process – opening the stock room door and discovering 1000 bottles of hand sanitiser and no toilet roll is more than just an accounting problem!
The main challenge is getting the right balance of authorisation levels correct for a Purchase Order to be raised and then there’s the sign off process. Authorisation can often be a blocker when it comes to staff productivity and company progression. You can assign members of staff different budget limitations, but what happens when Bob is only allowed to sign off to £500 and the order is £501. Bob’s manager is away at an offsite meeting and he doesn’t know who else can help.
Being reliant on key members of staff to be in the office to sign things off is not going to be effective in the long term. It’s not always possible for the authorisers to be onsite during every day of the working week. The past year has shown that there needs to be more flexibility if businesses are to be able to continue to operate successfully.
There are solutions available. The expert software developers at Advantage Services have created a ‘Purchase Order Control (POC) Add-on’ for Sage 50/50cloud Account's software. Its benefits are numerous and include;
- Restricting users by Nominal Code e.g., Abdul can only order stationery against Nominal Code 5077
- Set Authorisation Limits by User e.g., Kim has an authorisation limit of £100
- If an order is requested that trips this authorisation level, it will go up a hierarchy to be authorised at the next level. This can be done via an email to a mobile phone (you don’t have to log into Sage or POC)
- You can have multi hierarchies for authorisation – all fully configurable
- Authorisation is either ‘approve’ or ‘reject’ (notes can be added explaining why something has been rejected)
- If approved, the PO will be emailed to the Supplier
- When the Goods are received, you can do this in POC (as well as Sage)
- When the Goods are invoiced, you can do this in POC (as well as Sage)
- The beauty of POC is that you can attach additional documents at each stage for different people in the organisation to view
- All audited & full integration with Sage
So, what is there not to like about this POC Add-on?
- Greater control over budgeting with spending limits and robust authorisation processes
- A clear audit trail for all Purchase Orders raised
- Restricted user access to Sage 50 Accounts to protect the integrity of your data
- A hierarchy authorisation structure
Don’t let your control slip when it comes to your finances when there is a cost-effective solution available. Simply give the friendly team at Advantage Services a call on 0330 335 0011 or email info@advantageservices.co.uk
Posted at 2.52pm on 05 May 2021 by Dawn Smiley in category 
