Many companies now will accept purchase orders in electronic format. You can create your purchase orders as you do now, and then convert them to a file that is sent as an email attachment to your vendor. Your vendor can then use this file to fill, and ship, your orders.
The format of the attachment should be discussed for compatibility with your vendor. There are several proprietary formats and some open formats to use. Perhaps the most flexible and common now is XML. Make sure your vendor can handle your attachment.
There are several advantages to doing your ordering this way.
- The chance for errors introduced by printing and faxing your purchase order is reduced. Faxes are not always as clear as they need to be. For example, a "6" might look like an "8" or a zero "0" like an "O"..
- Once your vendor receives that fax keyboard entry is another possible point of error. Human keyboarding is a common way to introduce inadvertent errors.
Using correctly prepared and picked, electronic purchase orders ensures they will be received with the correct items and quantities. Reducing the points that require human intervention minimizes inadvertent mistakes.
To learn how our CounterPoint Systems can implement electronic purchasing, and other electronic data exchanges, contact CCS Retail Systems.