Sachin Sharma, founder of ProcureDesk, identifies five mistakes companies make deploying procure-to-pay systems: using fragmented tools instead of one integrated platform, copying old approval workflows without reassessing them, skipping a dedicated change-management champion, forcing best-practice designs that don't fit your business, and running generic training instead of role-specific sessions.
Imagine spending thousands of dollars implementing a new procure to pay system and you get more chaos than the streamlined experience you were hoping for. If after working with hundreds of companies I realized these five common mistakes which companies make in implementing a new procure based system. So if you are looking to implement one, this video is for you. So you can easily avoid them and stick till the end where I'll share one bonus tip for even making the process more streamlined. If you're joining me for the first time, welcome. My name is Sachin Sharma. I'm the founder of procuredesk where we help growing companies control spend through procurement and a B automation. So let's jump right in. Number one is fragmented systems. So what I mean by fragmented systems. So we see this very common where companies already have let's say an accounts payable system, they are using it for processing invoices and they want to set up a whole procure to pay process. So they land up buying a new system which where they handle procurement. And now you have one system for procurement, one for accounts payable and that works in the short term, but long term you start seeing the inefficiencies. So what are those inefficiencies? Your PO data doesn't migrate to your AP process system or your three way matching results in closing a purchase order that does not go back to your pocket. So these are just two examples of what we typically see. But if you are looking to implement an entire procure to pay process, our recommendation is do it in one system. Because that's what we have seen across almost 500 customers now where just one system manage the whole process more efficiently. Number two is copy pasting your approvals. So we all have our approval policies that were designed I don't know when. Right. So somebody created an approval process and you never took the opportunity to review and see is this the most efficient approval process for our organization? In our experience we see that the approval process needs to evolve with the growth of the company. What works for 10 people company is not going to work for 100, not going to work for thousand. Right. It's as simple as that. So a mistake is all right, let's take what we have, put it in the system rather take time to evaluate what do we need from approvals at this time, what are the objectives we are trying to achieve and implement that approval process in the system. Right. So that's number two. Number three is no change management champion. Right. And it sounds so obvious but you'll be surprised how many people actually don't have point somebody to work as a champion for this project. Now listen, you have your procurement part teams, you have your AP teams, or even if you are a small organization, you just have an accounting manager who is already overloaded with a lot of work, right? So she's managing invoices. Now you're on top of it. There's another system. So it's best to identify somebody who can actually champion the whole implementation by working with the different stakeholders, working with the vendor to make sure that your requirements and your processes stay aligned. Number four is misaligned design. So a lot of times what, what we see is companies either adopt the best practices that are implemented in the system or they will just take their existing process and put it in the system. Now there's nothing wrong with adopting best practices, but you have to see the best practice in context of your organization. A best practice that worked for a thousand person company is not going to work for a 10 person company. Right? It's as simple as that. So the best approach here is take the best practices that are there in the system or built into the system and then evaluate is this aligned with how we do things? Should we adopt it or should we continue with our process or maybe change your process and then implement that in the system. So all I'm saying here is don't blindly accept the processes because they're best practice. Because best practices always are in some context of the process, of the company and so on. Number five is one size fits all training. So ever been in a training that drags on and on for hours? That's what I mean by that. So you basically all your stakeholders have different needs for approvals. A manager who's on the field and who just needs to approve a purchase request just needs a 10 minutes training. This is how I approve. A person who needs to create a purchase request have very different needs. Your accounts payable team has different needs, your admins have different needs. So think about how you can break the training into, I would say different chunks and each stakeholder can be grouped into that and that's how you manage your training. Right? So those are the five areas. Now about the bonus tip I talked about. Here's one thing which we see which companies don't even think about is testing your system with enough real time scenarios. So in our experience, companies don't spend enough time doing a dry run of the system. They test one or two processes, but they don't test and say all right, what about if I reject this invoice, what happens you know like things which happen not frequently but could happen in the system those also needs to be tested. So when you're thinking about setting up your testing plan or your what's mostly called UAT user acceptance testing think about not just the key use cases but also the rare or edge cases what we call so that you can test the system for the whole end to end process on how that is going to work. So just to summarize here are the five mistakes you should avoid in setting up your precure to pay system Number one avoid fragmented systems Number two don't copy paste the approvals design your approval process Number three identify a change management champion Number four is avoid misaligned design and number five is don't go for one size fit all training methodology. Now if you like this video feel free to hit the subscribe button so you get notified when we release videos like this. Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you in the next video.
