Punch Out is an electronic communication system between the buyer’s ERP system and a supplier’s e-commerce store. Punch Out streamlines the purchasing process due to it automating the catalogue integration.
B2BE’s Punch Out functionality supports OBI and OCI standards, meaning you can visit suppliers catalogues, browse, select goods and integrate the reverse purchase order into your ERP system.
Punch Out enables your organization to deliver the solution in two ways, this just depends on the side of the supply chain you wish to support and automate. On your supply side, the Punch Out solution enables you to punch out supplier catalogues so you can browse and order products externally from your inventory master environment.
The solution enables the reverse purchase order process and through the B2BE EDI product, this can be integrated with your procurement system so a purchase order can be created and sent electronically to the supplier.
On the buyer side of your supply chain, the B2BE e-catalogue can support punch out so if you have customers who want to be able to access your catalogue, browse and select goods this can be supported with a corresponding reverse purchase order being sent to the buyer. B2BE have you covered on either side of your supply chain if you want to utilise, develop or support punch out capabilities.
What are the Key Benefits?
Punch-Out helps organizations of all sizes streamline their procurement process with benefits like:
- Saving Money: This solution offers large savings on goods for organisations due to the reduction in labour costs and the use of the automated process.
- Saving Time: Punch-Out eradicate the need for manually importing a supplier catalogue into a procurement system, the automation of this entire process, in turn, saves considerable time
- Fully Integrated: Fully integrate with your business system to remove any manual handling of catalogue data as it’s loaded into the catalogue. It also fully integrates the e-catalogue’s sales orders
- No Hardware or Software Requirements: Punch-Out is a hosted solution, removing the need to purchase and manage complicated software and infrastructure to provide e-catalogue nuances of the requirement for the corresponding personnel
- Customisable and Configurable: Make a branded punch out system with full content management capabilities. Ability to render to all screen resolutions, also giving the ability to provide account clients with a unique view of their products and pricing
Why Does An Organization Need An E-Procurement System?
This type of system is used to streamline a process for employees. The internal system looks a lot like a traditional eCommerce website, the only difference being the various added functionalities to support the policies of buying organisations.
The key features that this solution offers are:
- Secure and Customisable Access Control – Provide content based on the type of user visiting the catalogue through custom access. Pricing and content for public users or specific content and pricing for account users via a login. Through this service, you can also provide promotional pricing and content based on the type of user.
- Attribute Management – Enables you to design the way in which you set up and manage products based on key attributes. Build logical and uniform ways in which products can be categorised; regardless of the actual data managed in the background and extracted from your ERP environment.
- Easy Content Management System – Product information such as images, pricing, and technical specifications can easily be managed. You have full control over updates ensuring content remains relevant and accurate.
- Online Shopping Cart – Provides online payment facilities to both your customer accounts and the public using a secure payment gateway. It can also be linked to your own bank’s payment gateway providing seamless transactions.
While the procurement process is complicated, employees need to order the goods and services to do their jobs. Procurement systems are an integral part of large organisations and a way to support this successfully is through using Punch Out.
We have a lot more questions ready to be answered about Punch Out and we will be posting a blog addressing all of these soon, so make sure you keep an eye out on our social media platforms such as LinkedIn. In the meantime, learn more about Punch-Out by reading our Solution Data Sheet.