One common problem in managing supply side orders is a lack of clear lines of accountability and responsibility between departments, which can affect interdepartmental teamwork. People in planning, purchasing, receiving, accounts payable, and the requesters and approvers they support seldom share a manager in common. Geographical barriers may mean they don’t even know each other. This can all lead to tension, waste and rework, especially when dealing with transactions that have discrepancies.
Today it’s not uncommon for some very complicated issues to go unresolved with an invoice being paid despite missing or mismatched information. Not only do these gaps in transaction fidelity cost money, time, and potentially affect the supply chain; they can also undermine relationships between departments. The more gaps there are, no matter how small each might be, the harder it becomes to ever completely balance out a complicated supplier’s complete transaction set. And when someone downstream (A/P) heals a transaction by fixing the problems created by people upstream (buyers, requesters, receivers), those who’ve made the errors lack awareness of their impact and are likely to recreate their mistake again and again.
AcceLIM’s approach offers a solution to all these challenges. AcceLIM’s cloud unites your team by providing a 360 degree view of ALL transaction detail virtually eliminating geographic barriers and having clear lines of responsibility built into the system for every possible discrepancy. Transactions with discrepancies are automatically detected in real time and routed immediately with supporting documentation via role-based alerts to the desktop of the exact individual required to take action. Often, this is the same person who was the source of the discrepancy, which is helpful because they are less likely to repeat errors if they are the ones who see and correct them. The individual knows what needs to be done to correct the issue, and our cloud gives them tools and information to do so quickly.
Others who are affected by the issue have access to the information as well, but having one person take the primary lead for resolving the discrepancy makes everyone more focused and efficient with their own work. Because everyone on the team has a 360 degree view of all transactions and can see a list of who has what discrepancies outstanding to resolve, people are motivated to correct their errors quickly and address recurring issues before they become a problem for someone else.
Collaboration begins with the appreciation of the importance of timeliness and accuracy in carrying out one’s duties to the team. Requiring people to correct their own inaccuracies in a timely manner is the surest way to get them to make fewer mistakes in the future. Over time, this directly leads to vastly reduced discrepancy rates, higher productivity, and better relationships within your supply side order management team. We call this “Collaboration Through Accountability” and our customers benefit from it every day.