Why Procurement Process Flows Should Include Dollar Based Thresholds!

When deploying and online e-procurement application, itapproval process that allows all purchase requisitions
is critical to analyze each department's procurementbeneath a certain amount to be approved by lower
process flow to determine a baseline set of businesslevel management. As the purchase requisition
rules. Each area within the enterprise has evolved theirincreases in amount, higher level management is pulled
own standards that best suits their needs,into the approval process automatically. Using an
unfortunately, these standards were based one-procurement platform to assist in implementing this
business practices established in the early 90's.type of process can be very effective in directing
Today, many companies want to increase throughputpurchase orders to the right approvers at the right
and streamline the approval process but can't becausetime.
their manual processes fall down due to the inability toImplementing an e-procurement tool to help simplify
handle the volume of orders. Consequently fixes likeyour approvals is not difficult once you have those
blanket purchase orders were put in place which canrules defined and mapped out. Redefining the approval
streamline the ordering process but diminish controlsprocess and following a best practice model to
and oversight.determine threshold amounts will need to be
When implementing an online e-procurement solution,developed as policies first, but once in place, can
the concept of dollar based threshold routes can helpincrease processing throughput without increasing
to create a more efficient way of approvingworkload.
purchases orders and still maintain controls andIn summary, implementing e-procurement with dollar
accountability. A management policy needs to be inbased threshold routes can help an organization
place before the process can be created, but this isbecome more efficient as their procurement process
usually not an issue if the overall goal is to manage theflows become more streamlined without sacrificing
volume of purchases in an effective manner.controls and accountability.
Basically a dollar based rule can be designed into the