Spend management

Fraxion and Amazon: Delivering PunchOut enabled spend management during the COVID-19 crisis

Organizations in Europe, Canada and the USA are now in a unique position to benefit from PunchOut functionality, through integration with live online shopping experiences with suppliers like Amazon. This will assist businesses to control expenditure and streamline spend management processes during the multiple crises that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused.

What is PunchOut?

PunchOut is a software solution that provides the means to access any PunchOut enabled supplier's online catalog via an eProcurement application like Fraxion.

A user is able to create a purchase request on their eProcurement system, then "punch out" directly to a supplier's online catalog and add the necessary items to a shopping cart. After this, the user can check out, and the items from the supplier's online cart will be reflected in the purchase request on the eProcurement application.

This functionality is enabled through communication of information between the eProcurement system and the supplier's online catalog, which includes information such as item descriptions, prices, purchase terms and stock availability.

After the normal approval workflow, a buyer can send an electronic purchase order directly to the supplier, after which the order can be received on, within the company's eProcurement system.

PunchOut eradicates the need for a company to manually import information from supplier catalogs onto their eProcurement system, which improves the efficiency and accuracy of the procure-to-pay process.

How can PunchOut help my company streamline our business processes?

The global COVID-19 pandemic has placed tremendous economic pressure on businesses. With "isolation", "social distancing", "stay at home" and "national emergency" having become daily household terms, companies are finding it hard to stay afloat, not to mention enabling teams to effectively collaborate on transaction processing. Fraxion has been streamlining the procure-to-pay cycle in organizations for many years—our new PunchOut functionality serves as a testament to our belief in real-time decisions, live budget visibility, risk analytics, paperless simplicity and policy compliance through user-friendly solutions.

PunchOut adds even more value to businesses by improving efficiency and savings during a time when you need it the most. By integrating directly with Amazon, a company that has hired over 100,000 additional employees since mid-March to fulfill the increased customer demand for online shopping and delivery, we are able to assist you in simplifying and modernizing your procure-to-pay cycle in this time of accelerated digital transformation.

In addition, Amazon's strong stance and action against price gouging puts your organization in the position to manage spend, reduce costs and make strategic decisions on budget when creating PunchOut purchase requests from Fraxion.

For companies in healthcare, government and non-profit industries, access to specialized inventory and control over your expenditure can be greatly enhanced by using PunchOut during these uncertain times. Hospitals and government organizations at the front line of the fight against COVID-19 have access to priority inventory in Amazon's COVID-19 Supplies department, while stocks of protective apparel and infection prevention are running low across the nation.

What are the benefits over internal catalog applications?

As suppliers like Amazon maintain their catalogs in real time on their websites, there is no need for you to maintain internal catalogs, saving you time and staff capacity. This is particularly valuable for frontline workers in the non-profit, government and healthcare industries, who are under increased pressure to optimize time to value.

Information such as pricing and product availability is also far more accurate, allowing you to strategically manage your budget and prevent invisible costs.

The convenient and user-friendly shopping experience through PunchOut integration with various suppliers also enables ease of use and greater productivity, with online automation and a reliable order fulfillment and shipping process.

Most significantly, the PunchOut experience is carried out remotely, in the same way that all Fraxion Prime's services are completely cloud-based and remote. With our PunchOut functionality in conjunction with Amazon's stringent infection prevention guidelines such as reduced contact pickup and delivery, you can mitigate your company's financial risk and the risk to your employees' health at the same time.

The global pandemic has led to over 22 million Americans losing their jobs across multiple industries, with a further estimated 59 million jobs at risk across Europe—this is the largest decline in employment since the Great Depression in the 1930s. For companies who have been fortunate enough to remain open, layoffs have become a grim reality. Fraxion can assist you with scalable savings in this challenging phase by alleviating the need for multiple manual processes, which means that you can maintain accountability and efficiency with a much smaller staff component. PunchOut further streamlines this process by allowing you to place your orders in the least time, with the most accuracy and visibility over your expenditure.

Introducing Fraxion’s new PunchOut functionality

How it works:

  • PunchOut enables you to create a purchase request within the Fraxion application, then access a supplier's online catalog at the click of a button, in real time.
  • Once you've added all the necessary items to your shopping cart in the supplier's online catalog, you can check out, and you'll be taken right back to your purchase request in Fraxion—with all your cart items automatically added to your purchase request.
  • Also, once your request is approved, your company's buyer or procurement department can send an electronic purchase order to the supplier, directly from the Fraxion application.
  • Once the supplier delivers, you can receive on the purchase order in Fraxion and continue to invoicing.

It's that easy!

Find out more about Fraxion PunchOut and the efficiency and cost saving benefits to your business, or get in touch for a demo of this functionality.

 


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