The integration that makes procurement simple

Posted:
11/01/2018
| By:
Sam Demulling

Most technology professionals don’t usually jump for joy when they hear procurement. In reality, it’s a task most struggle with. When the products you use can’t define a solid and efficient procurement process, it can heavily impact your bottom line—and your sanity.

ConnectWise Manage® and ConnectWise Sell® work together to eliminate repetition and centralize information into a single pane of glass—making procurement simple. Ease handoffs between sales, service, and finance, keep accurate inventory counts, know what products belong to what clients, manage purchase orders, and source products in real time with this powerful integration.

Explore the features below that can streamline your procurement process, allowing for more efficiency and peace of mind that all the correct products and services arrive on time and at the right location.

Real-time pricing and catalog

When building a quote, your sales team goes through numerous steps to ensure they are sourcing products from the right distributor. Sometimes, they may not know for sure if they’re getting the best deal—which can impact margins and the customer’s price.

The real-time pricing and catalog feature in ConnectWise Sell allows sales to search for products and see the best prices available, without any roadblocks or limitations. Whether you use spreadsheets or a CRM, you can link your existing product catalog resources—allowing you to save time, easily update or upsell quotes, and pull the most current product data anytime, anywhere.

Deal registration

Once the sales rep closes a deal, they must then purchase the products on behalf of the customer. By being able to easily track all your registered deals in ConnectWise Sell, all pertinent information seamlessly makes its way from quote to electronic order through to purchasing. As a result, pricing stays locked in, nothing falls through the cracks, and products don’t need to be re-sourced.

With a feature like deal registration, data is always visible and accurate. This ensures the rep purchases the products from the correct distributor, and at the right price.

Inventory tracking

Most sales reps don't want to go through the trouble of sourcing a product from a vendor if they already have that product on hand. With inventory tracking, they have access to all available inventory inside ConnectWise Manage. Plus, when they’re actively quoting a prospect, this information is also available in ConnectWise Sell—reducing the number of clicks needed to search and saving time for the rep and the prospect.

When all product inventory is easily accessible through a single pane of glass, it keeps the rep from making the mistake of ordering a product that’s already in stock.

Electronic ordering

Manually processing a won quote isn’t easy. It takes several clicks just to navigate to the correct distributor website and place an order. Plus, you have to make sure the price is the same as when you originally sourced it, and then potentially update the price if it changed.

With Electronic ordering in ConnectWise Sell, procurement and order processing are done through a single pane of glass. You can move the order directly into Electronic Ordering and place it with the distributor electronically. If the deal hasn’t been registered yet, you can still ensure you’re getting the best price, and if not, you can re-source the product from a different distributor. If the price is lower, you can make that update right in ConnectWise Sell—ensuring you don’t miss out on more margin! Plus, the new information moves directly back into ConnectWise Manage as a purchase order. Violá!

Purchase orders

When orders are placed, it can be hard to track all of them, especially if they're coming from different vendors. The ConnectWise Manage purchase order feature is the hub for all your purchasing information and open orders. Because everything inside ConnectWise easily syncs, purchase orders can be used to track back to the records originally created (ticket, project, etc.), and also store the tracking information of the products ordered. It’s all in one place for enhanced visibility. And since everything is also housed in ConnectWise Sell, you know the status of a product at any time.

Conversion wizard

Sales reps face a constant struggle of not knowing what to do with a sale once it’s won. During the electronic order process, you can convert the won quote into a record held in ConnectWise Manage. This ensures that all of the information necessary to deliver a product to the customer is readily available and accurate. This is done through the conversion wizard feature, which also sets up the project exactly as it needs to be worked.

Purchase order workflow rules

Manually keeping track of every order is extremely time-consuming. If anything falls through the cracks, it could leave you with a very unhappy customer who refuses to pay their bill—leaving you to cover the costs.

ConnectWise Manage workflow rules are the helping hands you need. These can be configured to track purchase orders that stay open for too long. Without this feature, reps would have to take the extra time and effort to confirm that the order was properly processed and delivered. However, workflow rules uses automation to take this burden off the sales reps for good.

Shipping information updates

Tracking information to properly manage your purchase orders is another manual task ConnectWise Sell can handle. With convenient notifications, checking order status and retrieving shipping information is easy! Plus, (you guessed it!) all data syncs seamlessly to ConnectWise Manage for even more visibility. It’s almost like these two solutions were made for each other.

Now that you’ve heard about the features that make procurement a stress-free task, we hope you never have to shudder at the thought of it again. ConnectWise Manage and ConnectWise Sell are here to take the burden off you—and make your sales process a lot smoother.