Microsoft Dynamics AX and Your Procurement Management Plan
The comprehensive procurement and sourcing module included in Microsoft Dynamics AX is one of the best tools you can get to control and streamline your acquisition process. With the help of this module, you'll be able to identify suppliers, create agreements, order products and services, verify purchase orders and confirm receipt of products. By integrating Dynamics AX’s procurement module with other applications, such as product information and inventory tools, general ledger, master planning, accounts payable, Microsoft Excel, reporting features and even Internet Information Services, you can get the best out of your procurement management plan. And that's because this module enables you to:
- Define Procurement Categories: Equipped with self-service capabilities, Dynamics AX can manage direct and indirect procurement of products and services, while empowering you to set up category hierarchies and relevant policies, update product profiles, upload catalogue content, review orders and payments, and submit invoices. Completing specific procurement operations more efficiently will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
- Set up Requests for Quotations: Microsoft Dynamics AX is an excellent add-on to your procurement management plan because it allows you to identify the default values of specific products and services. In addition, Dynamics AX can be used to create virtual workplaces, where you’re able to manage spending by category.
- Centralize Procurement Operations: Dynamics AX enables you to develop, control and centralize procurement processes, purchasing policies, requisition aggregations and many other acquisition areas. A notable point is that you can select and apply various purchasing policies to different sets of requisitioners across your organization.
- Develop Procurement Catalogues: Complementing your procurement management plan with Dynamics AX is imperative to achieve business success. With this software solution, you can create special catalogues for your workers, allowing them to find the items they need quickly and easily, while ensuring that only approved products are ordered. You can use the same module to create special catalogues for clients and vendors.
- Establish Procurement Workflows: The role of procurement workflow process is to move purchase requisition forms from "Draft" to "Approved." Before submitting a purchase request, you have to configure the workflow process by selecting appropriate review steps, skipping specific stages, routing individual requisition lines to different reviewers or sending purchase requisitions as single documents. Once purchase requisitions are approved and reviewed, the workflow process starts automatically, submitting purchase orders to the appropriate vendors.
- Create Purchase Order Processes: Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a series of intelligent tools that you can use to configure purchase orders. These tools enable you to create your own stock keeping unit (SKU) codes, develop separate groups of purchase orders for customers and vendors, and even define and approve matching tolerances for certain products-and in addition, can even replace your serial number tracking software. All these will fine-tune your procurement management plan to meet specific project requirements.
- Set up Requisition Processes: With this ERP solution on your side, you’ll be able to develop master plans for requisitions, provide permissions for ordering particular products on behalf of other persons, create business justification codes and set up special requisition parameters. After you configure Dynamics AX to include specific elements in your requisition process, approved purchase requisitions are automatically released.
- Select Signing Limits: Dynamics AX empowers you to set up signing limits for your employees, including spending limits, which define maximum amounts that your workers are authorized to spend, and approval limits, which point out the maximum amount your employees are authorized to approve. Signing limits are key parts of financial risk management, ensuring better expenditure control within your procurement management plan.
Microsoft Dynamics AX together with its procurement module is everything you need in order to turn your business into a dynamic organization, which will be able to manage future economic, operational and organizational challenges.