- What is a PO system?
- How to incorporate a PO system for small business
- How to make your PO system secure
- Using your PO system for small business in conjunction with other digital tools
Q: What is a PO system? What kind of PO system should I have in place for my small business?
A: A PO (Purchase Order) system is a computer-based system or software that businesses use to effectively manage the purchase of services or goods from their suppliers. For most small businesses, it’s best to use a PO system that integrates well with other digital tools like Virtual Offices.
From just about every angle, the future looks more digital than ever.
In less than 10 years, the percentage of Americans that don’t use cash has skyrocketed to 41%, internet usage amongst adults continues growing exponentially, and the e-commerce market is acquiring retail market share like never before.
Within this digital-first economy, flexibility, efficiency, and collaboration are paramount to the average business’s success.
To help your business achieve better flexibility and efficiency, the right PO system for small business can give you a clearer look at your inventory, automate inventory management, and more. Not to mention, using purchase order software that scales with your Virtual Office allows you to cultivate a collaborative environment for your employees.
In this article, we’ll be taking a close look at the average business PO system, how to incorporate a PO system for small business, and how to secure that system. Finally, we’ll cover some other digital tools that work well with your PO system.
So, if you’ve ever searched “why use a PO system for small business” – you’re in the right place.
Keep reading for more!
- What is a PO system
- How to incorporate a PO system for small business
- How to make your PO system secure
- Using your PO system for small business in conjunction with other digital tools
What is a PO system?
Before we get into the best purchase order system for your small business, let’s explore what a PO is and look at a purchase order system example.
PO stands for a purchase order.
A purchase order, or PO, is a document issued from the buyer (your company) to a supplier (your vendors), allowing the supplier to provide a specific service or product at an agreed price.
Because a PO acts as an offer to purchase, once it’s been accepted by the vendor, it is a legally binding contract between the two parties.
You can expect to find any of the following information within the average PO.
PO number
Each PO your company issues should have a unique ID that allows you to efficiently track and identify previously filled or current POs.
Date
Your PO will also contain the date of its creation.
Vendor information
Name, address, contact information, and any other extraneous information about the vendors or suppliers you’re purchasing from.
Shipping information
The address to which the goods will be shipped, the shipping terms, the shipping cost, and any other information related to the purchase order shipment.
Itemized list
A detailed list of the items your company is purchasing. This should include the item’s name, a brief description, the unit price of each item, and the quantity purchased.
Payment terms
The document should also contain when the payment is due, any applicable discounts that you might achieve through early payment, and any other applicable charges that might be incurred should you pay late.
Delivery terms
How the items will be delivered, the expected delivery date, and contact information should the delivery run late.
Signatory terms
If the purchase requires a signature from a representative of the vendors or suppliers or a signature from a representative of your business, that information should be included here.
As you can see, there’s a lot of pertinent information in each PO that your business uses. This is why the best purchase order system for your small business is one that allows you to quickly and efficiently scan this data.
A high-quality PO system for small business tracks and manages orders from vendors or suppliers for a specific company. In addition, these systems help you automate or streamline the ordering of materials you need for standard business operations.
As a modern business owner, part of your responsibility is ensuring that your business has everything it needs to function as an autonomous organization. In other words, the more aspects of your company’s operations you can streamline, the better.
Read more: Time Away From Work? Set Your Business Up So You Can Step Away
With this in mind, you must take the time to find a good PO system for small business that scales with your company. Below, we’ve covered a few different qualities that a sound PO system should have.
- Handle everything
- Assist with finances
- User friendly
- Integrate with other systems
- Real-time visibility
Handle everything
A good PO system should do everything from creating and tracking orders to paying existing invoices.
You want your PO system to function without interference, so it should be able to automate as much of the purchasing process as possible. This may include tasks like creating the POs, tracking associated inventory levels to know when to order, and getting relevant approvals.
Assist with finances
You should find a PO system built to help small businesses with their finances. You want a system that can help you understand how much you spend and more accurately predict what you’ll need to spend in the future.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t make budgets yourself, but with the right PO system, you can use previously retained data to identify spending habits and forecast future costs.
This information will help improve your budgeting and forecasting, save you money whenever applicable discounts or promotions are made available by suppliers, improve your cash flow management, and prepare you for any future audits.
User friendly
If you’re using a difficult-to-understand and use PO system for small business, it doesn’t matter how many tasks it automates.
A good PO system will have a user-friendly interface that is straightforward enough for anyone with even a modicum of technical proficiency to use. The easier it is for your employees to create and manage POs, track existing POs, and access previously gathered data, the more time you can spend expanding your operations.
Integrate with other systems
Outside of your PO system for small businesses, there are several other digital tools that modern entrepreneurs are using to get ahead of their competition.
The right PO system is easy to integrate with these other systems and is built to scale with your company.
Remember, with flexibility being such an important quality for businesses, you need a system built for growth, yet flexible enough to handle any purchasing, inventory, approval, or administrative changes.
Real-time visibility
There shouldn’t be any period wherein your company is unaware of where its products or services are. You want a PO system that provides real-time visibility into your purchasing activity, current inventory levels, and shipping status.
The more visibility you have access to, the better equipped your company is for growth.
Access to the internet is one of the greatest tools you have as a small business owner. Look at several different kinds of PO systems and ensure you find the right service for your company.
How to incorporate a PO system for small business
Thankfully, as a business owner, you have several different options when it comes to incorporating a high-quality PO system for your small business.
Within these options, there’s only one choice you’ll need to make: do you want to build your PO system yourself, or do you want to purchase PO software?
We’ve covered some of the benefits and negatives associated with each choice below!
Create a personalized PO system
Several business owners lean into the idea of doing as much as humanly possible themselves, often under the guise of saving money. When it comes to creating a PO system themselves instead of purchasing a prefabricated system, you see the same thing.
While this is a noble gesture, trying to handle too many things alone is a quick way to set your business up for failure.
It might seem like you’re saving your business money, but in reality, you’re not giving your employees the chance to collaborate, giving up your time (which is the only resource more valuable than money), and aren’t allowing your company to learn how to operate without your direct involvement.
Read more: The Unexpected Secret to Better Small Business Management
Unfortunately, most of the negatives associated with creating a personalized PO system have to do with unexpected or increased expenses, the difficulty of creating a PO system that scales, the responsibility of handling maintenance and updates, and sheer opportunity costs from spending so much time on something that could easily be bought.
That said, if you’re handy with computers and Excel and confident in your ability to scale your PO system as your company grows, the benefits are fairly clear.
You can create a system that is customized to your company’s needs, ensure the data entry is accurate, have complete control over the system, create unique features for your PO system, and, depending on your proficiency with Excel, you might save money.
At the end of the day, your decision depends almost entirely on how capable you are of creating a PO system, how much time you think you’ll have to spend on this system, and the opportunity cost of using your time on this system.
Purchase PO software
Outside of the time consumption and confusion of creating a personalized PO system, a majority of PO software is cheaper to buy than trying to create your own.
Typically, your simplest option is purchasing PO software, and thankfully, there are several affordable options like Revel, Lightspeed, and Clover.
Revel
Revel is an iPad-based PO system that is very popular in the restaurant industry and used by over 20,000 businesses globally. This system is easy to use and provides a free demo on the website for business owners to test with their existing operations.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed Commerce is an ecommerce and point-of-sale software-as-a-service provider that focuses more on golf and retail but can be used by anyone searching for a PO system for small businesses. Recently, Lightspeed has started providing ecommerce solutions to better meet the needs of online business owners.
Clover
Clover is a cloud-based Android POS platform that’s been around for over a decade. Clover is a favorite choice of several restaurants, but any kind of business owner can get excellent use from this application. With a dedicated e-commerce program and future-proofed payment options – it’s no surprise that Clover has processed over $130 billion in card transactions, making it the biggest U.S.-based cloud POS platform.
Unfortunately, none of these options include a free purchase order system, but the value these services provide is clear.
The software above eliminates the time and energy you’d have to put into creating the entire flow yourself. They also make the entire process seamless and allow for easier tracking and cataloging, which can help avoid any complications, overspending, or legal issues with vendors.
So, the benefits associated with purchasing a PO system for your small business can most easily be quantified as reduced costs, faster implementation, 24/7 maintenance and tech support, and access to industry-specific features.
On the other end, purchasing a PO system for small business is associated with negatives like limited customization, potentially higher long-term costs, potentially poor integration, and potentially limiting scalability.
Why you need a Virtual Office
For modern business owners, a Virtual Office is becoming less of an extracurricular amenity and more of a necessary prerequisite to doing business in the digital-first era.
Fortunately, setting up a Virtual Office is straightforward, cost-efficient, and can be handled in no time.
Read more: Get a Virtual Address for LLC Registration
Below, we’ve taken a moment to cover some of the different ways your Virtual Office integrates with your PO system for small businesses.
- Privacy
- Security
- Mail forwarding
- Cost-efficient
- Email integration
- Mobile access
Privacy
A Virtual Office supplements your PO system to protect your sensitive mail.
When you’re consistently sending out orders and receiving invoices, your business’s bank information is bound to be on quite a bit of mail.
When you use your home address for your business, that mail sits in your mailbox unprotected. Not to mention, because your address is added to the public domain once your business is registered, anyone who takes the time to search for your business address will know exactly where to find it.
Security
A Virtual Office makes your business more secure. Your mail is held at a professional business center where only you can access it.
The only people who can access your mail are you and any other person you’ve designated for pickups. Also, through your Virtual Office, you can easily integrate your PO system for your small business to add firewalls and other intrusion detection systems for added protection.
Mail forwarding
Additionally, we offer mail forwarding. This mail forwarding means that your business address won’t be your home address.
Your business mail won’t be in your mailbox, no one will have access to your address, and you can rest easy.
Cost-efficient
Traditionally, commercial leases start at a lengthy 3-year minimum.
With your Virtual Office, you can easily retain a plan with an easy-to-manage 6-month minimum, at a considerably more cost-efficient price point.
With these added savings, you can spend extra money on a high-quality PO system for your small business, or even take the time to build your own.
When you reduce your operational costs, you can reinvest those funds into better positioning your company to scale. Unsurprisingly, switching to a Virtual Office is one of the best ways to dramatically reduce your operational costs without giving up the benefits associated with a traditional office.
Outside of the obvious savings you’ll see from making the switch, you can also expect to see reduced paper costs, utility costs, mailing costs, and travel costs, all while your employees experience increased productivity.
Email integration
Through your Virtual Office, you can work from anywhere in the world that you want to work. With the Virtual Office secured, you can set your PO system to give you that same flexibility.
You can set up automatic order confirmation that allows you to receive a notification email anytime a purchase order is sent to a supplier. This helps ensure that you aren’t losing orders and that your submitted orders are being processed in a reasonable time frame.
In addition, you can automate shipping notifications, invoice reminders, low stock alerts, status updates, and various PO approvals. With these notifications going directly to your email, you’re able to integrate your PO system into your remote work capabilities – giving your business increased flexibility.
Mobile access
Like email integration, you can set up your PO system for small businesses to notify your mobile device for any updates or changes in the PO workflow.
Remember, you want your business to function like a well-oiled machine when you aren’t around. For some business owners, this is easier said than done.
Breaking the habit of micromanaging your employees can be incredibly difficult, especially if you’re used to working in environments where you are the only worker capable of getting things done.
That said, breaking the habit of micromanagement is one of the single most important steps you can take as a business owner.
When your employees feel micromanaged, they aren’t going to be happy, and according to Oxford, happy employees are approximately 13% more productive than their disgruntled counterparts.
High employee retention and a low turnover rate show potential employees that working for your business is pleasant and that you run a fair company.
Read more: The Complete Guide to Making Your Business Recession Proof
As conversations about mental health and toxic workplaces continue to dominate the zeitgeist, cultivating a relaxed environment where your employees feel free to collaborate and meet deadlines is one of the best ways to prepare your brand for the future.
You might have your PO system for small business figured out – but there are more digital tools you can use in conjunction with your system to build out your business infrastructure, increase profitability, and prepare for growth.
Keep reading for more!
Using your PO system for small business in conjunction with other digital tools
A Po system can help you automate your ordering process, track orders, and plan your finances. While you can create a PO system for small business yourself, it’s probably worth purchasing software instead.
Modern business owners are uniquely positioned to take advantage of countless other digital tools and services that integrate with their PO system.
Consider using one of Alliance’s Live Receptionists to help you better connect with consumers.
Many business owners feel as if they have two options when it comes to answering the phone at work: answer it yourself, regardless of what else you’re doing at the moment, or hire someone else to answer the phone, regardless of how much money you might be wasting. Alliance’s Live Receptionists provide an alternative.
Instead of potentially upsetting would-be clients by trying to multitask during their phone call, our friendly and professional receptionists can personally answer and screen every call.
Don’t waste time pouring over applications and struggling through interviews. Instead, use that time to create new avenues of growth or additional revenue streams for your business.
Virtual Phone Numbers allow you to give your business a dedicated business number while better separating your work-life balance.
In addition, you can use the email and mobile integration within your PO system for small business to better track your workflow and open purchase orders.
Simply put, the PO system for small businesses you choose isn’t as important as how well it integrates with every other aspect of your operations.
Further reading
- The Unexpected Secret to Better Small Business Management
- Time Away From Work? Set Your Business Up So You Can Step Away
- Get a Virtual Address for LLC Registration
- The Complete Guide to Making Your Business Recession Proof
Alliance Virtual Offices provides several digital tools for established entrepreneurs and soon-to-be business owners.
Regardless of how much experience you have, Alliance has something for you.
Whether it’s more information about a PO system for small business or additional digital tools that help you streamline operations, there’s always a way to position your company’s growth better.
Contact us today to see how Alliance Virtual Offices can improve your PO system for small business, and be sure to check out our Virtual Office Blog!
