BUENA PARK, Calif. and DES MOINES, Iowa — Autologue Computer Systems has entered into an agreement with GCommerce to develop a product that can be used with practically any management system for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
Taking advantage of GCommerce’s relationship with hundreds of manufacturers, it will now be possible to exchange purchase orders, advance shipping notices and invoices electronically. Autologue has added another dimension – ePaperlessPayables — which will compare purchase orders to Advance Shipping Notices (ASN’s or packing slips), displaying quantity differences, for measuring shipping performance of vendors. Vendor’s invoices and statements will also be online, and can be used to reconcile to the original PO, which can help eliminate countless hours of manually matching packing slips to vendor invoices and statements, also eliminating filing. Invoices and statements will be matched online daily, providing the purchasing department with data such as shortages, incorrect picks, missing merchandise and pricing differences all electronically. Also available is reporting to calculate profitability by square footage of shelf space occupied by any given vendor’s line.
Improved profitability by using EDI is achieved in several ways, according to Autologue. Lead time is reduced due to the elimination of key punching. Orders are received and acknowledged seconds after being sent. Shipping is measured by the receipt of ASN’s to track the shipment and plan the receipt of merchandise. The greatest advantage of ePaperlessPayables is the enormous labor savings, said Autologue. By automatically matching packing slips and invoices to the original purchase order, the focus is on the exceptions, or items not received. EDI data is received exactly as transmitted, therefore eliminating re-keying errors. As a result there will be fewer returns, lost orders, backorders and credit invoices, Autologue said.
The jobber or distributor can connect to hundreds of suppliers through ePaperlessPayables. Currently, there are more than 600 automotive aftermarket suppliers using EDI for purchasing transactions. If a particular supplier is not currently using this method, they will be contacted on behalf of the jobber or distributor to answer questions or assist them to exchange documents electronically.
This new product is another part of Autologue’s suite of eProducts designed to increase efficiency and provide more profit through administrative streamlining. There is no additional software or hardware required in most cases. Documents are archived online, providing a vast array of analytics that can be used to measure all facets of the purchasing process.
