Tired of Those Piddley Purchase Orders?Posted at - 12:00 PM on Tue, Sep 25, 2012

It also wanted to simplify its relationship with suppliers. So the county decided to expand its relationship with Infor in order to automate and accelerate contract and sourcing processes through built-in templates, customizable workflows and centralized data access. Bexar County has implemented Infor Lawson Contract Management and Strategic Sourcing to complement its existing Infor Lawson Supply Chain Management and Financial Management solutions.

"Prior to implementing the Infor Lawson Strategic Sourcing and Contract Management applications, our purchasing department spent countless hours processing small-dollar purchase orders," said Daniel Garza, purchasing agent, Bexar County, which is home to nearly 2 million people and the nation's seventh-largest city, San Antonio. "Utilizing the Punchout module, users can now self-issue purchase orders with secured cooperative vendors, bypassing the purchasing department altogether, and allowing our purchasing professionals to concentrate on more complex orders and providing quality customer service."

And there are lots more advantages:

• Infor Lawson Strategic Sourcing will help accelerate the sourcing process through customizable workflows, standard reason codes for awarding bids, and an online supplier portal where bidders can access information at any time.   
• Infor Lawson Contract Management will facilitate the standardization of contracts with built-in reusable templates and secure access to consolidated contract information.
• Using the supplier performance evaluation, cost modeling and forecasting tools, Bexar County will also improve its supplier selection process and make better budgeting decisions.
• The Procurement Punchout module, in particular, will help enable significant time savings as users can self-issue smaller purchase orders without the need for purchase department approval.

"Today's continuously shrinking budgets drive government entities to examine and adjust sourcing and contract procedures to see where they can obtain time and cost savings," said Kevin Curry, SVP, Public Sector, Infor. "With Infor Lawson Strategic Sourcing and Contract Management, Bexar County's processes will be automated and entirely paperless, enabling faster creation and completion of standardized, easy-to-access contracts and supplier bids and delivering cost savings through better supplier selection and budget allocation."

Learn more: Read the news release.