Vendors and suppliers constantly seek transparency while carrying out business processes that cover activities of requesting, purchasing, receiving, paying and accounting for goods and services. However, the prevalent use of paper or spread sheets that are error prone and manually intensive—fails to offer the aforementioned advantage. Direct Commerce, based in San Francisco, offers solutions that ensure the imperative connection between vendors and suppliers. The company offers hosted P2P (
Purchase to Pay) solution that automates the delivery of purchase orders, invoices and payment information between large “buyers” and their many suppliers.

The company’s P2P platform supports thousands of suppliers transmitting and receiving millions of electronic invoices, purchase orders and payments, resulting in billions of dollars per month in transaction volume. “We provide products in the areas of electronic invoicing, order management, discount management, dispute resolution, and vendor management,” says Bruce Hanavan, CEO, Direct Commerce. The company’s SaaS model enables vendors and their suppliers to access the tools via web using any browser on any device. Invoices can be received in multiple formats, including e-Invoice, PO-flip, XML, EDI, and more. Once in the system, the invoice is validated against ERP data and matched to a purchase order and receipt documents. If the pre-configured “validation” rules are met, the invoice goes into an automated approval workflow, if not; a separate workflow kicks in to resolve any errors or discrepancies. “Our Platform is fully compatible with SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards and a number of other major ERP systems,” he extols.

Apart from the management suites, Direct Commerce provides and Executive Dashboard and Reporting modules, offering a variety of powerful tracking and reporting functions. Reports can be viewed, printed or automatically delivered to the accounts payable department by e-mail or file download. “Using our web interfaces, both buyers and suppliers can check the status of POs, invoices, payments to resolve disputes, approve invoices, or create e-Invoices,” explains Hanavan. By streamlining operations across several sectors, Hanavan believes that adopting an electronic invoicing system cuts costs and improves efficiencies of an organization. eInvoicing, a component of Direct Commerce’s Procure-to-Pay suite of services, reduces errors in billing and provides better information on financial processes, all in a secure environment.