What is P2P, or Procure to Pay? Is it a system, software, or something else entirely? There’s a lot of confusion around the P2P process, so let’s run through exactly what it is.
P2P involves fully understanding the market (procure), sourcing and onboarding suppliers, sending out purchase orders and receiving the goods, and then finally paying the invoice (pay). It basically covers the full business process of buying goods or services from suppliers.
When we talk about P2P, the first thing people think of is a system. This is true — whilst P2P refers to the entire process, there are many P2P systems that are used to help streamline procurement.
The goal of these systems is to increase operational efficiency, reduce errors, and lead to better relationships with suppliers.
Many organisations use special software to automate and integrate these steps to make the procurement process manageable — examples include SAP Ariba, Oracle Procurement Cloud, Coupa, and more.
As friend of Logistics Bureau Trent Morris says, “Procure to Pay is a process that can be enabled by a system.”
As mentioned in the video, you can have the best P2P system in place, but if your inputs aren’t right, you’ll get bad results (or as Trent so eloquently puts it, garbage in equals garbage out). However, with procurement specialists on your side, this P2P process can be streamlined.
