Collaborate seamlessly with suppliers and instantly see the status of every PO line.
Over half of all purchase orders will experience a change during their lifecycle. For buyers, this can be a nightmare. Shipping information and delivery dates are processed manually through emails, spreadsheets, phone calls, and even sticky notes (gross, right?) which means there’s virtually no visibility. Buyers commit to dates and rely on the right quantities to arrive on time. But without visibility, there is no way to accurately coordinate pickup and shipping methods or know if suppliers are hitting their ready-to-ship or ex-factory dates. Which shipments should go by sea? Which ones by air? This information is critical for coordinating shipment efficiently and cost-effectiveness, but it is simply not available to procurement teams that rely on manual, outdated methods.
Additionally, many customers will have some suppliers who coordinate shipments with 3PLs and other suppliers that the customer is responsible for coordinating the pick up with the shipper. For a growing organization, remembering which suppliers are responsible for what can be daunting, stressful, and leave room for errors and costly delays in decision making. You need a clear, digitized view of what a supplier has on their plate and what’s on yours. And you need real-time data to coordinate with 3PLs and make profitable decisions.
SourceDay’s Ready to Ship module brings every piece of critical data into one platform so that buyers and suppliers can collaborate to accurately process POs, changes, and shipping. When a PO line is ready to ship, the supplier creates an advanced shipping notice (ASN) from the associated PO lines (for example: quantity, lot number, tracking number, and number of boxes). Buyers and logistics professionals are automatically notified through the platform and get advanced notice of what quantities on which PO lines are ready for pick up so they can plan for deliveries and work more efficiently with 3PLs. They can set up shipments, provide further details for the shipment, and mark it as shipped. It’s easy to identify who falls in the “ready to ship” category and who is responsible. Lines and quantities from different POs can be combined so that containers are fully utilized and shipments are created as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.. Quantity levels can be used to negotiate best prices with carriers. All of this information is available with a single click and from a single view.
Ready to Ship is a gamechanger for suppliers whose responsibility is to have parts and materials ready to go by a certain date. Under old systems, suppliers may still be held responsible for delayed arrivals, even if the units were ready to ship on time. Now, suppliers and buyers share visibility of every status, which means suppliers are only held accountable for their end of the bargain: having their materials on the dock, ready to ship at the right time. And buying teams can instantly measure supplier performance based on the correct dates, the correct parameters, and the correct expectations, improving supplier relationships… Yes, please!
Suppliers have clear visibility to which PO lines and what quantities are in the “ready to ship” status and also which lines their customer has booked for shipment. Both sides are able to edit and make adjustments when needed and each action is tracked in an audit log on each shipment so both buyers and suppliers are always aligned on changes made. SourceDay’s Ready to Ship module gets users out of spreadsheet purgatory and all reports are exportable to CSV to share internally.
With SourceDay’s consolidated view, everyone is on the same page all the time. It’s simple to change shipment status, manage vendors, and make updates like quantities and shipment information. Everyone involved is notified, data is 100% accurate, and procurement teams are freed up from hours of chasing down information and manually updating spreadsheets.
SourceDay’s configurability allows for suppliers to be managed by different terms, by different dates, and know which side is responsible for booking what information on each shipment of every PO line. Now your purchasing team can work strategically to improve efficiencies and transform procurement’s value within the organization.