PunchOut Integrations with the Power of ERP Make the Most Efficient Transactions Possible

PunchOut integration is a critical step for sellers not only to become front-and-center with their buyers but to make transactions as easy as possible for more future business.

In some cases, PunchOut integration is the barrier to entry for new business. And in other cases, it’s a requirement just to continue doing business with existing customers. In any case, it creates a more efficient transaction lifecycle that benefits both the buyer and seller.

Not every PunchOut is created equally. Enterprise-grade PunchOut taps the deep, rich data that’s only available from an ERP.

Not every PunchOut integration is created equally, however. Standard PunchOut integrations make the information that’s available from the seller’s ecommerce website and/or product catalog part of the integration: The buyer can see products and their descriptions within their own eprocurement system.

Enterprise-grade PunchOut integrations can make much more information available by also integrating data from the seller’s Enterprise Resource Planning system. Now the integration includes not just website and catalog data, but also the deep, rich data that’s usually only available from an ERP.

By integrating ERP data, the seller can now, for example:

• Make price and availability information available to the buyer in real-time. With the power of ERP involved, it’s not just pricing but contract- and customer-specific pricing.
• Automatically enforce business rules like allowable product configurations. Enforcing the business rules helps ensure Well-Formed™ orders that are complete, accurate, and ready for immediate processing.
• Automatically generate Sales Orders and Invoices. Since the buyer eprocurment system is connected to the seller website and the website is connected to the seller ERP, now order submission by the buyer can automatically create associated documents within the ERP.
• Optimize production scheduling. The ERP understands production elements like resources, time, and logistics associated with the order.
• Automatically job cost. Information can flow all the way to the ERP’s accounting engine, where sophisticated accounting activities such as job costing can be performed simply as a side effect of processing the order.

Buyers love standard PunchOut integrations because it makes ecommerce website data available right within the buyer’s own eprocurement system.

Buyers and sellers alike love Enterprise PunchOut integrations even more because now all of the deep, rich data of an ERP can be part of the equation for the most efficient transaction possible.

Next: What is a PunchOut Catalog? >>

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