As young companies experience success and begin to grow, they often discover that many of the seemingly smaller facets of the business process have been overlooked due to the minute number of employees involved in the procedure. As these companies begin to scale, these smaller aspects tend to develop into larger problems. Procurement is a prime example of a process that is too often overlooked and causes issues in the organisation that raises external funds and scale quickly without the proper system in place.

For the first few years of their existence, a fintech startup based in Bengaluru, had no process design for spending funds. External funds aimed at growth and huge inflow of fresh talent in its early days, all of the employees were given the go-ahead to make purchases as they saw fit and expense it to the company.

Usual company purchases went as follows: Management was occupied with growth strategies and even the most essentials purchases like workstations were purchased by managers using any/all available credit cards. Occasionally, new joinees even went ahead with purchasing items as they saw fit and raised reimbursement requests. The way the startup saw, they had no qualms with utilising an informal procurement process that didn’t require any sort of paper trail for purchase requests.

As things went for those first few months, there really were never any “issues” that arose from this process. Really, selecting to purchase the first item that fit the requirements of a project may not have been the most frugal way to conduct business, but, then again, time was money. And external funds were the source of reserves.

Another successful fundraise, the growing number of clients and added workload required the startup company to further inflate its staff. As the company quickly doubled in size, it became harder for the finance teams to track spending. Additionally, more salaries to be paid out meant that the finance manager was more concerned with cutting expenses to help maintain a positive number in the bottom line to woo future investments.

Now that there were 100s of  people being asked to make purchases—some of them who weren’t even operating from the office all of the time—there was a crucial need for the organisation to more closely monitor their spending. Maintaining the status quo for employees and without adding multiple rules or clogging up the system with a paper trail of requests and approvals, how could the procurement process be streamlined for an emerging startup?

Your first step, as already noted by you, is recognising the issue. This is two-fold, first as a finance owner you need to recognise that you need a strategy for purchasing, or procuring, any items. Officepulse platform provides instantly downloadable historical consumption report, so that these purchases can be analysed and a matching strategy can be created in no time.
Second, there is likely many options of supplier for what you need. By iterating a few discussions you will realise a bargaining power on your side to get the right supplier for your requirement. Build a lasting relationship with them so you can get preferred pricing and structure to suite your startup growth. At Officepulse you will discover reliable suppliers in your region and best-matched deals. You can evaluate all the offerings, and also get into a supplier contracts for recurring purchases in a few clicks.

By developing a process for record keeping and tracking of your materials – the invoice, the receiving document and the original purchasing order, you can file these away the old-fashioned way or with Officepulse platforms resting assured that your procurement process are auto-curated with downloadable chain of events and documents without the need of any exclusive maintenance.

The previous steps essentially summarises the procurement process, but remember you will have a higher power at all times. You have the option to keep re-evaluating and renewing your procurement strategy for better opportunities which knocks your doors as a final step. If a supplier isn’t working for you or certain products are no longer necessary, do not be afraid to make changes to your process for the success of the company. Your dedicated account manager at Officepulse will proactively do this task for you, and communicating better options via calls/emails on a monthly basis.

In the past many startups, who raised funds and grew exponentially, have avoided investing in procurement processes for fear of personnel costs and racking up long paper trails. However with new age platforms like Officepulse, the large majority of these concerns have been rendered obsolete. If you’re a startup on a growth curve, take the time to signup yourself at officepulse and set up your  procurement with us, your business will benefit with a compliant, cost-saving and AI based process.