Working closely with Student Union finance teams, we quickly noticed that an increasing number of supplier transactions were also being requested by student groups. Initially building our solution to manage expense claims, we could see that large value expenditure, such as events, marketing etc, were being emailed in to finance - off the system.
Understanding the need, and the time spent handling these, we could see that we already had the main processes required within our apps - and so decided to add an option to support supplier orders and invoices - making the process more efficient.
Following the same app process we used for expense claims, we kept the entry intuitive for students. In essence, we use around 90% of the same flow, with the main difference being that, once approved, the resulting transaction (in the finance system), will be a supplier order, or invoice, lodged against a supplier account.
Students can raise entries against any group they are a member of, and when complete, they can submit for group approval as usual (approvers, secretary, treasurer etc).
Additional claim types: supplier orders and invoices
To identify a supplier entry, rather than a student claim, students have an option to select additional claim types of supplier order and supplier invoice. (Note: the SU has the option to configure whether they wish to use these additional types).
Supplier entries: additional header information required
To facilitate the transaction, the entry header will open up additional fields for mandatory supplier selection and supplier references. The supplier list selection can be configured by the SU (to list all suppliers, or show a sub-set). There is also an optional to allow a new supplier to be requested if required.
Automatic AI entry support (image or PDF)
Similar to entering expense claims, students can manually enter details or alternatively, use the AI receipt scanning facility to save time. Using AI, students can snap a photo of the supplier invoice for example (or attach a PDF) and we will pick out the detail, references and amount - as well as automatically attaching the scan.
Sending for approval
Using the selected group, we follow our standard process or routing via the approver configuration in the SU system (MSL, SUMS, Union Cloud).
Ian Randle, Founder and MD at Konnekt365 said
".. initially surprised by how many supplier entries were being requested by students, it is great to see the time this additional feature saves SU teams .."
For students and finance teams.
Available on iOS, Android, tablet and web - Any device. Any time access.
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