A Deeper Look at iApprove™ Capabilities – Approval Routing Processes with Something Better
iApprove is one of the most powerful and comprehensive tools within the ISS Group’s Business Procurement Optimization software solution suite.
A configurable rules-based Approval Routing and Buyer Alert solution, iApprove utilizes the ISS Group Advanced Approval Routing Technology (AART™) for routing of Approvals and Alerts to one or many people within your organization in a linear or multi-dimensional flow providing functionality such as New Supplier Approval, Supplier Contract Tracking, Project Budget Approval, Late PO Delivery Alerts, Low Inventory Alerts, Supplier Master File Data Changes (ie; Remit to Address Change Approval), and more.
The User Configurable Approval Routing Engine (AART™) is a flexible and powerful tool that enables rules-based approval routing for a huge number of approval-dependent processes. AART™ is designed to enable users to configure approval routing down to any level of detail, enabling precise automated approvals. Applied to a number of process within the iApprove’s range of capabilities, it’s the piece of technology that sets ISS Group’s solutions apart from similar products.
To understand the scope of iApprove, it’s helpful to break down each of its features and look at their relationship to your business. This is a closer look at these features.
Purchase Order Requisition Approval Routing
Linked in with ISS Group’s iPurchase® Purchase Order Requisition Management solution, which enables the purchase order (PO) originator to share and request comments on POs before routing for approval, iApprove is able to route PO Requisitions and apply its smart, rules-based approval process to each requisition.
This enables PO requisitions to be streamlined through a strict automated assessment process which screens the requisitions for programmed criteria before approving them. If a requisition does not pass the approval process, it will be deferred for manual approval.
This allows all in-spec PO requisitions to be approved rapidly and without the involvement of a manager or other parties for approval, streamlining the PO requisition process.
Sales Quote Approval
iApprove manages sales quotes and routes original quotes as well as approved sales quotes with post-approval changes for automatic approval.
Using the AART™ configurable system, the rules for sales quote approval can be a simple or complex as the user organization needs it to be. That means that sales quotes approval can be expedited or tightly controlled, depending on your needs.
In either case, iApprove sales quote approval puts the power of making consistent sales quote approvals quickly, reducing turnaround time.
The iQuote™ sales quoting solution paired with iApprove’s rapid approval delivery dramatically reduce turnaround time on sales quotes, which in turn improves the experience for your clients.
RFQ and Supplier Catalog Approval
In the process of generating RFQs and processing up-to-date supplier catalogs as they come, keeping track of the latest quotes from suppliers can be complicated.
iApprove addresses this problem by approving up-to-date supplier catalogs and managing versions as they change over time.
The combination of iApprove’s rapid catalog approval and iPurchase’s supplier catalog management capabilities is extremely useful. This keeps supplier pricing information both up-to-date and easy to view, as the catalog manager compiles all of this information and presents it in a consistent format. That means you can compare suppliers and prices within from the same browser-based catalog management system.
CapEx Request Approval
While some major CapEx requests will always be so large that they require explicit review from superiors, some smaller expenditures are necessary and sometimes come at a high volume.
Using iApprove’s CapEx request approval process, it’s easy to automate approvals for smaller CapEx requests. Programming a cutoff CapEx price per requests and total CapEx expenditures for a time period is easy with AART™, allowing your leadership to worry about CapEx only when the numbers are significant.
IT Change Order Approval
Manually managing internal requests for IT tasks, such as resolving system malfunctions and errors, can add hours or days to the process of addressing IT problems.
iApprove’s flexible platform can manage these requests too. Enabled by AART™, such requests can be automatically prioritized, optimizing your IT department’s backlog.
Other Internal Requests
There are huge number of miscellaneous internal requests that need to be processed. iApprove is flexible and powerful, which allows your organization to adapt it to handle any such internal tasks.
These include project proposals, HR requests (vacation time, etc.), expenses and reimbursements, master file data changes, and many others. The flexible design of iApprove enables you to use this tool to route and manage requests of virtually any kind.
iApprove is made to optimize your business processes through automation, saving on human resources and time. Contact us to learn more about optimizing your organization and using smart technology to improve efficiency.
