Stephen F. Austin University: More Efficiency, Security, and Time to Focus on Strategic Tasks

Do these vendor lifecycle management process problems sound familiar to you:

Spending excessive time on manual vendor set-up and validation processes
Unsecure paper-based process with W9s and direct deposits that get emailed, printed, entered and passed through many hands
An inability to focus on added-value, strategic work to better the organization

If they do, you’ll want to read the case study below. Stephen F. Austin University faced the same uphill battles and made a big decision that changed everything.

Let’s dig in!

Read the Case Study

Vendor Onboarding: Arguably the Most Important Stage in the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

Lacking Efficiency in the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

Getting Vendor Onboarding – and the Entire Vendor Lifecycle Management Process – Right

Why Choose PaymentWorks to Streamline the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

Get Ready for Vendor Management Appreciation Day 2024

Want Help Aligning Your Teams on the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process?

Interested in Regular Tips on the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process?

Want Personalized Guidance on the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process?

Read the Case Study

Tired of chasing paper, the Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) team decided to automate vendor onboarding and management with PaymentWorks.

Not only did they gain efficiency, which gave them the time that enabled their staff to focus on more strategic projects, but they started sleeping better at night knowing they had mitigated the university’s risk of losing money to a payments fraud scam.

Want to find out how? Click here or the image below to read it.

Vendor Onboarding: Arguably the Most Important Stage in the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

The vendor lifecycle management process is an end-to-end approach to vendor relationship management. It starts with identifying, engaging with and onboarding vendors and continues through the end of the vendor relationship.

While the vendor lifecycle management process is comprehensive, I would argue the most important phase is when a vendor is onboarded. Why? Because if you don’t get it right, it affects all other P2P and finance systems, and, ultimately, it dictates how the entire relationship will go. It can either go smoothly or, well, not.

Vendor onboarding is also where all of the heavy lifting occurs. This is where vetting, evaluating risk, and making sure vendor data is correct happens. If you get this part right, the rest is a cakewalk. If something isn’t true or correct, good luck.

Think about it: before you even engage with a vendor, you need to consider what types of vendors you will engage with. Should they share your values? Will you only engage with vendors that have an ESG rating? What about vendor diversity?

In addition to understanding your organization’s standards for vendor engagement, you need to have a way to effectively vet vendors against these criteria. And if you’re relying on manual tasks to do this, it can snowball into a giant headache. It’s also the least effective way to do things, as procurement expert Jenn Glassman shared in a recent podcast:

Lacking Efficiency in the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

Efficiency is critical for a smooth vendor lifecycle management process. Since a bulk of the vendor desk’s labor happens at onboarding, having documented processes in place is a must. This is even more critical for organizations with distributed (and often siloed) procurement processes.

SFA fit the bill. As a University with a distributed procurement process, SFA’s finance team was spending a ton of time on manual onboarding tasks and change orders. Let’s think about everything that entails:

First, the vendor’s credentials need to be weighed against the organization’s criteria to determine whether or not the vendor can even do business with it.

Then, the vendor desk must collect the supplier’s information – everything from basic business info to addresses, tax info, and bank information.

Next, that information needs to be verified. Special attention must be paid to bank verification.

Then, the vendor desk needs to assess vendor compliance and risk. This includes running checks against several databases to ensure that the vendor is not debarred or on any sanctions lists.

Finally, the vendor desk needs to set up the supplier for payment.

Each of these steps involves a number of workflows, processes, tools, third-party databases, and approvals – and communication with the vendor at every stage in the process. Moreover, this paper-pushing often includes confidential forms and data that can introduce additional risk if procedures aren’t secure (or don’t exist in a formal way at all).

Unsurprisingly, SFA was wasting precious hours on time-consuming manual tasks that could be automated.

Additionally, it had to weigh the benefits of bulking up its vendor team against the cost of hiring, training and supervising more people.

Ultimately, the university determined that investing in an automated digital onboarding platform offered a more cost-effective, reliable path forward. Not only would it solve the efficiency problem, but it would add security, compliance, and protection against fraud losses.

Getting Vendor Onboarding – and the Entire Vendor Lifecycle Management Process – Right

SFA determined that moving to vendor onboarding via PaymentWorks would offer a simplified, automated and secured process across the board:

A cohesive, controlled system that can initiate new vendor invitations, approve new vendors, and initiate and approve existing vendor data changes.
An automated way to send invitations for onboarding to payees, automatically validate tax IDs, continuously monitor sanctions lists, confirm baking ownership and collect additional vendor identity data (like conflict of interest, insurance docs, and diversity certifications).
Simplified communication with suppliers who can create a PaymentWorks account and easily complete the university’s onboarding process. Additionally, suppliers can log in at any time to make updates to profile information, check the progress of the onboarding process, and view the status of invoices.

This allowed the university to secure vendor information while improving efficiencies – all without hiring and training additional staff. Manual tasks were replaced with automated onboarding and digital approval workflows, freeing up staff to focus on what matters most: adding value to the university.

The bottom line is that automation frees up a ton of time and energy for SFA – time that can now be spent on innovative, value-added initiatives that improve the organization. By simplifying onboarding, the university simplified the entire vendor lifecycle management process, subsequently making it easier for the rest of the university to do business.

Why Choose PaymentWorks to Streamline the Vendor Lifecycle Management Process

With automated vendor onboarding from PaymentWorks, you can streamline and simplify the entire vendor lifecycle management process. Every organization can benefit from a vendor onboarding process that is organized, secure and efficient, ensuring peace of mind..

PaymentWorks is the foundation of vendor master data and helps organizations of all kinds automate vendor onboarding. PaymentWorks provides customers with secure, compliant, and optimized business payments.

Featuring the industry’s only payments security warranty for fraudulent payments and a network of tier one partners, PaymentWorks enables customers in healthcare, higher education, K-12, state and local government, enterprise and more to capitalize on the opportunity to digitize the payments process while reducing risk, controlling costs and earning revenue.

To learn more about how we do it and the partners we work with, visit our website, check out our news, or listen to our podcast, “Risky Business.”

Get Ready for Vendor Management Appreciation Day 2024

Yes, we just celebrated the inaugural Vendor Management Appreciation Day on December 12th. BUT the party’s not over yet! We’re celebrating Vendor Management Appreciation Day all year long.

Better yet, we get 366 days (leap year!) in 2024 to celebrate one of the most important, under-recognized roles across industries: vendor management.

Join us in observing Vendor Management Appreciation Day (VMAD)! We’re gearing up for the 2024 celebration, and we want you to be a part of it!

VMAD is a unique holiday geared toward unifying vendor management professionals and celebrating innovation in the field.

We’ve been releasing gifts each month to help you supercharge your vendor management efforts. We’re also planning some awesome events so everyone can connect and celebrate the important, strategic role of vendor management.

Learn more here, and grab some free vendor management goodies.