The pillars of procure to pay: part 2– global compliance

This series exploring Tradeshift’s vision for an agile and powerful P2P solution was originally published in 2016. All relevant statistics and copy have been updated as of February 2022.

In the first installment of our 4-part series, we discuss when it’s crucial for a company to bring 100% of their spend under management and how Tradeshift addresses this need with our products and software solutions. Later, in parts 3 and 4, we’ll touch on the barriers to adoption and implementation as well as the need for finding innovative solutions.

At the center of both finance and procurement functions lies compliance. Organizations need to be certain they’re adhering to the various regulatory requirements and rules in the countries they operate; otherwise, they open the door to substantial risk.

Without flawless execution of their processes and procedures, companies face exposure across all three major categories of risk:

• Regulatory
• Competitive
• Market

When looking at the global nature of supply chains and large corporate P2P software, it becomes increasingly clear that compliance stopgaps and monitoring need to support and lay down the solid foundation for all your enterprises’ tools and processes.

Today, in part 2 of our ongoing series on the core pillars of P2P, we will take a deeper look at the essential components of a global procure-to-pay solution.

Global compliance everywhere you operate

For example, let’s take a look at finance departments.

A few years ago, numerous finance departments were blissfully unaware that China had initiated the most significant corporate tax overhaul in a generation. These steps were part of their process of moving towards a VAT model. While this model took effect in 2017, leading up to its implementation, many companies with major suppliers in China were woefully unprepared.

In today’s marketplace, being unprepared and uneducated on the upcoming changes and current compliance laws is unacceptable. That’s where Tradeshift can help.

Bonus Material: France is undergoing major compliance changes in the next few years. Stay updated on these changes by watching our video!

Tradeshift’s P2P solution is only one of two compliant options that touch on this throughout the entire world. It has built-in best-in-class compliance, not only for China but also for dozens of countries where our customers could potentially do business.

At the core, Tradeshift’s P2P solutions allow you to avoid fines and audit risk while reducing your invoice processing cycle time. This means that your c-suite will have peace of mind while your procurement and AP professionals can free up their time, energy, and resources for more strategic initiatives.

That’s the power of local compliance applied to a global approach.

Real-time, modern collaboration for global compliance

Tradeshift is the most collaborative P2P solution on the market. This is especially relevant to any discussion around compliance as Tradeshift’s collaboration features offer clear and quick communication with your suppliers, all within our platform system.

When your communication with your customers and suppliers occurs outside your system, it creates a non-compliant environment ripe for risk.

To avoid this, Tradeshift matches your users’ expectations as consumers, so they’ll actually use it. Our collaborative platform is easy to use and strengthens your compliance measures as all messages are recorded in context with the document history, providing proper visibility into the document’s history.

Locked-in compliance and fast processing times mean more gains to the bottom line.

All your processes, inside your four walls

With Tradeshift’s document firewall, you can block non-compliant invoices based on the rules you dictate.

For most suppliers, you’ll likely choose to accept only 100% compliant invoices. However, for unique cases and strategic suppliers, you can adjust the rules to your acceptable level of deviation.

Bonus Material: Tradeshift is continually expanding where we provide compliance for our customers. Check out this comprehensive list of countries we currently operate!

Document validation capabilities protect your accounts payable department from non-compliant invoices that slow you down. Our solution helps by checking fields against correct data and validating against the custom rules mentioned above. The system stops suppliers from sending invoices with errors, preventing exceptions before they’re ever even sent.

Above all, top-rate compliance is must-have for organizations hoping to conduct business with minimal risk. It’s the bedrock of a successful procure-to-pay solution and a core function for AP, making it the second of the four pillars of P2P.

Stay tuned for the third installment in our series detailing how Tradeshift enables global compliance. To learn more about the Tradeshift Platform and how it can help support shifts in your organization, reach out to our team today.