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We share our knowledge with you. Whether professional articles, studies, exciting projects or product information. Here you will find informative articles on the topic of procurement.

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Recap of the Dutch Sustainable Procurement Forum 2025 - Procurement as an engine of change

Recap of the Dutch Sustainable Procurement Forum 2025 – Procurement as an engine of change

Finance leaders today are facing a new wave of responsibility. Beyond balancing budgets and optimizing spend, they're being asked to deliver strategic value in areas that feel frustratingly intangible like sustainability and cybersecurity. These topics are critical for long-term success but often lack the concrete metrics and proven ROI that finance teams need to prioritize confidently.

Finance in 2025: A CFO’s Guide to Making Actionable Changes in 2025

Study: SME Procurement Barometer 2025

Study: SME Procurement Barometer 2025

Invoice processing in SAP or S/4HANA simplified with Onventis

Invoice processing in SAP or S/4HANA simplified with Onventis

How Onventis supports Shared Service Centers with procurement and invoice processing automation.

How Onventis supports Shared Service Centers with procurement and invoice processing automation.

The fight against climate change is gaining momentum, pushing businesses to prioritize reducing their carbon footprint.
To achieve this, they focus on measuring their emissions output.
While most are familiar with Scope 1 and Scope 2, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions often flies under the radar: Scope 3 emissions.

Calculating Scope 3 Emissions: Everything You Need to Know

With the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) regulation coming into force in January 2025, financial organizations and their critical third-party providers are preparing to meet the required cybersecurity and digital resilience standards. For companies that need to maintain secure and efficient relationships with suppliers and partners, Onventis offers a streamlined approach to achieving DORA compliance.

Strengthen Digital Resilience: Navigating DORA Regulation Compliance

In this blog, we'll explore the impact of AI on accounting and bookkeeping and answer important questions about the role of AI in finance - and you'll get a sneak peek into the possibilities of AI integration in accounting with Onventis AI-Powered Invoice Coding!

AI in Accounting: Transforming the Financial Landscape

In an increasingly digitalized world, companies rely on efficient and automated processes to remain competitive. E-invoicing, or electronic invoicing, plays a central role in this. But what exactly is e-invoicing, what advantages does it bring and what challenges need to be overcome?

E-Invoicing: The Future of Digital Invoicing

In the following overview, we highlight the individual steps of the RFx process and show why they are of central importance for the success of your company.

RFI, RFP, RFQ: A Comparison of the RFx Process

DACH SME Procurement Barometer 2024: From E-Invoicing to the Green Supply Chain

DACH SME Procurement Barometer 2024: From E-Invoicing to the Green Supply Chain

What is Sourcing? Definition, Concepts, and Challenges

What is Sourcing? Definition, Concepts, and Challenges

Mit der gesetzlichen Einführung des E-Invoicing ab Januar 2027 für größere Unternehmen und ab Januar 2028 auch für kleinere Unternehmen mit einem Umsatz von weniger als 800.000 €, ist es essenziell für alle Wirtschaftsakteure, sich auf die digitalen Veränderungen einzustellen.

B2B Invoicing: All the benefits of electronic invoices for companies

In this blog, we explain strategies for digitizing and optimizing your procurement processes.

Procurement optimization: Future-Proofing Purchasing

Onventis is excited to introduce an AI-powered spend analytics solution to transform how organizations manage and analyze supplier data. This innovative platform harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to revolutionize supplier normalization and categorization, offering unmatched efficiency, accuracy, and insight into procurement processes.

AI in Supply Chains: Onventis Unveils AI-Powered Supplier Handling Solution

In the context of procurement, supply security is an important concept for keeping a company's business running. With the Supply Chain Act and the CSRD, it is becoming increasingly important and is now considered a basic principle in procurement. But what does this term actually mean and why is it so crucial for uninterrupted production?

Supply Security in Procurement: The Essence of a Robust Supply Chain

The rapid advancement in technology, particularly in automation and e-invoicing, is reshaping the finance sector. These innovations offer myriad benefits, they also bring apprehensions, especially among finance professionals concerned about the future of their roles. While others, especially accounts payable professionals, already know that automation positively impacts job satisfaction.

Navigating Automated Finance: A Catalyst for Role Enhancement, Not Replacement

The ongoing digitalization of the business world is changing the way companies operate and bringing new legal requirements. A key aspect of this development is the introduction of mandatory e-invoicing in Germany and, in some cases, throughout Europe.

E-Invoice Mandate: What Companies Need to Know Now

Cost reduction is a perennial issue in business, especially for SMEs. Our latest study (available in German) shows a remarkable trend: after years of focusing on the security of supply, SMEs are now focusing on reducing procurement costs. This blog sheds light on why this change in focus is taking place and how companies can effectively reduce their costs.

Reduce Procurement Costs: a Change of Focus from Security of Supply to Cost Awareness

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) was launched in 1998 by the World Resources Insitute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

What is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol)?

The skills shortage in the social sector is more than just a challenge for organizations. It is a system-wide problem that has a profound impact on the quality of care and support provided to those in need. These institutions are the pillars of our society, constantly creating added value for residents and those in need of care. This makes it all the more important that social organizations future-proof themselves and tackle the shortage of resources and specialists. A key area in this process is procurement: this essential function in every organization holds great potential for savings in resources, time and costs.

Skills Shortage in Social Work & The Role of Procurement for Non-Profits

What is de CSRD and what is its impact on procurement?

What is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)?

Guided buying is the principle of guiding employees through the purchasing process to ensure compliant procurement.

Guided Buying: Simplifying Procurement Processes

Purchasing is not just purchasing: it can be subdivided into individual areas that deal with the procurement of different resources. A distinction is made between direct and indirect purchasing, which complement each other and ensure smooth operations.

Optimization Of Indirect Procurement: Definition, Challenges, Solutions

Procurement strategy is a central component of the modern business environment. It is not only a tool for reducing costs, but also an instrument for increasing competitiveness and ensuring the long-term success of the company.

The Importance of an Effective Procurement Strategy in the Business World

Controlling the entire procurement cycle is critical for modern businesses. Choosing the right procurement software, especially a source-to-pay suite, can have a major impact on success and efficiency. But how do you find the right solution in a market with many vendors? What questions should you ask to choose the best suite for your needs?

Software for Procurement: Our Guide to Your Right S2P Solution

The digitalization of procurement processes presents buyers and procurers with the challenge of selecting suitable procurement software. But amidst the multitude of available solutions, the question arises: Which software is best suited to meet your company's individual requirements?

Choosing The Right Procurement Software: Source-to-Pay-Suite vs. Best-of-Breed

For procurement professionals and decision makers, a strategic approach to procurement is key to efficient resource management. Here you can learn more about strategic sourcing, its importance and how it can positively change your business.

Unlocking Efficiency in Procurement with Strategic Procurement

In the world of procurement, where accuracy and cost reduction are paramount, organizations often rely on digital tools to streamline their processes. One tool that is often used is Excel - very versatile, yet it does not meet the specific requirements and strategic goals of procurement organizations.

Excel for Procurement: Why Excel Fails as a Purchasing Tool

Companies that want to streamline their operations and promote sustainable growth must be aware that efficient procurement processes play an important role. At the heart of optimizing purchasing activities is operational procurement - a critical function that ensures the timely procurement of goods and services required for day-to-day business operations.

Streamlining Business Operations: A Guide to Operational Procurement

Invoice recognition, a key component of accounting automation, plays a critical role in ensuring seamless and error-free invoice processing. This blog explores invoice item recognition, its importance in improving accuracy, and how Onventis' intelligent OCR solutions are transforming this process.

Streamlining Invoice Processing with Advanced Line Item Recognition

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition and represents a technology for automatic text recognition in digital documents. Such software makes it possible to convert scanned and unstructured documents into editable and structured files. Especially in invoice processing, this advantageous technology speeds up the process immensely.

What is OCR? An Insight Into the Automation of Invoice Processing

Efficient and cost-effective procurement of goods and services is of crucial importance to companies. Purchasing organizations face the challenging task of optimizing their procurement processes strategically, tactically and operationally and to achieve their set procurement targets. To meet these challenges, the concept of source-to-pay was developed.

What is Source-to-Pay?

Digitalization in companies is becoming increasingly important and is being driven significantly by digital invoice processing and the use of e-invoices. But what are the concrete advantages of invoice processing and why should companies join this movement?

AP automation software: Why companies should process invoices digitally

Digitalization has fundamentally changed companies. Invoice processing is one area that is particularly affected by this development.The focus here is on AP automation (also called invoice processing or I2P), in which invoices are processed digitally to enable an efficient and automated process.The use of digital tools and systems can save time and resources by reducing the manual workload and minimizing errors.

AP Automation: The Future of Digital Invoice Processing

Spend Analysis is a valuable tool in the procurement process for analyzing and evaluating a company's expenditures. The focus is on recording cash flow, the amount of expenditure and what this expenditure was spent on. The primary goals are to identify potential savings and uncover possible risks. Read here how Spend Analysis optimizes your purchasing.

The Advantages of a Spend Analysis Software

This time, we look at the role of digital systems in supplier management and how they can help companies build and maintain sustainable supply chains. Learn our valuable insights and practical tips on using digital solutions for sustainable sourcing practices.

Implementing sustainable supply chains: How digital supplier management systems support the achievement of sustainability goals

Manual procurement processes are time-consuming, error-prone, and costly. By automating procurement processes, companies can save time and money, and reduce errors, leading to improved efficiency and a healthier bottom line. Implementing digital procurement may face resistance from employees and stakeholders. However, addressing objections and communicating the long-term benefits, such as increased efficiency and new job opportunities, can help overcome resistance and pave the way for successful digitalization.

Digitalizing Procurement Processes: Save Time, Money, and Stress with Automation

Companies face the challenge of integrating ecological, social and economic aspects into their business processes and realizing their responsibility towards the environment and society. Supplier management plays a crucial role here, as the choice of suppliers has a significant impact on the sustainability of the supply chain.

The Critical Role of Supplier Management in Sustainable Supply Chains

Geopolitical challenges and volatile markets make transparent cooperation with qualified and sustainable business partners within the supply chain indispensable. Suppliers are assuming an increasingly important position within the value chain of companies. As a result, supplier management is becoming a decisive factor for operational resilience and economic success.

Targeting supply chain risks with supplier management

The insights gained from spend analysis can inform strategic decisions, drive cost savings, and improve processes. However, implementing an effective program requires careful planning, ongoing attention, and strong stakeholder engagement.

Spend Analysis: Collecting Data for Improved Business

Supplier management represents the systematic control of supplier relationships. This involves intensifying and promoting cooperation with suitable partners in order to make it transparent and sustainable. The most important components of supplier management include the selection, qualification, classification, evaluation and development of suppliers.

Effective supplier management: Everything you need to know about supplier management

Purchasing is an integral part of every company. Here, the focus is not only on the procurement of goods and services, but also on ensuring quality and economic efficiency. If companies do not use e-procurement systems in their procurement process, they expose themselves to considerable risks and dangers.

Uncovering Procurement Risks: Why E-Procurement Solutions are Essential for Risk Management

The main task of procurement management is to ensure that the right products or services are procured at the right time and on the best possible terms. The use of e-procurement systems reveals opportunities for procurement optimisation at every step. In this context, the introduction of these systems is becoming increasingly important and highlights the benefits of e-procurement.

Targeted e-procurement benefits for your company

E-procurement (also known as eProcurement) is short for electronic procurement and refers to the digital purchasing of goods and services by companies. This process involves the use of technologies that promote and digitalise the purchasing department.

What is e-procurement?

Spend analysis is a way to analyse an organisation’s expenditures from a procurement perspective. It is completed through collecting, cleansing, categorising and analysing all the external expenditures.

What is spend analysis?

Procure-to-Pay oder auch Purchase-to-Pay bzw. P2P bedeutet von der Beschaffung bis zur Bezahlung. Konkret startet der Procure-to-Pay-Prozess im akuten Bedarfsfall und beinhaltet die Teilprozesse der Bestellanforderung des Bedarfsanforderers bis zur Rechnungszahlung an den Lieferanten.

What is Procure-to-pay?

In the Procurement Barometer 2022, you can find out how digitized German purchasing organizations really are, which trends are currently moving the SME procurement market the most, and how you can set up your purchasing digitally and, above all, sustainably.

Sustainable procurement and supply chains

Source-to-Contract optimises the sub-process steps from the determination of requirements to contract management. In addition to savings, the aim is to increase compliance in procurement and thus the overall effectiveness of purchasing.

What is Source-to-Contract?

Spend analysis can be said to be a way of drawing up their purchasing map, which is then used as a tool for formulating purchasing strategies, both in general and for specific purchasing categories.

What is Spendency?

Procurement ensures constant supply of goods and services from external sources within companies. Negotiated prices and conditions play a central role here, as does the purchasing of products and services in line with demand.

What is procurement?

Onventis is always looking for opportunities to support the planet and recently we were also officially recognized as climate-neutral. But this doesn't mean we stop there. Not too long ago we have adopted a seal from Ecomare.

Onventis X Ecomare

Auctioning sometimes appears to be a sort of forgotten tool, while actually it is very useful. As a matter of fact it can be the ultimate tool to get the best offer at the best price at that moment in time.

HOW-TO Optimize your S2C: Going Once, Going Twice – Sold!

Close your eyes and think of a place where all your contracts are in one place. Where the contract owner gets a notification whenever one of his/her contracts is about to expire

HOW-TO Optimize your S2C: Be on top of all your contracts

In this mini-serie we will give you some tips on how to optimize your source-to-contract. This first article will explain you how standardization helps improving your S2C-activities.

HOW-TO Optimize your S2C: Standardize your request to suppliers

In the Procurement Barometer 2021, you can find out how digitalised German purchasing organisations really are, which trends are currently moving the SME procurement market the most and how you can lead your purchasing department unerringly through the digital transformation.

Digitalization makes Purchasing sustainable

Sustainable procurement incorporates fundamental ecological, economic and social standards in corporate purchasing. You can read here, what exactly sustainable procurement is and what should be paid attention to.

Sustainable Procurement – Social, Ecological and Economic Purchasing

Bees stand for sustainable procurement in economic, ecological and social terms. The highly efficient honey producers are the perfect networkers with a strong sense of community. All-in-One Procurement takes these characteristics as its model.

What buyers can learn from bees

A spend analysis is perhaps the most versatile analysis in all of procurement. Yet there are still people questioning if it is worth the investment in time and money. So in this post we explore the six most common benefits of a spend analysis

What are the benefits of a Spend Analysis?

By means of auctions, procurement organizations are able to increase the intensity of competition among suppliers and thus realize the best conditions for requirements. Purchasing has a variety of models at its disposal, with which significant savings can be achieved.

Optimize procurement scenarios through auctions

Due to the advancing globalisation of a cross-company distributed and integrated value creation, supported by the digitalisation of business processes and the constantly decreasing depth of value creation within a company, systematic supplier management is becoming increasingly important, even for medium-sized companies.

Systematic Supplier Management as a Performance Factor

Due to globalization and mergers, companies often operate in historically grown, heterogeneous system landscapes. Decentralized processes impair the cooperation of corporate purchasing with its locations, business areas and suppliers: starting with various databases and the resulting high costs, such as multiple entries, to missing standards and a general lack of transparency in company processes.

Corporate purchasing in heterogeneous ERP environments

Service procurement around facility management presents challenges to purchasing departments across industries. Purchasing for building-, object- or project-related requirements must efficiently handle orders with automated processes and at the same time sustainably digitize supplier relationships.

Facility Management Service Procurement Made Easy

Onventis Premium Supplier

Premium Supplier „Karl Koerschulte GmbH“ launches visionary drone project

German cloud provider Onventis protects the data of organizations and individuals in accordance with German and European data protection regulations.

EuGH overturns Privacy Shield: legally secure procurement with Onventis

Processing supplier invoices is a costly, unproductive routine task. Those who still process invoices manually are wasting time and money.

Invoice Processing with Software Robots

In robotic process automation, software robots assume the roles and tasks of users and interact with other software systems.

RPA: How does Smart Account Assignment with Robotic Process Automation Work?

Imagine if you could easily automate the continuous supply of raw materials, consumables and supplies.

Supplier-Controlled Inventory Planning with VMI

From April to June 2020, the BME in collaboration with the ESB Business School and Onventis, studied the status quo of digitalization and the use of new technologies in procurement in medium-sized businesses.

Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence & Co.

With the Onventis integration for Amazon Business, companies cover their requirements with more than 250 million items via Amazon Business.

How controlled C-items purchasing works with Amazon Business

bol.com replaces Basware with Onventis P2P

bol.com replaces Basware with Onventis P2P solution

SAP-based purchasing is under pressure to act: With the announced end of maintenance for Business Suite 7, companies using SAP must examine new options for their purchasing system.

Why SAP ERP Customers rely on Onventis

Procurement categories are usually divided into direct material (DM) and indirect material/indirect material and services (IM/IMS). The terminology, like many other things in procurement, stems from the manufacturing industry.

Spend analysis in different categories and sectors

Automation changes the world. Whereas bookkeepers used to check boxes full of receipts and expense claims. Nowadays, this work is fully digital. Even accountancy, also subject to automation, is a changing profession. In this blog, we will look specifically at the accountant’s position in SMEs in 2017.

Has automation made the accountant in SMEs redundant?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution consists of a combination of different technologies. A few of them will also have an impact on the finance function. Below three such technologies.

Three emerging technologies that will affect the finance function

Robotic Accounting promises a future in which humans can engage in useful things, while the robot takes over all the repetitive things. (Here's how the robot does that) In this blog we are going to discuss where Robotic Accounting can be used and how we are able to do invoice automation using robotics.

Robotic Accounting

What about archiving and the obligation to retain digital invoices, but also scans of paper invoices?

Obligation to retain (digital) invoices

Touchless accounting can save you 100% time when processing invoices. The technology is fully available. What’s left is the question: Is the organization ready to let go and trust robots to do the work?

Lights out! Touchless accounting

Online invoice processing saves you time. On the one hand because with online invoice processing you no longer lose invoices, on the other hand thanks to Optical Character Recognition (OCR). We explain how you can save time with OCR software.

OCR software saves you a lot of time

Is doing something twice efficient? Probably not. Do you still waste time coding your invoices? My guess is yes. Automate the entire purchase-to-pay process and stop wasting precious time.

Automatic invoice matching eliminates duplicate actions

Invoice processing: many roads lead to Rome, but with OCR-as-a-Service you can get there quickly, safely and comfortably. In this blog, we explain how that works.

Optimal invoice processing with OCR-as-a-Service

The familiar road is often the easiest. Workflows that function well in their current form do not immediately ask for a review. It works, right? Why tinker when everyone is satisfied? Yet routine and familiarity can be your pitfall. There is a considerable difference between effective and efficient.

Workflow efficiency as competitive advantage

Cloud computing is a combination of technologies that make up a network for the delivery of computing services. It requires hardware for infrastructural purposes and software to deliver the on-demand services over the internet. Users of cloud services are not actively involved in the management of the network.

What exactly is cloud computing?

How pleasant it is when applications can be customized and refined, even after launching, without involvement of a developer? Very pleasant in our experience! In this blog, therefore, everything about rapid application development.

Rapid application development is this flexible

A digital invoice is usually a PDF or Word file that is sometimes a scanned paper invoice. An e-invoice contains structured data, so it is easier for a computer to comprehend and book automatically.

What is the difference between digital and electronic invoices?

Imagine what it would be like to automatically convert your Excel file into an order that is then digitally approved and paid without any manual intervention once all the goods have arrived. That would probably save a lot of time. And that is why we build it.

Excel order list automatically processed, approved and paid

Excel can do a lot, low-code platforms can do more. Even though spreadsheets seem to be easy to use and function undoubtedly in the way it is intended, security risks are an inherent part of this way of work. And does Excel really work as efficiently as you think? In this blog: Excel vs low-code platforms.

Excel vs Low-code Platforms: Choose the safest option

The Onventis low-code platform is specifically aimed at creating workflow applications. Our multi-device and cross-platform solutions improve productivity, transparency, and accountability. It ultimately uncovers precious activity that adds value to your business.

Workflow Concepts

Year’s end is in sight again. That means hot chocolate, holiday festivities, and making budgets for the coming year. That is probably a familiar list to many. One of those things is not necessarily fun for anyone and that’s why we offer a solution.

Manage budgets without the hassle

Strategic spending increases an organization’s profitability and makes budgets last much longer. But how do you transform from no organized procure to pay process to a full-fledged money-saver?

3 areas of improvement for the procure to pay process

Cloud computing has indefinitely changed the way we interact with companies and colleagues. International teams work together as if they’re in the same room. And yet, plenty of organizations refuse to adopt the cloud and its magnitude of possibilities.

The advantages of invoice processing in the cloud

The modern Financial Director is not just someone with number sense. They rarely attribute their experience as the main reason for success. Instead, a proactive attitude and strong people skills are the essential traits of a good FD.

4 Important Soft Skills for a Financial Director (in 2030)

Digital invoice processing continues to get cheaper. According to an annual survey by Billentis e-invoices went down from EUR 10.90 in 2012 to only EUR 4.50 in 2016.

Digital invoice processing is now up to 59% cheaper than paper invoicing

Managing contracts becomes increasingly complex as the organization grows. Before you know it, large numbers of contracts are stipulated with preferred suppliers. With no system in place, the overview gets lost and out of control, resulting in an inefficient and costly process.

6 Benefits of Contract Management Software

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a popular method of digitizing printed invoices. There are two flavors of OCR that differ in the degree of automation and responsibility. We call them OCR-on-Premise and OCR-as-a-Service.

OCR in Finance speeds up invoice processing

With the rise of robotics it is expected that the job market will change significantly. Will the job administrative assistant still exist in 20 years? Or are the robots going to take over?

Will robots replace the Administrative Assistant?

The current legislative landscape for data protection across the European Union is fragmented, causing confusion to organizations and individuals. This will drastically change when in May 2018 a new European privacy law is due to take effect.

An introduction to the General Data Protection Regulation

The short answer is perfectly put by Wikipedia. It’s a concise explanation that is not entirely comprehensive. So let’s dive a bit deeper.

What is an application platform as a service? (aPaaS)

Bureaucracy is synonym to administrative burden, and yet, a long time ago bureaucracy was proposed as the perfect organizational structure. What happened and, more importantly, what does the future have in hold for bureaucracy?

Bureaucracy is dead. Long live bureaucracy.

Last week we wrote about the rise of the accounting robots and how this will change the landscape of the finance department in 2020. But what is that, robotic accounting? And what’s in it for you as a financial? We figured it out for you.

What is Robotic Accounting?

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