Top 7 tip on choosing your GSA Order Management System

If you are serious about succeeding with your GSA contract you must embrace efficiency from the start, if you don’t you may run the risk at best of eventually playing catchup with no serious consequences  or at worse missing GSA orders, angering customers due to delays or inefficiencies and slowly destroying your reputation or brand.

If you’re thinking of acquiring a GSA contract then please also read The GSA Ordering Guide, this will give you extra insight into what the GSA expect from their contractors and if you want to know where government employees buy their products from click on this link:“Simply search GSA Global Supply® online ordering”.

• What is an OMS or ERP?
• What are the benefits of using an OMS or ERP?
• Top 10 tips on choosing your gsa orderingor ERP

What is an OMS or ERP?

An OMS (Order Management System) is best described as central location for managing incoming orders and streamline the fulfilment process by automating repetitive and time-consuming task for example manually copying and pasting your orders from PDFs into the various systems to complete the order cycle or facilitating access to the latest price and availability from your suppliers.An ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) is similar in nature to an OMS, but also refers to software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as client notifications, market research, reporting, accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, supply chain operations and can include an OMS.

What are the benefits of using an OMS or ERP?

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency! This is the biggest feature of an OMS or ERP.

Accuracy

• Whilst human error is something we all have to live with on a daily basis, we can mitigate this by automating manual,  repetitive and tedious tasks. Having the right software will increase accuracy.

Order fulfilment Speed

• The longer it takes your company to process an order the longer it will take for the order to be fulfilled, an OMS can speed this process up many times over and get that order to your customer .. pronto!

Centralization of all the component parts of your business

• Whether using an OMS or ERP, having all your quotes, orders, invoices, payment processing, suppliers, customer contacts, reporting, market intelligence all in one place saves your valuable time. Who want to log into several different disjointed systems when you can have it all in one place? 

Top 10 tips on choosing your gsa orderingor ERP

1. Cloud-based order management software

In this age of work from anywhere you need to have the ability to check your incoming orders from anywhere, choosing a cloud based system give you the ability to work on the go.

As your business grows your OMS/ERP should also have the ability to grow with you. Cloud based systems tend to have the ability of being easily scalable.

Just think, no more complicated setups or upgrading you’re backend with on premiss computing.

2. Integrating with all major platforms where orders come from: GSA order portal, DOD order portal, DLA order portal, order fulfilment, payment gateways, vendors, and inventory management

Having a dependable and comprehensive management system is paramount, consider this when choosing: 

• Does it connect to all the portals that I need to connect to? (e.g. GSA purchase order portal)
• How are orders presented? 
• How would I choose which supplier to buy from? 
• Can I split orders easily so I can I fulfil an order from 2 suppliers (or 3)? 
• How does the OMS/ERP handle credit card payments?
• How do I keep my vendor pricing and availability up to date?
• Can I set up auto notifications for my clients when throughout the order life cycle?

The questions are endless, take 10 min before talking to an OMS/ERP seller and really drill down the questions you want answers to.

1. Shipping management and order tracking

• Your order management system should allow you to integrate as many shipping services as you need. Look for plenty of options for direct and multi-courier integrations all managed from a single platform.
• The ability to track and monitor orders may be the most important basic function of an OMS. When the warehouse picks, packs, and ships products, your order management system should send a notification to the customer that their order has shipped.

2. Multichannel management

• Your OMS/ERP should be able to integrate with your sales channels in one user interface, giving you access to a complete view of your orders and data. This will reduce errors in moving data around from one system to another.
• Your customers are all over the US, and in some cases abroad, having this capability to hand can be costly, so look for your best fit – PriceReporter has this exact capability, and much more at a cost that even small to medium sized businesses can afford. 

3. Brand management

• Making sure you can customise your quotes, invoices, order status notifications etc. is very important, firstly for brand recognition and for the professional touch. 
• Look for an OMS/ERP that allows you to create your own email templates, brand your quotes and invoices.

4. Scalability

• Look for a system that will grow with you at a predictable cost. Bill shock is all too common these days, ask your potential OMS/ERP provider some “What will…” questions like:
• What will be the monthly costs be if we double our orders?
• What will the overage charges be if we go over out order allowance for the month?
• How much do you charge for connecting to [your vendor(s) here]?
• Make sure that all overage charges are explained and written into the contract you sign.

1. Automation

• Having the ability to automate your order life cycle is not only time and resource efficient but also a vital tool to keep costs down.
• Look for an OMS/ERP that allows you to be control different levels of automation of your order life cycle. PriceReporter QuickSales ERP lets you set the level of automation you are comfortable with; want to go full auto? No problem give us a call or ping us an email and we’ll demo all this and more!

Here are Price Reporter we have developed our own proprietary Order Management Solution called QuickSales designed especially for GSA Contractors to offer exceptional services to government customers.

We understand the GSA because that’s what we live, breath and dream. We are passionate about winning your business and keeping you efficient!

QuickSales not only performs what I have listed as top 7 tips, but much. Ask us for a demo and start as you mean to go on, in control and running at 100%.