Slingshot has long supported corporate credit cards as a payment method.  Corporate credit cards reduce transactional costs by taking the purchasing department out of the loop.  Payments are consolidated by bank or payment processor (typically one check per month), a further savings.  The use of PCards comes with tradeoffs.  Less review prior to purchase introduces some risk.

Reconciliation and review processes post-purchase can consume some of the cost savings and create a bottleneck when the statement due date approaches.  Slingshot has introduced a series of capabilities to address these issues and ensure your company gets the full benefit of its PCard program.     

Slingshot’s Connect module accepts PCard charges from the bank daily.  The charges are immediately added to a statement (one per card).  The responsible users (typically the PCard holders) receive an email notification letting them know charges await review and acceptance.  A new menu item allows them to conveniently complete this task as soon as the charge is received minimizing the end of cycle bottleneck.  An explanation is required for each charge along with either a reference to a GL account or a PO line (value match type).  A single PCard charge can be split to multiple GL accounts or PO lines.

Form for reconciling charges received daily

Charges can also be flagged as “in dispute”.  This create a separate workflow for tracking the resolution of this issue.  Documents (e.g. invoices or receiving documentation) can be attached as well.

When the statement is complete (on or after the statement cutoff date) the card holder confirms acceptance of all charges, verifies the statement total, and submits the monthly statement.  The statement can be vouchered automatically or routed for approval.  

The settlement flow can be adjusted based on your agreement with your payment processor.  The charges can be immediately deducted from your cash balance (reflecting same day settlement) or can be posted to the payment processor’s account for payment after the statement cutoff date.

For more information contact your Slingshot support representative at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Slingshot announces a new “self-service” requisition entry process for its eRequest product.  Its familiar interface allows users to quickly and conveniently request material or services with no training.

The new pages were modeled after shopping experiences found on popular consumer web sites including amazon.com.  According to Slingshot’s CEO Paul Carr -  “Most requisitioning software is embedded in an ERP system and adopts its user interface. Requisitioners are often infrequent users of the company’s ERP software and therefore require training to enter a requisition.  By modeling our system after popular consumer sites, we give the requisitioner a familiar experience and eliminate the training requirement.  The end result is broad adoption and added efficiency.”

Main Page

The new entry page allows a user to select items from a catalog or a shopping list, search items by description, or shop on a supplier’s web site (aka Punch Out).  If the item is not found, the user can add it as a “one-time” item.  These options are accessed by clicking large buttons that appear on the top of every shopping form.  Pictures showing recently ordered items allow the user to reorder with one click.  Popular product categories can also be accessed directly.

Catalog

Hover over the Catalog button and a catalog panel will appear.  Move the mouse over the main categories and up to three levels of categories will appear.  Click a category and select products with one click.

Shopping Cart

As items are added to the shopping cart an item count is incremented.  Hover over the cart and the cart’s contents appear along with the estimated cost of all items.  Remove items from the cart or proceed to checkout.  

Slingshot’s order management applications (Purchasing, Requisitioning and CRM) now allow any document (e.g. Purchase Order, Quotation or Acknowledgement) to be “versioned”.  

In many procurement environments a high volume of routine small dollar approvals creates a bottleneck.  The requests are stuck until the approver realizes a procurement requires review and takes the steps necessary to grant approval.  Time spent on these routine approvals is time taken away from larger procurements which require careful scrutiny.