Cost reduction and streamlining are necessities driven by the twin pressures of rising demand for housing and funding constraints. Purchase-to-pay and procurement systems have a crucial role to play and have been a particular area of interest for housing providers’ finance departments in recent years.
According to a recent survey from Lake Financial Systems, investment in systems for electronic purchasing and document management has been particularly strong. These kinds of systems have achieved near universal adoption among housing providers with 1,000 or more homes.
That being so, what is the likely focus of investment in the future? The answer may be in the growing trend for systems to manage employee expenses due to the time and cost of processing expense claims for large numbers of people. Expense claim management systems help improve budgetary control, simplify workflows and ensure adherence to corporate policies.
The survey also indicates that there is scope for further investment in procurement software. Currently the preserve of the larger organisations, there is now growing interest among housing providers of all sizes.
