Coupa Release 12 revolutionises supplier engagement, expands global compliance and enhances its recently introduced Inventory application
LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–October 16, 2014–
COUPA INSPIRE EMEA––Coupa Software, a leading provider of cloud financial applications, today announced a major new update, Coupa Release 12, which disrupts traditional supplier business network concepts to further consumerise business-to-business transactions between buyers and suppliers, creating efficiencies and eliminating costs while meeting the most stringent global regulations.
Release 12 adds functionality to Coupa’s unified suite and introduces an open business network approach that leverages native email functionality to take the friction out of business-to-business commerce. Additional improvements include streamlined global compliance, intelligent inventory and over 72 enhancements touching everything from analytics to mobility – further emphasising Coupa’s commitment to Savings-as-a-Service.
Reimagining the Business Network
Legacy business networks engage fewer than 30 percent of a given customer’s suppliers because such networks are difficult to join, inflexible and are expensive to use. The buyer is often left struggling with the cost, time and effort of paper processes for the remaining 70 percent of their suppliers. Buyers spend even more time and money on endless supplier enablement efforts that fail to achieve promised returns on investment.
Coupa’s Release 12 introduces a break from this ineffective cycle required by other business networks and portals that force registration, contracts and transaction fees. With Coupa’s new patent pending Supplier Actionable Notifications, buyers can transact with their suppliers directly via email without having to register on a business network and with no supplier fees. Supplier Actionable Notification functionality is available for purchase orders, electronic invoices, invoice status and payment tracking.
Coupa also announced that for the first time, customers can use Coupa’s open Business Network to layer on top of their existing technology – including third party systems such as Oracle iProcurement, SAP SRM, OpenText Invoice Management and others. The Coupa Business Network can significantly increase the value of these third party systems for companies not looking to change their existing PO or Invoice approval process.
“We focus on delivering success through an open business network model that connects 100 percent of our customers’ suppliers,” said Raja Hammoud, vice president of Product Marketing and Management at Coupa. “Business networks that force buyers and suppliers into rigid, transaction fee-based portals only capture less than 30 percent of a customers’ suppliers. Now any enterprise can benefit from Coupa’s fresh and modern approach to the open business network, whether they use Coupa for the source-to-pay and expense cycle or use a third-party procurement or invoicing system.”
New supplier and invoice features include:
- Supplier Actionable Notifications: Without registering on a network, suppliers can create invoices, acknowledge purchase orders and add comments to documents directly from email. The conversation thread is automatically updated in Coupa. The supplier can also use the Coupa Supplier Network to perform these functions, however now the supplier has the choice to switch between either as needed. Suppliers using Coupa do not pay any fees to transact with their buyers.
- Instant Communications: Suppliers and customers can use the power of Coupa to instantly post comments to discuss catalogues, purchase orders, and invoices. No registration is required for suppliers.
- Automatically Emailed Invoice Updates: Coupa now automatically emails invoice status updates to suppliers. These suppliers no longer have to log in to a network to check status or call accounts payable (AP) departments with inquiries. Real-time status is also visible to suppliers via the Coupa Supplier Network.
- Shared Invoice Inbox: For any suppliers that will not use Supplier Actionable Notifications, cXML or EDI to invoice, an enhanced shared AP inbox within Coupa helps manage AP’s PDF invoice queue.
Benefit Globally, Comply Locally
Complying with regulations has traditionally been a challenge for multi-national corporations. Regulatory requirements – from privacy protection to value-added taxes – vary from country to country and are critical to every corporation. With Release 12, Coupa provides additional compliance features in its organic suite, giving customers the freedom to transact electronically on a global scale with the confidence of knowing they comply with local regulations.
“Coupa has been invaluable in helping us gain visibility into our spend and reduce our costs by providing a unified spend platform that is easy to use and deploy,” said Mike Van Gerven, Head of Procurement, NEC EMEA. “We’re looking forward to implementing Coupa’s global compliance features which will further help us cut costs and increase efficiency when doing business with our thousands of suppliers in over 17 countries.”
New compliance features include:
- Additional Archiving and Digital Signatures: Archiving services are now available in over 50 countries. In addition, digital signature technology has been seamlessly embedded, letting global customers instantly confirm and prove the authenticity and integrity of electronic invoices. Enhanced compliance services have been applied consistently so that no matter how suppliers send invoices, from Supplier Actionable Notifications to cXML to network, their buyers have compliance confidence.
- Improved Auditability: Original electronic invoices, provided in PDF format, are now available in a clear, complete and easy-to-read format. The PDFs provide a complete audit trail.
- HIPAA Compliance: Coupa is now able to store private healthcare information within its suite in full compliance with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). This includes increased security for both “data at rest” and “data in transit.”
Intelligent Inventory Extends the Coupa Organic Suite
With Coupa Inventory, companies can save even more by optimising their inventory. Lack of visibility into current inventory often results in redundant spend. Coupa gives employees the power and visibility to order directly from inventory while still letting the administrator determine the selection behavior. The result is eliminating redundant spend, streamlined stock management and real-time actionable insights on existing inventory.
New Inventory features include:
- User-Guided Ordering: Inventory is now part of the Coupa buying experience for employees. Rules can be configured by the business, without development, to prioritize and guide users to order from on-site inventory – and even specific stockrooms.
- Streamlined Stock Management: Streamline the stockroom with automatic pick lists, decrement of inventory and reorder alerts. Customers gain visibility into stock with cycle counts, have approval management for discrepancies and can view a complete audit trail.
- Gain Actionable Insights: Dashboards automatically display stock-outs, over-ordering, workflow and trends. User-configurable triggers alert users to review frequent adjustments as well.
Full Suite Analytics
Now customers can leverage the power of Coupa Analytics organically across four times more Coupa business objects. By extending the analytics data layer across the unified Coupa suite, customers gain actionable insights across their full spend. Coupa customers enjoy naturally clean data that feeds analytics organically so they don’t need to waste money on post-spend data cleansing efforts.
Anytime, Any Device Mobility
Coupa Expenses supports the latest in iOS 8 features including speech commands. Expense reports can be automatically created through voice. Push notifications for invoice approvals are now also available in iOS 8. Additionally, the mobile app for Android has been newly upgraded. The Coupa platform is 100% mobile natively, with no app required, to give employees and suppliers the flexibility of choice.
The Coupa Release 12 announcements above were made at Coupa’s annual Coupa INSPIRE EMEA ’14 conference in London. The conference provides a full day of in-depth learning, collaboration and sharing of best practice experience. It features keynote presentations from leading industry specialists including Coupa, NetSuite, Sanofi, Deloitte, KPMG and Accenture. It enables delegates to take part in practical workshops led by procurement practitioners with first-hand experience of implementing Coupa’s financial suite including eircom, Home Retail Group, Liberty Global International, Royal Ahold, Bourne Leisure, NEC Europe and TD Direct Investing.
About Coupa Software
Coupa Software is the leading provider of cloud-based financial applications. More than 450 customers headquartered in over 40 countries use the Coupa suite to increase business efficiencies and reduce costs. Only Coupa provides a unified suite of true cloud applications for finance, including accounts payable, sourcing, procurement and expense management that allows customers to realize a return on their investment within a few months and savings that continually impact the bottom line. Learn more at www.coupa.com. Read more at our company blog, Making Cents or follow @Coupa on Twitter.
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