Source-to-Pay for Professional Services
Professional service providers often operate across multiple locations, business units, or entities. Each has its own suppliers, workflows, and sometimes even its own systems. This leads to fragmented spend, inconsistent procurement policies, and a finance department working much harder than it needs to.
Control over procurement from order to payment
HR service providers, financial service providers, media companies, and facility management organizations don't buy off-the-shelf products. They procure people, expertise, and systems. That makes their procurement process fundamentally different and often much harder to manage.
Professional service providers work with multiple locations, business units, or entities. Each with its own suppliers, workflows, and sometimes its own systems. The result: fragmented spend, inconsistent procurement policies, and a finance department working harder than necessary.
A well-designed S2P process provides the structure to break this cycle, without compromising the speed and flexibility that drive their business.
Smart procurement, ordering, and payment for consultancy, financial services, media, and facility management organizations. We know it inside out.
Challenges for Professional Service Providers
Three challenges every professional service provider recognizes in procurement and finance
Our approach for professional service providers
- Requirements analysis for Procurement, Finance, Business, and IT combined
- Procurement channel strategy for direct and indirect purchases
- Guidance on P2P or S2P software selection that integrates with existing ERP or financial systems
- Process design for supplier communication, order confirmations, and 2- or 3-way matching
- Project management for implementations with P2P impact
- Setting up supplier management and contract administration
- Training and adoption for procurement professionals, finance staff, and requisitioners
Organizations such as ING, Athora, Vebego, and Talpa Network partner with us to future-proof their procurement and payment processes. Each with its own complexities: multiple entities, large numbers of suppliers, industry-specific systems, and high expectations from finance and compliance.
Our approach begins with a collaborative analysis of how procurement functions across departments, locations, and systems. We then guide the selection of an S2P or P2P platform that aligns with your organization and integrates with the systems you already use: from SAP and Oracle to AFAS, Exact, Proactis, or industry-specific platforms.
We design the process so that even employees who don't deal with procurement daily can easily and correctly place orders. No workarounds, no emails to accounts payable, and no invoices that don't match what was ordered.
We set up contract and supplier management professionally, ensuring agreements with preferred suppliers are utilized rather than renegotiated with every order. And as you grow or expand into new entities, the process simply scales with you.
Our processes
What does S2P optimization deliver for professional service providers?
Employees can order quickly and accurately, finance finally has insight into actual spending, and procurement can focus on managing contracts instead of putting out fires.
- Full integration between P2P processes and existing ERP systems. Including industry-specific solutions
- Less manual work for order confirmations and invoice processing
- Faster and more accurate 2-way or 3-way matching of purchase orders, receiving reports, and invoices
- Greater control over spend, liabilities, and supplier contracts across all locations
- Better collaboration between Procurement, Finance, and the business
- A process that scales as you expand into multiple entities or new markets
Professional service providers require flexible processes that align with their way of working, as well as systems that integrate seamlessly with their existing IT landscape. S2P & More understands this context and helps organizations gain control without sacrificing speed.
Let's connect
We advise facility management organizations, HR service providers, financial service providers, media companies, and numerous other professional service firms on optimizing their Source-to-Pay processes. Schedule a no-obligation consultation with Maarten, a S2P specialist with in-depth knowledge of the professional services sector, and discover where your opportunities lie.
