There is no hiding today’s inflationary pressure – not only on consumers but businesses as well. Nationally speaking, the price of gas is up to over $4 a gallon, and over $6 if you happen to live in California. Meat, produce, grain, labor, and housing have also increased tremendously. It is all around us and impacts nearly every good and/or service we depend on. The Consumer Price Index increased 8.5% for the year ending March 2022, reaching levels that have not been seen since the 70’s and early 80’s. If we are willing to learn from history, we can look at the response in the past, and apply this to our modern-day lives. In this article, we’ll show you some ways that you can help fight inflation through Office 365 automation.
Lessons From the Past
While there are lots of memories from dealing with inflation in the 70’s that are painful, such as high mortgage rates and the energy crisis, there are others that are empowering lessons. Let’s take cars for example. Prior to the gas shortages, muscle cars were the ride of choice. That all shifted to favor more fuel-efficient transportation such as the VW Beetle. The Beetle got better gas mileage than the American ‘landships’, cost under $2k new, and still got you around town in a dependable fashion. This change became a source of identity and liberation for a large percentage of the population. It wasn’t a feeling of sacrifice, but rather pride in frugality.
Modern Day Answers
Fast forward to 2022 when we are presented with very similar challenges. How do we respond? Being that this blog is being written by a business software company, efficiency is the name of the game. We need to do more with less through the magic word – automation. If employees are hard to find, and wages are through the roof, how do we do more with what we have? This is where Office 365 comes to play. Not only do most of us already have a subscription, but the platform offers endless opportunities for business process automation and efficiencies. This is the home that provides the framework for all of DynamicPoint’s applications.
DynamicPoint Apps and Office 365
All of DynamicPoint’s products leverage Office 365 including such products as SharePoint, Power Automate, Power Apps, and Power BI. We offer three solutions covering Customer and Vendor Portals, AP Invoice Automation, and Employee Expense Management. Let’s briefly look at each of these apps and see how they can provide automation in areas that we most likely desperately need it.
Customer and Vendor Portal
Want to save your customers and vendors from calling, emailing, and tying up support resources to get information? Provide them with a 24/7 self-service SharePoint portal. Automate time-consuming business processes such as contract renewal, vendor onboarding, and RFP management. More can be found on our product page.
AP Invoice Automation
Still receiving paper invoices, manually coding, obtaining approval with email, and hand typing into your ERP or accounting system for payment? DynamicPoint’s EasyAP365 invoice automation app uses SharePoint document storage, Power Automate workflows, OCR, and real-time ERP integration to digitally receive and process vendor invoices. More can be found on our product page.
Employee Expense Management
Are your employees filling out an Excel template for detailing their expenses, and attaching receipts to email to seek reimbursement for their travel or home office expenses? DynamicPoint’s EasyEXP365 leverages Power Apps mobile interfaces, integrated OCR, and Power Automate workflows to capture, code, and route employee out-of-pocket and corporate credit card expenditures for financial coding and reimbursement. More can be found on our product page.
In Conclusion
As you can see, not all of our experiences of inflation have to be painful. We can use this opportunity to clean house of inefficiencies and use what we already own to enable automation. Not only does this save time and money, but it also allows us to focus on more valuable endeavors and remove the mundane from our daily tasks. Learn more at dynamicpoint.com or schedule a demo to hear how we can put these solutions to work for your organization.
