Acquirell vs. Coupa

It is most appropriate to utilize Acquirell for processing the purchase orders with vendors. If you don't want to onboard the vendors into the system you may easily generate the POs in PDF. Acquirell includes amazing capabilities for running RFI, RFQ, and RFP events. It is very easy to manage purchase requisitions in a single system. Also, the tool is a good fit to manage the complex approval workflow. It is less appropriate to utilize Acquirell for managing contracts because instead of simply editing the text of the contract you should play with the configurations of the contract in the system and fill out various fields

I am new to customer-supplier portals in my career. I use several different ones in my current role, including Ariba and Tipalti. To be honest, I don't really enjoy the user experience of any of them. I can see how larger companies may benefit from their services but for my current role submitting invoices on them and filling out vendor information requests seems somewhat clunky to me. When I'm in Coupa, the easiest, most non-clunky process for me is when I'm successfully connected with a customer who has successfully created their purchase order and I can easily upload my invoice to said PO. To me, emailing customer invoices directly to the customer from our invoicing system seems like the easier route of delivering an invoice. I suppose it is helpful and reassuring to know that an invoice has been successfully uploaded into a company's system rather than waiting to find out if your emailed invoice made it to the correct department for payment processing.

• Robust sourcing module with very flexible configurations is a great tool for running RFPs
• We can easily send POs to the suppliers via Acquirell
• The great Contract Management module lets us administrate the contracts easily
• We can easily handle the supplier database

• Coupa is easy to use, however, we had to teach our end users about procurement. They are not used to conducting an RFP, onboarding a supplier, or preparing a PO. This is the change management that our employees had to be prepared to understand. The Shelby Group helped us with the implementation.
• The hardest part was the integration between NetSuite and Coupa. We wanted to have a dynamic tight integration between the two solutions. If we adjusted the chart of accounts or added a new supplier we wanted it to be able to done in both systems and be available immediately in both systems. We used a partner called SuiteSkies to accomplish this dynamic integration.
• We’ve been able to manage the implementation and maintenance with a very lean IT group.

Incentivized

• Cannot edit the text of the contracts in the Contract Management module just like we were editing it in MS Word
• Accounts Payable is out of scope
• The Supplier Management module is "just okay". Acquirell team should develop features

• Support Team - A little slow in responding. I think the tool is so configurable that they struggle with figuring out what is causing certain issues that are being submitted on the portal.
• I'd love for the Sourcing Module to be able to support larger events. There seems to be a limit on the number of lines each event can support and as a growing retailer, our store count dictates we have room to grow and that each store is represented in the bid process.
• Would like to see the ability to issue multiple POs for a single item to multiple locations. The tool may do this but I know I can't and it may be due to how we interface with our ERP.

Incentivized

It really helps us to handle almost all our procurement activities (except the CLM process)

Acquirell team has conducted the Zoom sessions with us to explain and clarify all the details. Their manager Olivia and their product manager Dimitri were really approachable If there arise any issues related to working in the system the Acquirell team is always trying to respond ASAP

I haven't evaluated any other procurement solutions. Before implementing Acquirell we were using emails, Word, and Excel in our procurement processes. Overall, it is much more convenient to conduct procurement activities in Acquirell rather than to collect the bids via email and keep a bunch of Word or Excel files.

Concur was a lot easier and more user friendly for employees doing expense reports on their phone. That is not the case with Coupa. You must use your laptop to do expenses and our managers don't always have enough time to do that while out in the field working. This has caused some issues.

Incentivized

• Now the purchasing team saves a lot of time
• The number of errors has been reduced due to elimination of manual workflow
• Now we do not have to keep a lot of Word, Excel, or PDF files since most of the procurement data is stored in Acquirell. Therefore the data does not get lost

• It has allowed for proper processing of expenses tied directly to the proper LOB and GL Codes
• Has taken the guesswork away and allowed for the proper budgets to be hit and reconciled
• Ease of use has led to mass adoption and more prompt processing of expenses

Incentivized