Coupa vs. SAP Ariba Contracts

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.

SAP Ariba Contract Management contract management is well suited for complex service engagements as it can adapt to any level of complexity, and it provides flexibility to incorporate different milestones and pricing terms For simple and low-value contracts, it is too advanced as few of the elements cannot be skipped, making it more complex.

• 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

• SAP Ariba has Ariba Supply Chain Network that makes Suppliers/Vendors/Buyers onboarding very easy. Ariba Contract Management is very well integrated with Ariba network and hence sharing contractual documents and information are very easy.
• SAP Ariba provide integration with SAP ERP which takes out the effort needed to integrate Ariba with SAP.
• Ariba exposes API and ITK to do integration if your ERP is none SAP.

Incentivized

• 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

• the numbering is limited to contract workspace or CW#, if it is used to RFP, numbers can be RFP# and not CW#
• for extension, it is nice to have a alphanumeric than numeric only
• contract term attributes does not need to have an email recipient , the budget owner & issuer are the email recipients

Incentivized

Based on its stability as a leading procurement solution, SAP Ariba Contract Management's contract management provides enhanced efficiency with the ability to build templates to suit your needs, enhanced contract authoring that provides efficiency in the process with digital signature is a perfect tool, any organization would like to have.

Overall support has been reasonable with SAP Ariba Contract Management, however, I would have preferred localized support as it will have a better connection in the EMEA region.

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

This was the program that our vendors selected so we have used this one. I had a client that used Beeline but that felt clunky compared to SAP Ariba Contract Management. You had a lot more hoops to jump through with Beeline. SAP Ariba Contract Management definitely is easier to use

Incentivized

• 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

• Easier contract management means less time focused on looking for information and more time negotiating.
• Alerts on contract expiration which allows you to negotiate on time.

Incentivized