EBE Technologies and TruckOp.com have partnered to offer a new solution designed to reduce the costs of truck parts and improve purchasing efficiency.
TruckOp.com is a subscription based portal providing its members visibility to actual invoiced pricing, by supplier, of truck and trailer parts. Combined with EBE’s SHIPS workflow solutions, purchase orders (PO) for ordered parts will automatically be created, sent to the supplier and integrated to the carrier’s accounting system for better cost control and management of these purchases.
According to EBE, with the added visibility to pricing offers with this solution, fleets will have stronger negotiating power with local suppliers as well as cost effective purchasing alternatives.
Asset-based carriers will have the ability to create a PO for every part prior to, or at the time of, an order placement. The PO is then electronically sent to the supplier as well as the carrier’s accounts payable workflow solution where integration to the accounting and vehicle maintenance solutions occur.
The system offers more control and transparency to these purchases through an audit trail, holds suppliers accountable for agreed upon pricing and ensures that the relationships between buyers and suppliers are the most cost effective, EBE said.
“EBE created this solution based on comments from many of our carriers who expressed the challenges they face in managing the rising costs of maintenance parts. We were surprised to hear that so many companies either create a purchase order after the fact or not at all,” said Larry Kerr, president of EBE. “In many cases companies are purchasing millions of dollars in parts a year without standard accounting practice oversight. This process leaves carriers susceptible to paying higher costs from both untrustworthy suppliers and purchases from buyers whose long-term relationships with suppliers are not being scrutinized through independent pricing sources.”
The solution will eliminate those revenue leaks while providing the carrier with savings of as much as 75% in operational costs associated with a paper-based, manual accounts payable process, Kerr added.
According to EBE, when a buyer logs into TruckOp.com via an internet browser, a search is conducted for the specific part which then generates a results list of the suppliers and actual pricing for which the part was previously sold. The value of having transparency to the actual invoiced price, postures the buyer to either negotiate with their local dealer more aggressively, or purchase the part from the supplier listed through TruckOp.com.
Once the price is agreed upon, the buyer clicks on the “create PO icon.” Information is then auto-populated in the PO including the supplier’s contact information, the buyers “ship to” address and the negotiated pricing and quantity of the purchased item(s). The system then emails the PO to the supplier and imports the PO into the carrier’s account payable workflow. Once in workflow, the information can be integrated into the carrier’s vehicle maintenance and accounting solutions. When the invoice is received, it is then validated and processed for payment through the carrier’s accounts payable system and stored in the carrier’s imaging system.