Top 7 Benefits of Choosing an Apparel ERP With a Vendor Portal

Amid today’s industry challenges, your fashion and apparel business is likely looking for ways to tame supply chain complexity and streamline processes while increasing visibility. One of the most important steps in this endeavor is to optimize alignment with vendors and contractors.

That’s where a purpose-built apparel enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with an integrated, configurable vendor portal comes in—offering more efficient and up-to-date collaboration with your suppliers.

Having a one-stop platform for vendors to see their assigned purchase orders, documents, notes and instructions is just the start. Add to that, the ability to provide confirmations, approvals, task progression updates, exchange relevant communication, post shipment notifications, attach invoices and generate labels.

A fully integrated vendor portal takes collaboration and automation further by sending real-time purchase orders, timeline and status updates directly to your apparel ERP system for company-wide visibility. Moreover, a web-based solution allows you to work interactively with factories and contractors—with them being able to easily and quickly respond whether overseas or next door—from the office or on the road or anywhere in between with an internet connection. Through one global application, you’re ensured better product turn-around, proactive management of your supply chain and a healthier bottom line.

It’s clear then, that a robust, industry-specific ERP for apparel that includes a vendor portal can provide significant benefits right out of the virtual box. Let’s now dive into the seven biggest benefits for seamless vendor management.

1. Quick Supplier Onboarding

For most businesses, the supplier onboarding process is manual and can take days to complete. That’s why web-based vendor portals are becoming the secret weapon for achieving quick supplier onboarding. Gone are the days of day-long manual processes. Instead, a vendor management portal makes onboarding easy because it’s simple, fast and completely automated.

Secure, one-time credential authentication grants suppliers immediate access to a user-friendly portal. Imagine new vendors being set up and ready to go within minutes, not days. This efficiency translates to faster time to market for your business. With suppliers onboarded quickly, you can secure resources, initiate production and get your products or services out the door faster.

Furthermore, a true value vendor portal automates much of the onboarding process, ensuring accurate supplier information end-to-end within the system once entered. Easily accommodate onboarding new suppliers as your business grows—allowing you to quickly scale your supply chain to meet new demand.

2. Better Visibility and Faster Turnaround

The need to make calls or send e-mails for important information such as production statuses is drastically reduced with a vendor portal. Suppliers are able to provide real-time updates via notes and production stage statuses anytime, no matter where they are located. It’s this convenience that makes the portal an impactful source of visibility.

See exactly where your orders are in the production process while having better collaboration and communication with your suppliers which can help to identify and address potential problems early on. Completed tasks are also promptly updated in your apparel ERP, providing immediate visibility organization-wide while eliminating the need to manually add or change dates and shipment data between systems.

Beyond order tracking, your business can gain visibility into a supplier's certifications, past performance on quality control metrics and even their production capacity. This real-time data allows for informed sourcing decisions and risk mitigation strategies.

Imagine identifying a potential bottleneck in a supplier's production line well before it impacts your delivery timeline. With a vendor portal, proactive communication can be initiated to explore solutions and ensure on-time shipments.

3. Streamlined Operations With Self-Service

A vendor portal is a tremendous self-service tool that allows your suppliers access to view, update and generate information anytime day or night. They can see their purchase orders, update key status information in real time, submit their invoices, generate labels, print UPCs, view and update spec packs and perform a multitude of relevant tasks—all autonomously.

This ability to “self-serve” promotes faster communication exchange, contributing to a substantial reduction in emails and time-consuming tasks such as continual back and forth messaging. Giving suppliers the ability to easily self-serve gives them—and your internal staff —time to concentrate on improving processes and products.

Moreover, the self-service ability significantly enhances the accuracy and reliability of the data being exchanged. By allowing suppliers to input and update their information directly, you reduce the risk of errors that often arise from manual data entry and miscommunication. So not only are all parties working with the most current and correct information, but you’re also reducing the likelihood of costly mistakes.

4. Third Party Data Validation

Once you collect data from your suppliers, you may need to reach out to several third parties to validate that data. This includes submissions to private entities like D&B or Experian and others such as the IRS for TIN validation, the Office of the Inspector General or the Office of Foreign Assets and Controls.

A vendor portal makes this much easier with innate data validation and information more accessible with advanced filtering and sorting capabilities so you can quickly locate what you want.

Not only do easier validation processes ensure data accuracy and improved visibility, but they can also help you comply with industry regulations requiring you to complete thorough checks and maintain accurate records.

5. Increased Process Automation

Process automation is critical in the fashion and apparel industry to reduce the time spent on repetitive and manual tasks—significantly improving accuracy and productivity. Good vendor management software should enable these efficiency gains by automating the procurement and bidding process as well as helping you track supply chain stages easily.

A vendor portal should also integrate seamlessly with your system of record, your apparel management software and with key applications like accounts payable and warehouse or third-party logistics (3PL) APIs, to effectively update relevant data.

Seamless updates mean true process automation and much more data integrity. The portal should also enhance collaboration through easy remote, web-based activity like inspections and product Q&A.

6. Better Informational Updates

Your buyers also receive compelling benefits from having a one-stop platform for vendors. Buyers can directly manage their own information and eliminate ineffective and time-consuming data exchange.

Portal usage significantly reduces administrative workload and redundant tasks through streamlined process automation. Because in an intense industry like fashion and apparel, capturing and updating important information should not be cumbersome or labor intense.

An effective portal supports detailed vendor notes, which can be associated with specific factories, purchase orders or production stages. Advanced search capabilities ensure that users can quickly find relevant information, improving efficiency and decision-making. Automated updates and notifications keep all stakeholders informed about critical changes, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and that potential issues are addressed promptly.

7. Automated Notifications

A robust vendor portal is also a scheduling and tickler device as it can be used to set up automatic notifications for important milestones and dates. Automatic notifications support proactive rather than reactive communication—especially relevant when there are delays.

Automatic apparel logistics notifications facilitate seamless receiving at your warehouse or 3PL, ensure target dates are met and allow your internal team to react more swiftly. Proactive, real-time notifications help you manage exceptions and mitigate risk, improving customer satisfaction and boosting efficiency.

Notifications also help to eliminate the onus on staff to monitor and track events and ensure all relevant stakeholders are informed in a timelier manner. Portal notifications can also be used as an effective broadcast mechanism to communicate more effectively and consistently with one or multiple vendors.

Transform Your Supply Chain Operations With Aptean’s Apparel ERP and Vendor Portal

Spending an enormous amount of time sifting through emails and shared folders for correspondence, images or techpacks is a thing of the past for both you and your supply chain partners with the right ERP coupled with vendor management software. All relevant documents, approvals, specs, images and correspondence are attached and housed within the portal right at your fingertips for immediate access. This means you have a centralized repository for a more efficient and streamlined production process.

With many of today's supply chain disruptions outside of your control, it's important to optimize what you can control to keep challenges to a minimum and maintain strong order fulfillment processes all around. That means leveraging the right apparel software solutions on your digital transformation journey to boost profitability and ensure future-proof success.

Many fashion organizations choose an ERP as their foundational solution because of its wide-reaching benefits and ability to provide a “single source of truth”. Enter Aptean. Our purpose-built apparel ERP is designed to solve your unique industry challenges straight out of the box and comes ready with an integrated vendor management portal so you can unlock all of the above benefits immediately.

The Aptean apparel software ecosystem—complete with electronic data interchange (EDI), shop floor control (SFC) software and a specialized product lifecycle management (PLM) system—allows you to have secure, reliable, integrated and effective collaboration across your operations. Whether it’s improving vendor relationships and streamlining supplier processes or optimizing design processes and production schedules, we’ve got you covered.

So, in these times of supply chain disruption and siloed third party exchanges, consider an integrated ERP with a vendor portal solution that can boost your business through improved supply chain collaboration.

Contact us today or schedule a personalized demo to learn how Aptean’s industry-leading apparel ERP can suit your business’s needs up and down the apparel and fashion supply chain.