commonsku (PPAI 552077), a business and sales software provider for the promotional products industry based in Toronto, Ontario, has introduced a new integration with PromoStandards that allows for live product data and electronic purchase orders (ePOs).

ePOs are intended to prevent suppliers from having to re-key orders from commonsku customers. For distributors on commonsku, ePOs means eliminating multiple touchpoints on order follow-up, resulting in quicker turn-times while reducing errors.

David Shultz, commonsku’s vice president of supplier partnerships, says that this step marks the most significant advancement in commonsku’s vision for a connected workflow. Shultz adds, “We can’t overstate just how important this moment is for overall supply chain efficiency for both suppliers and distributors. ePOs are the strongest link in the chain, allowing the effortless transfer of accurate, live data, from ideation to orders to production to invoicing without compromising the accuracy on any order.”

commonsku customers will now see a “Send ePO” option for all ePO enabled suppliers. alphabroder is the first supplier to take advantage of the feature but more will come. David Clifton, chief marketing officer at alphabroder, says, “We are thrilled to make this dream a reality through commonsku. By being able to receive purchase orders electronically from commonsku customers, thousands of purchase orders will now automatically populate in our system, making our response to commonsku orders quicker and more accurate, ePOs represent a new era for real-time processing.”

Catherine Graham, commonsku’s CEO, adds, “This development has an unprecedented impact on a distributor’s efficiency. Practically speaking, there are currently, on average, eight manual follow-up interactions between distributors and suppliers on each order, multiply that times the number of orders you process in a year and you have an incredible amount of time saved on order follow up. Moreover, 66 percent of all orders received by suppliers from distributors are either missing information or have incorrect information. With ePOs, we’re finally achieving full-scale, accurate automation through every touchpoint on every part of the order, which means distributors can worry less, sell more, and finally scale their business for maximum growth.”