Purchase Orders & Accounts Payable Automation for Municipalities

Reduce manual processing, improve audit readiness, and gain full visibility over municipal spending.

What we have to offer

FARMER Purchase Orders & Accounts Payable provides municipalities with a modern digital platform to manage purchase requests, purchase orders, supplier invoices, approvals, and financial coding.

It replaces email approvals, spreadsheets, paper invoices, and manual data entry with a structured workflow that ensures purchases are approved, invoices are verified, and payments are processed efficiently.

FARMER enables municipalities to control spending, reduce fraud risk, automate approvals, and maintain a complete audit-ready record of financial transactions.

What Problem Does FARMER Purchase Orders & Accounts Payable Solve?

Move into a controlled, transparent, audit-ready financial process.

Many municipalities struggle with:
  • Paper purchase requisitions
  • Email approvals
  • Suppliers emailing invoices to multiple staff
  • Manual invoice coding
  • Data entry into accounting systems
  • Spreadsheet tracking of budgets

This creates risk, delays, and unnecessary workload for municipal finance teams.

This creates several challenges:
  • Invoices arriving inconsistently across departments
  • Duplicate invoices or lost invoices
  • Manual coding errors requiring rework
  • Limited visibility into departmental spending
  • Budget overruns discovered after purchases occur
  • Significant staff time spent entering invoice data
  • Increased fraud risk from emailed invoices

FARMER solves these problems by digitizing the full purchasing and accounts payable workflow.

Municipal AP processes move from fragmented manual steps to a controlled, transparent, audit-ready financial process.

What are the Benefits of FARMER Purchase Orders & Accounts Payable?

Digital Purchase Orders with Budget Validation

Departments submit purchase requests digitally which automatically generate purchase orders once approved.

FARMER can check purchases against departmental budgets before the PO is issued.

Benefits:

✅ Prevents overspending against budgets
✅ Ensures purchases follow financial controls
✅ Improves financial visibility across departments
✅ Eliminates paper purchase orders

Structured Approval Workflows

Purchase orders and invoices follow structured approval paths.

Approvals can be based on:

✅ Department
✅ Role
✅ Financial value thresholds

Benefits:

✅ Governance-aligned financial approvals
✅ Reduced manual email coordination
✅ Faster purchasing decisions
✅ Clear accountability

Role-based and value-based approvals ensure compliance with municipal financial policies.

Controlled Invoice Intake

FARMER establishes a single controlled “front door” for invoices.

Invoices can be submitted through:

✅ Supplier upload portal
✅ Monitored AP email inbox
✅ Manual upload by staff

Benefits:

✅ Eliminates scattered invoice submissions
✅ Reduces risk of missed invoices
✅ Improves tracking and transparency

The system ensures every invoice begins with a consistent intake process.

Supplier Invoice Upload Portal

Suppliers receive a secure digital link to upload invoices directly into the system.

Benefits:

✅ Reduces fraud risk from email invoice attachments
✅ Eliminates invoices being sent to multiple staff
✅ Provides immediate visibility to finance teams
✅ Improves supplier experience

Intelligent Invoice Data Capture

FARMER uses intelligent data capture to extract key invoice details including:

✅ Vendor name
✅ Invoice date
✅ Totals and taxes
✅ Purchase order numbers
✅ Line item details

Benefits:

✅ Dramatically reduces manual data entry
✅ Improves accuracy and consistency
✅ Allows staff to validate rather than manually input data

AI data extraction shifts staff work from data entry to verification and control.

Guided Coding & Financial Controls

Invoices are coded using guided dropdown selections for:

✅ GL codes
✅ Cost centers
✅ Departments
✅ Tax schedules

Benefits:

✅ Reduces coding errors
✅ Ensures consistent financial classification
✅ Simplifies the coding process for staff

Audit-Ready Financial Records

Every purchase order and invoice maintains a complete audit trail including:

Approval history
Coding changes
Supporting documents
Workflow history

Benefits:

Simplifies audit preparation
Strengthens governance
Improves financial transparency

Digital Transformation Initiatives

Integrations

FARMER Purchase Orders & Accounts Payable integrates with common municipal financial systems.

Accounting Systems

Supports integration with systems such as:

• Microsoft Business Central
• Vadim iCity
• Diamond / Great Plains
• Other municipal ERP platforms

Benefits:

• Automated export of invoice data
• Reduced duplicate data entry
• Faster financial reconciliation

ERP integrations allow financial data to move directly into municipal accounting systems.

Records Management Systems

Supports integration with:

• Laserfiche
• SharePoint
• Enterprise records management platforms

Benefits:

• Automatic filing of financial records
• Compliance with records retention policies
• Easier retrieval for audits

Delivered by GovernmentFrameworks.com

GovernmentFrameworks.com helps municipalities modernize governance through technology.

Our mission is to:

Improve governance through modern technology and services designed specifically for municipal governments.

GovernmentFrameworks delivers solutions across:

  • Forms and digital services
  • Workflow automation
  • Records management
  • Public service modernization
  • Executive reporting and analytics

GovernmentFrameworks is an approved supplier through Canoe Procurement Canada, allowing municipalities to procure solutions quickly and compliantly.