9 January 2025

6 Benefits of a Vendor Management System (VMS) Vs. Manual Spreadsheets

Wayne Burgess
Wayne Burgess

Many organizations manage vendors in their contingent workforce using manual spreadsheets, in-house databases, or SharePoint sites, believing these methods to be more cost-effective and accessible than a Vendor Management System (VMS).  In this article, we will look at why this is a mistake and how the use of spreadsheets can result in a significant lack of visibility, higher risk and inefficiencies of your contingent workforce program. 

VMS vs Manual Spreadsheets

At first glance, manual spreadsheets might seem more cost-effective than a vendor management system (VMS); however, they can lead to numerous risks and inefficiencies.

Relying on manual spreadsheets can significantly obscure your program's visibility, leading to issues like uncontrolled spending, inconsistent hiring practices, poor staffing agency selections, inefficient processes, and the placement of low-quality workers in your organization. Without clear insight into these problems, manual spreadsheets will hinder your business from reducing costs and enhancing workforce quality.

Thankfully, your company can avoid these issues through the use of vendor management software.  A VMS has many benefits and will prove to be a huge ROI to your business, improving visibility into your contingent workforce program, consolidating your staffing vendors, automating processes and helping you to measure performance.

Here are six reasons why your company will benefit from the use of vendor management software over time-consuming, manual spreadsheets:

#1 - Reduce vendor risk with standardized assessments 

One of the biggest challenges that organizations face when it comes to their non-employee workforce is fragmented processes. Without company-wide centralization, team leaders across different departments typically develop their own approach to assessing vendors and sourcing temporary workers or independent contractors. 

A vendor management system allows your business to create a centralized strategy for all departments, using the same vendor management software to standardize and define success factors across your company. This ensures all hiring managers in your organization use the same scale to evaluate vendors.

#2 - Gain complete visibility into your non-employee workforce program

Most companies want to lower costs and improve quality within their non-employee workforce program. Without having visibility into how your contingent workforce program is performing, your organization stands no chance of improving its results.

Unlike manual spreadsheets, a VMS will give you complete control and visibility of your non-employee workforce program. With this visibility, you can use insightful KPIs and metrics to optimize and improve your program, ensuring business growth and greater profitability.

#3 - Centralized data means you’ll never have to worry about accessing the wrong spreadsheet

There’s a wide number of people involved in vendor management, whether it’s a HR team, a procurement employee, a company executive or department managers who are looking to hire temporary workers. When using manual spreadsheets, any one of these people could maintain their own files - which may or may not be regularly updated. 

Even if a common spreadsheet is shared throughout your organization, it could be downloaded and saved to individual hard drives, creating multiple copies of the same document. Each time someone changes this document on their own device, your company loses a little more visibility into how its vendors are performing.

A VMS centralizes your entire non-employee workforce program, and consolidates all vendor information in one location. The result? Everyone in your organization is working from the same information in real-time, no matter where they are accessing the data from.

#4 - Eliminate those costly mistakes

A spreadsheet is a complete blank slate, and users can type any information they want into it. There’s no denying that human errors occur, and they can have a huge impact on how a company analyzes performance. One wrong formula or field entered, and a manual spreadsheet can be riddled with errors that aren’t clearly visible.

Through the use of automation, a vendor management system will eliminate those human errors that can throw your contingent workforce program completely off-track. 

#5 - Better monitor and track vendor performance

As we’ve mentioned, the use of spreadsheets typically results in a lack of visibility into your non-employee workforce program. As a result, your organization will have no real data to analyze vendor performance.

A vendor management system ensures you are able to properly monitor and track the performance of your vendors, giving you unique visibility into key performance indicators such as time-to-fill, time-to-submit and turnover. These KPIs can be used to improve your vendor decisions moving forward, ultimately improving the quality of your non-employees.

#6 - Improve your internal efficiencies

Spreadsheets are not only an ineffective way of managing your staffing agencies, they’re also time-consuming. The use of a vendor management system will automate internal processes and allow your business to implement consistent procedures across your entire organization. 

With no more fragmented processes across your business or hiring managers spending countless hours manually entering in vendor information, a VMS helps your business improve internal operations, save money and focus time back on the core business functions that promote growth. 

Take the Next Step with Conexis VMS

Whether you are in the market for a new VMS solution or just getting started, Conexis VMS is here to guide you every step of the way. Our award-winning VMS and innovative approach sets us apart and we’re committed to helping you find the perfect VMS for your organization.

To get started, download a free copy of our Ultimate VMS Buyers GuideThis comprehensive resource includes:

  • Key VMS features to consider for your organization’s unique needs

  • Insights to ensure a high return on your investment

  • A checklist of essential questions to ask VMS providers

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About Conexis VMS

Conexis VMS is a robust, cloud-based, mobile-friendly software application that empowers your company to streamline and oversee your entire contingent workforce, regardless of the diverse skill sets you require. Our award-winning Vendor Management System is the the most modern and advanced VMS tech stack available today that has been built with the user in mind. It starts with the latest codebase and extends to our lightning-fast AWS microservice infrastructure. Add to that our Open API and Software Development Kit (SDK), making Conexis the lights-out leader in VMS technology. We provide the easiest, fastest, most modern, sophisticated, and flexible VMS on the market today.

Learn more about our company and why organizations are choosing Conexis VMS.

Contact Us

Whether you are in the market for a new VMS Solution, or just getting started, we are here to help.  See how easy Conexis is to use by taking a quick 2 minute Self-Guided Tour.  Contact Us for a Free No-Obligation Consultation to discuss your workforce challenges (and get immediate actionable insights) or Book a Personal Demo Today! 

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Wayne Burgess

Wayne Burgess

Wayne Burgess is the President of Conexis, a technology company focused on helping organizations get control of their Contingent workforce.

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