How does procurement in Spend Cloud work?

How does procurement in Spend Cloud work?

The Procurement module allows you to track the entire procurement process from order placement to delivery and payment. It is possible to configure whether employees can make purchases independently, which suppliers they can buy from, and up to what amount. Order requests are automatically forwarded based on these settings to a budget holder or central procurement department for approval.

Control purchases beforehand

Before making a purchase, you can set the order amount, items, and specify which suppliers employees are allowed to place orders for. Adding new suppliers is easy due to the integration with the Chamber of Commerce database. The Spend Cloud also recognizes suppliers to prevent duplicate entries.

For creating purchase orders, employees have three options:
  1. Via an OCI punch-out link, allowing direct ordering from a supplier's webshop.
  2. Via the internal assortment, which you can customize to include your product assortment.
  3. Creating a manual order request
When ordering from a supplier's webshop or the assortment, employees can only see items they are authorized to place orders for. This ensures compliance with procurement agreements and eliminates the need for buyers to check agreements for each order.

Relevant Actions:
  1. Add suppliers and supplier groups
  2. Add available webshops
  3. Create units and categories
  4. Submit order requests

Assess via workflow

When configuring procurement options for employees, you can specify, in addition to the order amount, items, and suppliers, which orders require approval from a manager, budget holder, or procurement. If an order request is sent for approval, the reviewer receives a notification that there's an order request waiting for review. The reviewer can approve or reject the order from a computer or using our 'Approve' or 'disapprove' app. After approval from all reviewers, the order is automatically placed.

Relevant Actions:
  1. Assess suppliers.
  2. Configure procurement procuration
  3. Assess an order in the web version
  4. Review an order in the app
  5. Submitting an order to a supplier

Three-Way Matching

The order status can be continuously checked by the requester and authorized colleagues. Upon delivery, the requester or authorized (groups of) colleagues can record the delivery in the Spend Cloud (web and app). When combined with the Invoice Processing module, a three-way matching process takes place:
  1. Is it an approved order?
  2. Has the order been delivered?
  3. Does the invoice amount match the order?
For matching invoices and orders, you can use a combination of relative and absolute amount deviations.

Relevant Actions:
  1. Register receipt in the web version
  2. Register receipt in the app
  3. Deliver internal orders
  4. Complete orders



Live Spend Analysis

The Procurement module offers various analyses that provide the basis for a quantitative analysis of all suppliers. With the Procurement Volume analysis, you can instantly see the total invoice amounts in the selected period. The Top 25 Spend shows the 25 creditors with the most spend in real time. The Pareto chart displays the ABC analysis, revealing the most critical suppliers for your organization and those where the majority of the procurement budget is spent. These powerful tools provide real-time information for in-depth analysis and procurement policy improvement.

Relevant Actions:
  1. Monitor progress
  2. Examine statistics for all orders
  3. Analysis

Combination with Other Functionalities

Procurement is often preceded by an agreement with the supplier, signifying a commitment. The Contract Management module also includes features for commitments. To fully digitalize the purchase-to-pay process, we recommend enabling the Contract Management and Invoice Processing modules alongside the Procurement module.

You can also watch the thematic webinar 'Gaining More Control Over Your Expenses with the Spend Cloud ProcurementModule' (Dutch only) for a comprehensive explanation of what you can achieve with the Spend Cloud Procurement Module.



Factsheet Procurement in Spend Cloud


View the Procurement module factsheet to revisit this information at your convenience or access over 100 available OCI integrations. Please enter your details below to receive the Procurement module factsheet via email.



    • Related Articles

    • Configuration settings for Procurement

      In the menu section Configuration Settings / Procurement, you will find settings that apply to the Procurement module. Also, read this article for more information on configuration settings. Make sure you understand what each setting does before ...
    • Statistics Procurement

      On the Procurement Statistics page, you can view various statistics related to the usage of the Procurement module. In this article, you'll find examples with brief explanations of different types of statistics. By clicking the 'Export all suppliers ...
    • Procurement procuration levels

      The authorization (procuration) of an order is based on: - the supplier group to which the supplier belongs; - the authorization level of the ordering and reviewing employee(s). These two aspects are linked to the purchasing roles of employees. By ...
    • Registering a service order

      In this article, we explain how this new functionality works. At the bottom of this article, we also cover what you can do as an application manager to enable this functionality for purchasers. Creating a New Request Step 1 - General To register a ...
    • Creating an order via the assortment

      When you have the correct rights, it's possible for you to create an order through a list of products in the assortment. In the assortment overview, you'll find the items that your organization has added for ordering. Finding Items At the top of the ...