Procurement process for the requester - From Request to Receipt
From request to receipt
There are various options for configuring the Spend Cloud Procurement module. Depending on your specific procurement process, the Spend Cloud aligns with it. The image below illustrates the process from submitting a request to receiving an order, which essentially always follows the same steps.
Making an order request begins with a need. This need arises when a product or service is desired that must be purchased from an available supplier.
Within Spend Cloud, we therefore offer a number of options for placing an order:
- Starting an order request via Requests.
To start an order request, there are four options available within the Spend Cloud. - Request and submit an order via the webshop.
The supplier has a webshop available that can be accessed from the Spend Cloud. - Order request from the assortment and submission.
An assortment has been set up in the Spend Cloud. A selection can be made from the available products/services within the assortment. - Request and submit a manual order
When no webshop and/or predefined assortment is available, the free rule can be used. You are free to order the products/services required. However, you must know whether the relevant supplier offers this product/service and what the indicative price of the product/service is. - Request and submit a simple order with a new supplier.
New suppliers can also be added to the Spend Cloud, to which an order request is immediately linked. The supplier can be selected based on the Chamber of Commerce registration number or entered manually. Before these orders are placed with the supplier, they are validated by the central purchasing department.
Please note! This functionality is only available if configured accordingly. - Tracking an order request (with the approver)
Depending on the configuration in the procurement scheme, the order is submitted to an approver for review. This approver receives a notification of this in the Spend Cloud App and/or via email. If, as the purchaser, you have the impression that the order is 'lingering' for too long, you can use the 'request opinion' functionality to query the approver. The order goes through various statuses in the Spend Cloud, and as the purchaser, you do not want to lose sight of the order. You can monitor the status of these orders via the Procurement archive . A collection of orders can be found in the archive, depending on the rights obtained. You will see at least the requests that you initiated yourself and/or performed an action on. - Placing an order request
When the order has been fully approved by the approver or when you have sufficient ordering authority yourself, the order is submitted to/confirmed with the supplier. We call this placing the order request. At this point, the request automatically becomes an obligation.
Placing the order happens automatically; however, in some cases, an error message may occur. This could be due to a malfunction in the connection between the supplier and Spend Cloud, but could also be related to configuration. For example, the supplier might be missing an email address. In this case, the order request prompts you to ask who should place the order. We advise entering yourself as the default value here; this allows you to maintain control over the order. - Receiving an order request
The ultimate goal of the order is, of course, the delivery of the product/service. Depending on the supplier's settings, it is common for the receipt registration to also be performed within Spend Cloud. This receipt registration indicates which products/services have been delivered and what is still expected. In some cases, financial settlement can only take place once this registration has been completed. This creates a confirmation of the order and delivery before payment is made. To ensure this action is not perceived as an obstacle, but as a condition for payment, receipt registration is also possible via the Spend Cloud App .
- Modifying or canceling an order and/or reversing receipts.
In some cases, as the orderer, you may have been too quick to update the order status. To find all outstanding orders, you can navigate to the Orders menu item. From this menu item, you can often still adjust or revert the status. Examples include rejected orders , canceling an order , reversing a receipt , and other actions depending on the granted permissions. - My Favorite Order Requests
Now that you know the best way to submit, monitor, modify, cancel, or register a request as received, we have a few more tips to simplify or speed up the request process.
When submitting requests, it is possible to mark products/services or complete orders as favorites . These then become available for 'quick' ordering. Some organizations have many delivery addresses, where it is not desirable to see them all . This can be set in 'my profile' .
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