Procurement

1. Specify what you are buying

The first step before organizing the procurement process is recognizing the need for a product or service. A brand new order or a recurring purchase needs analysis, and the specification should be double-checked before creating a request for purchase.

2. Purchase Requisition

A typical procurement process starts with a purchase requisition. The requestor sends a request for procurement that’s typically on paper or electronic form.

3. Review and compare offers.

The purchase request gets reviewed by the procurement and finance team. Approved requests become POs. Rejected requests are sent back to the requestor with the rejection reason.

4. Budget Approval

In enterprises, once the procurement team raises a purchase order, it is forwarded to the accounting department to receive approval of the purchase by the finance department.

5. Request for Quotation

Once the budget gets approved, the procurement team sends requests for quotation (RFQ) to vendors to receive and compare bids to shortlist the perfect vendor.

6. Contract Negotiation

When a vendor gets selected, starts the contract negotiation and procurement try to cut the price down again. After the negotiation and contract signing, the purchase order goes to the vendor.

7. Receive Goods/Services

The vendor delivers the promised goods/services within the stipulated timeline. After receiving them, the purchaser examines the order and notifies the vendor of any issues with the received items.

8. Three-Documents Matching

Before the acceptance, a company must collect three documents. Purchase orders, packaging slips that arrive with the order, and vendor invoices. All discrepancies should be discovered and fixed.

9. Invoice Approval

Once three-way matching is complete, the invoice is approved and forwarded to payment processing. This step further adheres to the organization’s standards for the Payment Approval workflow.

10. Record Keeping

After the payment process, buyers make a record of it for bookkeeping and auditing. All appropriate documents right from purchase requests to approved invoices gets stored in a documentation location.