Buying parts and services

The path

Spend is requested, approved, ordered, received, invoiced and only then paid. Each step produces a record, and the later steps refuse to run if the earlier ones are missing.

1. 1Raise a requisition with costed lines.
2. 2An approver within their limit approves it.
3. 3Convert the approved requisition into a purchase order for an approved vendor.
4. 4Record the goods receipt when the delivery arrives, including anything short or damaged.
5. 5Enter the supplier invoice and run the match.
6. 6Pay the invoice once it has matched.

Approval limits are enforced in the database

Limits are set per organisation role as a maximum amount. Approving a requisition checks the total against the approver's limit and refuses if it is over. Hiding a button would not be a control; this is.

A limit of zero means the role may not approve at all.

Goods receipt

The receipt records what actually arrived rather than assuming it matched the order. Lines can be recorded as rejected, and rejected quantities are excluded from what counts as received.

The three-way match

The match compares the invoice against what was ordered and what was received. For each line the expected value is the received quantity at the purchase-order unit price, and the invoice line has to fall within the order's tolerance, set as a percentage or a flat amount.

An invoice line not linked to an order line is an exception in itself. So is a total outside tolerance. Any exception makes the whole invoice an exception, and only a matched invoice can be paid.

• Quantity variance — invoiced more than was received.
• Price variance — invoiced above the ordered unit price.
• No purchase-order line — the invoice contains something nobody ordered.
• Total variance — the lines pass but the invoice total does not.

What posting looks like

A passed match clears goods received not invoiced and raises a trade payable. Where the organisation is VAT-registered and the supplier issued a VAT invoice, the recoverable portion debits VAT recoverable and only the remainder is a cost.

Payment settles the invoice total less any withholding, and the withheld amount stays as a liability.

What is not available

There is no supplier portal. Vendors do not log in and do not submit their own invoices; someone in your organisation enters them. There is no catalogue or punch-out integration either.