If your procurement process still relies on ancient tools, it’s time for a major technology makeover. Here’s all you need to know to power up the procurement process.
What is Procurement?
Procurement is a technique and structured method used to streamline an organization’s procurement process and achieve desired results while saving cost, reducing time, and building win-win supplier relationships. Procurement types can be direct, indirect, reactive, or proactive in nature.
What’s the difference between indirect, direct, and services procurement?
Direct, indirect, and services procurement are subsidiaries of the overarching procurement process and differ in definition, assignments, and more. By taking a deeper look at the difference between these processes and understanding what they comprise, stakeholders will have an easier time taking appropriate measures to fulfill their needs.
Direct Procurement |
Indirect Procurement |
Services Procurement |
|---|---|---|
| Acquisition of goods, materials, and/or services for manufacturing purposes | Sourcing and purchasing materials, goods, or services for internal use | Procuring and managing the contingent workforce and consulting services |
| Ex: Raw materials, machinery, and resale items | Ex: Utilities, facility management, and travel | Ex: Professional services, software subscriptions, etc. |
| Drives external profit and continuous growth in revenue | Takes care of day-to-day operations | Used to plug process and people gaps |
| Comprises of stock materials or parts for production | Used to buy consumables and perishables | Used to purchase external services and staff |
| Establish long-term, collaborative supplier relationships | Resort to a short-term, transactional relationship with suppliers | Maintain one-off, contractual relationships with suppliers |
What is a Procurement Process?
The procurement process is a structured method of procuring goods and services needed for an organization. This process saves cost, reduces time, and builds win-win supplier relationships.
The procurement process is the series of processes that are essential to get products or services from requisition to purchase order and invoice approval. Although we use procurement and purchasing interchangeably, they differ slightly.
While purchasing is the overarching process of obtaining necessary goods and services on behalf of an organization, procurement describes the activities involved in getting process comprises the steps that must be followed while reviewing, ordering, obtaining, and paying for goods/services them. The procurement process in an organization is unique to its context and operations.
Regardless of the uniqueness, every procurement management process consists of 3 Ps’, namely Process, People, and Paperwork.
1. Process
Process comprises the steps that must be followed while reviewing, ordering, obtaining, and paying for goods/services.
2. People
These are stakeholders, and their specific responsibility in the procurement cycle is to initiate or authorize every stage of the process. The number of stakeholders involved is directly proportional to the risk and value of the purchase.
3. Paper
This is the paperwork and documentation involved in every stage of the procurement process – all of which are collected and stored for reference and auditing reasons.
Steps involved in a Procurement Process
Procurement process involves several elements, including requirements determination, supplier research, value analysis, raising a purchase request, reviewal phase, conversion to purchase order, contract administration, monitoring/evaluation of received order, three-way matching, payment fulfilment, and record keeping.
Here are the seven key steps involved in the procurement process flow:
- Step 0: Needs Recognition
- Step 1: Purchase Requisition
- Step 2: Requisition Review
- Step 3: Solicitation Process
- Step 4: Evaluation and Contract
- Step 5: Order Management
- Step 6: Invoice Approvals and Disputes
- Step 7: Record Keeping
Step 0: Needs Recognition
The needs recognition stage of a procurement process enables businesses to sketch out an accurate plan for procuring goods and services in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost.
Step 1: Purchase Requisition
Purchase requisitions are written or electronic documents raised by internal users/customers seeking the procurement team’s help to fulfill an existing need. It comprises key information that is required to procure the right goods, services, or works.
Step 2: Requisition review
The procurement process will commence only after the purchase requisition is approved and cross-checked for budget availability. In the review stage, functional managers or department heads review the requisition package, double-check if there is a genuine need for the requested goods or services, and verify whether necessary funding is available.
Approved purchase requests become POs (purchase orders), while rejected requests are sent back to the requisitioner with the reason for rejection. All these can be handled with a simple purchase order software.
Step 3: Solicitation process
Once a requisition is approved, the procurement team will develop an individual procurement plan and sketch a corresponding solicitation process. The scope of this individual solicitation plan ultimately depends on the requirement's complexity.
Once the budget is approved, the procurement team forwards several requests for quotation (RFQ) to suppliers to receive and compare bids to shortlist the perfect supplier.
Step 4: Evaluation and contract
Once the solicitation process is officially closed, the procurement team and the evaluation committee will review and evaluate supplier quotations and delivery times to determine which supplier will be the best fit to fulfill the current need. To streamline this process, consider using legal AI software for contract review to analyze key terms and clauses in the potential contracts quickly.
Once a supplier is selected, the contract negotiation and signing are completed, and the purchase order is forwarded to the supplier. A legally binding contract activates after a supplier accepts and acknowledges a PO.
Step 5: Order management
A purchase order is issued to the selected supplier either against the newly executed contract / standing agreement / list price. The supplier delivers the promised goods/services within the stipulated timeline. After receiving them, the purchaser examines the order and notifies the supplier of any issues with the received items.
Step 6: Invoice approvals and disputes
This is a crucial step in the procurement process and having procurement software like Kissflow Procurement Cloud gives you a competitive edge over others. With Kissflow, you can perform three-way matching between GRN, Supplier Invoice, and PO to check if you have received the order correctly and if there aren’t any discrepancies. Once three-way matching is complete, the invoice is approved and forwarded to process the payment.
Step 7: Record Keeping
After the payment process, buyers record it for bookkeeping and auditing. All appropriate documents, from purchase requests to approved invoices, are stored in a centralized location.
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