Requisition. The starting point: an employee submits a purchase request digitally. The form asks for at least category, cost centre, description, quantity, preferred supplier and, if applicable, a quote as an attachment. For recurring items, the requester selects from a validated catalogue so that name, item number and price arrive in structured form.
Approval workflow. Based on amount, category and organisational unit, the platform determines the route: manager, department head, finance and, for strategic categories, procurement. Multi-step approval, parallel approvers, delegation during absence and escalation when requests stall. Every action is recorded in an audit log that clearly shows who approved what and when, which is especially valuable in regulated sectors.
Purchase order. Once a request is approved, the platform automatically generates a PO and sends it to the supplier: via a vendor portal where the supplier logs in themselves, by email with a PDF, or via EDI or Peppol for suppliers who exchange invoices electronically. The PO contains all the relevant details: supplier, items, prices, delivery address, requested delivery date, cost centre and general ledger account.
Goods receipt. When the order arrives, the warehouse staff member or the requester records the receipt. Complete, partial, or with discrepancies, everything is logged, with photographic evidence where needed. Goods receipt forms the second leg of the three-way match.
Invoice processing. Incoming invoices are scanned (OCR, or received directly via Peppol as structured data), matched to the correct PO and goods receipt, and reconciled automatically. A full match sends the invoice through for payment; a discrepancy triggers a review flow. This is where most manual finance work disappears.
Supplier onboarding and catalogue. New suppliers go through digital onboarding, including a Chamber of Commerce (KvK) check, Wwft screening, upload of insurance and certificates, and approval by procurement or finance. Approved suppliers gain access to a vendor portal and, where relevant, a validated catalogue that appears in the request form.
Contract management and compliance. Framework agreements with agreed rates, volume discounts and volume commitments are recorded in the platform, so the system applies the correct prices automatically and shows you how far you are into a framework contract. Compliance modules cover Wwft screening, SBR-Peppol e-invoicing, GDPR-compliant data processing and sector-specific regulations.
Spend analytics. Dashboards that show where the money goes: by supplier, category, cost centre, location and approver. This is what your procurement manager relies on for strategic decisions: which categories deserve attention, which suppliers represent a high risk because you place too much business with them, and where the tail spend sits that could be consolidated.
