Supplier Acceptance Forms – Case Study

Do you want to improve the acceptance process for new suppliers?

Does your company regularly accept new suppliers? Does your company have internal procedures for verifying new suppliers? One of our clients came to us with these issues and asked us to create a process  designed approve new contractors with three general phases, data collection, verification, and approval.

One of the primary difficulties we encountered in this project was a multitude of paper versions of “New Supplier Forms” that were in use throughout the company. As with any paper document, it is a great deal of work to manage and find the right documents. Additionally, as there was no consistent approval standard, it was practically impossible to grant permissions.

Solution

After analyzing the problems faced by the client, we proposed to create a process called “SAF,” (Supplier Acceptance Form). This process was developed in order to improve the registration of new suppliers’ data, such as: contact details, bank numbers, product descriptions, etc.

Benefits of Implementing the Process

The main benefit for the client was eliminating the chaos that had been disrupting these business activities. Now it is possible for worker to see if a supplier has been approved, or if the supplier is still in the verification process.

The process has a form with some required fields. As a result, all cases meet the same minimum standard, and all the necessary data is gathered and ready for the verification or approval. These two benefits have sped up the entire process and eliminated many mistakes.

A parallel approval process accelerated the process of entering contractors into the database. The same process is now used to update contractor data. The final stage of this process is the task of entering or updating data in the ERP system. In the future, integration and automatic transfer of contractor data to the ERP system is planned.

Implementation Method

The SAF process was designed in the Amodit system with a form which contains fields for entering data about the supplier (address, tax identification number, bank accounts, etc.). The process uses a vendor list from the ERP system which allows you to quickly check whether the supplier is already verified and registered. Some basic AMODIT functions were used, which allow for example, fields to be shown/ hidden form depending on the context, or inform the user about incorrectly entered data.

The main issue with creating the process was to enable the simultaneous acceptance of the new suppliers for the client’s users who work in a multi-company group structure. (For more about how AMODIT simplifies work in multi-company structures read this article.)

What are the steps of the Supplier Acceptance Form process?

• The process begins with the employee creating a new case (Supplier Acceptance Form).
• The applicant completes the contact details of the new supplier, starting with the selection of which company in the group the product or service will be provided.
• Using the search engine in the field “Search for a supplier in the database”, the system checks whether the supplier has already been entered for the company. In the case of an existing supplier, a hint appears that the contractor is listed in the database and the “Data change” option should be selected. Otherwise, select “New form”.
• The completed form is sent to the next stage for verification and approval by the accepting group. Subsequent users can withdraw the case or send the case to the following stage to the financial groups which have been selected.
• At the financial stage, if more than one company has been selected, the  case is transferred to several financial groups at the same time. Each designated person performs verification in their scope and signs with an internal electronic signature.
• The supplier is approved and the case is closed when all the necessary approvals and signatures have been submitted. After accepting the form, the user has the option to generate a PDF document with all information about the supplier, approvals, and the signatures of decision-makers.
• The form is sent as a closed case to the “Supplier approved” stage.
  

Conclusions: What organizations can benefit from processes like the Supplier Acceptance Form process?

What types of organizations are Supplier Acceptance Form appropriate for? A simplified version of the SAF process is useful for any size of company, while the full SAF process outlined in this article is for larger companies or groups of companies where each section keeps (or needs to update) a register of service or product providers. This article is based on a case study from a client in the advertising industry, a large international company operating as a media house. Internally, it is a group of companies with a structure of several dozen sections.