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Learning series · Purchasing & suppliers · 7 lessons

Digitizing Purchasing: From Request to Payment

An operations series for every company that buys every day, from contracting to factories to property operators: where money slips between a purchase request and a supplier payment, how to build an approval matrix the system enforces rather than memory, how to compare supplier quotes and turn the decision into a binding purchase order, how documented receiving and three-way matching stop you paying for what never arrived, what a supplier invoice must carry before you claim its VAT, how to schedule payments and reconcile supplier statements, and how to see your whole spend with a ninety-day plan.

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Digitizing Purchasing: From Request to Payment
7 of 7 published

Lessons in this series

  1. 01Purchasing: Where Money Slips Between Request and PaymentA supplier invoice reaches finance, and no one place shows who requested the purchase, who approved it, the agreed price, or whether it all arrived. Part one of Digitizing Purchasing maps the buying cycle as seven stations from request to payment, names the usual break at each one, explains why this is a design problem rather than a people problem, and gives you an exercise to see where you stand this week, with no new tools.Part 1 of 7 · 7 min read
  2. 02Purchase Requests and Approval Limits: Who Signs What?The purchase request is the first document in the buying cycle, and when it is missing, money starts leaking at the very first station. Part two of Digitizing Purchasing covers what a request must carry, how to build an approval matrix by amount and purchase type, enforced by the system rather than by memory, who approves when the approver is away, and how to close two workarounds, split requests and WhatsApp approvals, with a declared path for urgent buying.Part 2 of 7 · 7 min read
  3. 03Quote to Purchase Order: Verified Supplier, Firm PriceA purchase order is the moment a supplier's quote becomes a written commitment, and it starts with a verified supplier record. Part three of Digitizing Purchasing covers what a supplier record carries, two free official checks with ZATCA and the Ministry of Commerce, the duplicate-supplier problem, how to compare quotes on one basis, and why a change to an order is a new version, never an overwrite.Part 3 of 7 · 7 min read
  4. 04Receiving and Three-Way Matching: No Match, No PaymentThree-way matching means no supplier invoice is paid until the purchase order, the receiving record and the invoice agree on quantity and price. Part four of Digitizing Purchasing covers recording receipt with the quantity actually counted, the condition of the goods and what was rejected, the completion record for services and subcontractors, when two-way matching is enough, and how each difference is handled: short delivery, substitute item, higher price and duplicate invoice.Part 4 of 7 · 7 min read
  5. 05Supplier Invoices: What to Check Before Claiming Input VATBefore you claim input VAT on a supplier invoice, check that it is a complete tax invoice carrying the supplier's VAT number and yours. Part five of Digitizing Purchasing reads the supplier invoice from the buyer's side, as the VAT Implementing Regulations and ZATCA's e-invoicing documents set it out: the required details, what changes when the supplier is in the integration phase, why a scanned paper invoice is not an e-invoice, how errors are corrected with a note, and what is not deductible as a rule.Part 5 of 7 · 7 min read
  6. 06Paying Suppliers on Schedule and Reconciling StatementsPay matched supplier invoices by due date in one scheduled batch approved once, and reconcile every supplier's statement each month. Part six of Digitizing Purchasing explains how to build the payment run from the payment terms on the supplier record, how to confirm a bank-detail change by calling a number you already hold, what Article 40 of the VAT Implementing Regulations says about balances still unpaid twelve months after the month following the supply, and the two obligations that may fall on your company when it buys a service from a non-resident supplier.Part 6 of 7 · 7 min read
  7. 07Spend Visibility and a Ninety-Day Plan for PurchasingWhen every purchase runs through request, order, receipt, invoice and payment, spend visibility becomes a live view, not a monthly project. Part seven, the last in Digitizing Purchasing, explains the three numbers an owner needs before any new commitment (committed, invoiced and paid), the questions that view answers in a minute, when AI starts to pay off, and a ninety-day plan in an order that never stops the buying for a single day.Part 7 of 7 · 7 min read

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