Suppliers and catalog

A supplier record carries the facts the rest of the system reads at every step:

The EIN is masked from everyone except Admin and the Procurement Manager. The W-9 flag is read from accounts payable rather than kept twice. Vendor risk scoring, insurance certificates and financial-health monitoring belong to the vendor management layer above this system.

A supplier enters as Onboarding, usually because a Requester or Buyer asked for one. The Procurement Manager validates the EIN, confirms the W-9, and verifies qualification evidence and terms. Procurement Manager or Admin approves activation and records the reason. Suspended stops new business while open orders finish. Blocked stops issuance and fulfilment posting; arrivals are held as disputed with evidence. Reductions, cancellations and returns remain available to resolve existing obligations. Neither status permits new or increased commitments.

Each supplier has the people the Buyer actually talks to: sales representative, customer service, expediter, accounts receivable, executive. One contact is marked primary and receives RFQ invitations and purchase orders.

Keep supplier certificates, registrations, assessments and attestations with their issuer, reference, dates and supporting document. Record the activity and location each item covers. Quality certificates such as ISO 9001 and diversity qualifications can be tracked separately from evidence for security or regulatory requirements. These labels have different meanings; a reviewed document does not by itself establish legal compliance. Supplier-submitted material remains Pending until the Procurement Manager verifies its scope and validity.

Category requirements restrict sourcing and ordering to suppliers with current verified evidence. Supplier Certifications Expiring lists upcoming renewals so Buyer can request replacement documents before eligibility lapses.

The purchasing taxonomy follows UNSPSC. Categories nest, carry the two-digit segment, and drive which approval rows apply to a requisition line, which supplier evidence is required, and whether the category requires a contract. Requires contract is a soft control. An order line in such a category with no contract rate or master agreement behind it is flagged off-contract and held for the Procurement Manager. They record the reason before the order can go out, and Maverick Spend reports those lines with their reasons.

The item is what a Requester picks from when raising a line:

Stocked items map to the inventory system’s SKU when connected. The catalog also describes non-stocked items, services, capital and subscriptions; connected asset, service and inventory systems retain their own operational records. A free-text line still needs a category, description and unit for approval routing and sourcing. Buyer can request a catalog addition when the same purchase is likely to recur.

A department carries its head; a cost centre belongs to a department and carries its budget owner. The approval matrix resolves the department head and budget owner roles from those two records, so a row that says the head of Facilities approves routes to a named person. A location is where an order ships and where a receipt is taken: a dock the warehouse system manages, a dock the Receiving Clerk keys, an office where desk deliveries land, or a site.

The user directory carries each person’s department, cost centre and manager, which default onto a new requisition. A separately configured Buyer limit can authorise an eligible original hand-raised order without requisition, RFQ-award or release backing. The decision records the policy and approved version; it does not bypass mandatory competition, supplier qualification or pricing holds.

• Supplier Certifications Expiring for the Procurement Manager and Buyer, sorted by expiration date.