Roles in the Purchase-to-Pay process

Stakeholders in the Purchase-to-Pay process can be divided into three different groups.

External stakeholders

Below is an overview of the key roles defined for the Purchase-to-Pay process.

Supplier

A supplier is a person or a business that sells or provides the purchased goods.

Requestor

A requestor initiates the Purchase-to-Pay process. The work focuses on getting their goods as quickly as possible and will find any loopholes to speed up the process.

Internal operational stakeholders

Purchaser

The Procurement department is responsible of ensuring the buyer receives goods, services, or works at the best possible price when aspects such as quality, quantity, time and location are compared. They are also responsible for finding and negotiating with vendors to setup contracts. A purchaser is concerned with negotiating deals with suppliers and spending as little working capital. The work focuses primarily on the Purchase order activities.

• Strategic purchasers are responsible for long-term relationships with vendors and are involved in negotiating (large) contracts.
• Operational purchasers focus on the day-to-day operations, making sure purchase requisitions are handled from start to end.

Warehouse/Inventory Management

Warehouse and Inventory management both are responsible for the operations within a warehouse.

• The warehouse manager is focused on outbound activities; picking, packing and shipping deliveries.
• The inventory manager is focused on inbound activities; receiving and putting away incoming goods.

Internal Management Support stakeholders

Business/Automation Managers

Business and automation managers are concerned with throughput times and efficiency of the process. The focus can be on parts or the entire Purchase-to-Pay process.

Auditors

Auditors are concerned with the risks and controls. Many checks are commonly already in the system and they want to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the controls. The work focuses on all the cases and from start to end. They are primarily interested in high-risk cases with high values.