Within the modern supply chain, distributors are experiencing increased demands from both vendors and customers alike. Customers expect certain levels of order access and tracking while suppliers and vendors are requiring frictionless communications. Whether it’s portals, electronic communications such as EDI transactions or other collaborative communications, distributors need the capabilities to adapt to these constantly changing demands. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management (D365 F&SCM) offers a robust set of tools to enable a proactive and adaptive environment for distributors to thrive.
Within D365 for Supply Chain, there is standard functionality for a vendor collaboration portal that allows you to communicate in a seamless integrated environment with your suppliers. Communications can include things like request for quotation bids, purchase orders for approval notes, files, documentation, as well as invoices. Let’s take a quick look at a procure to invoice cycle, utilizing the D365 vendor portal.
Procure to Invoice in D365
In D365, I have a purchase order open where you can see item number, name, quantity, and price. Here I can also submit the purchase order to the vendor collaboration portal for the vendor to view. When all the attached notes are submitted, documentation and files will also be submitted for that vendor to view.
Log in as the vendor to see what their view on the purchase order and attachments looks like. Within the vendor collaboration portal, they have a slimmed down version of D365 that has information specifically to them. You can see purchase orders, bids for quotations, as well as notes and attachments. Once the vendor has reviewed the information, they can either accept the purchase order, reject it, or even suggest changes. They can even add notes and attachments of their own.
Once the vendor has accepted the purchase order, it can either be automatically or manually confirmed on our end based on parameters and settings. Once the purchase order has been confirmed and the goods have been received, the vendor can actually initiate the invoicing process from the vendor collaboration portal. Here they can generate a new invoice, select the related purchase order to be invoiced, identify an invoice number, an invoice date, a description if needed, and then create invoice. The invoice has been generated. All the information can default over from the purchase order. From here the vendor could add notes and attachment, documentation, add additional charges if needed, and then submit that for approval through the workflow.
Once submitted, the invoice will be routed through a configurable vendor invoice workflow process. The invoice will ultimately end up on our end as a pending vendor invoice that can be reviewed and processed. That process can include either a two- or a three-way match. From there, the invoice can be posted and then processed for payment. This frictionless communication between you and the vendor is extremely important, and also can create a much better relationship between you and that supplier.
