Purchasing from procure to pay

What does procure to pay cover?

Procure to pay is the buying side of the business: choosing a supplier, issuing a purchase order, receiving the goods, recording the supplier's bill and paying it. For a product brand it also decides what your inventory is worth, because the cost of every unit on the shelf is set here.

SuppliFlex covers the sequence end to end: suppliers, purchase orders, receiving with landed cost, bills and three-way match. Every step sits in the same system of record as your inventory and orders, so a receipt changes stock on hand and stock value in one move.

Why does receiving matter so much?

Receiving is the moment a purchase becomes inventory. If it is recorded late, or at the wrong cost, every report downstream inherits the mistake: available stock, reorder points, gross margin and the balance sheet.

In SuppliFlex, a receipt is recorded against its purchase order. The ledger gains the units at the receiving location, whether that is your own warehouse or a 3PL, and lots, batches and serials are captured as they arrive. Partial shipments stay visible against the open PO.

How does SuppliFlex handle landed cost?

The price on the PO is rarely what a unit really costs. Freight, duties, brokerage and insurance can add a large share on top, and if that share lives in a spreadsheet, the books carry the wrong number until someone adjusts it.

SuppliFlex records landed cost at receiving. Freight, duties and fees are added to the receipt and allocated to the units on it, so inventory value and cost of goods sold start from the real unit cost. Inventory is then valued by weighted average or FIFO, whichever your business uses.

What is three-way match, and why does it matter?

Three-way match compares three documents before a bill is paid: the purchase order (what you agreed to buy), the receipt (what arrived) and the supplier's bill (what you are being charged). If the bill asks for 1,200 units and the receipt shows 1,000, the mismatch is caught before payment rather than after.

SuppliFlex runs three-way match on supplier bills. Because the PO, the receipt and the bill already live in one system, the match works on data your team entered once, not on three exports lined up by hand. A bill that does not match becomes something to resolve, not something that slips through.

How does SuppliFlex track supplier lead-time drift?

Every supplier quotes a lead time. Over months, the real one moves: a factory gets busier, a shipping lane slows, a new raw material supplier adds a week. When reorder decisions still use the quoted number, stock runs out before the next delivery arrives.

SuppliFlex tracks supplier lead-time drift automatically. When a supplier starts missing its delivery windows, the exception inbox raises it with a projected stockout date, so you can chase the supplier, split the order or place a bridge PO while there is still time. The food and beverage seed pack in the sandbox includes supplier lead-time drift, alongside lots, expiry dates and FEFO picking.

How do bills reach the general ledger?

Supplier bills land in the AP sub-ledger in SuppliFlex, and that sub-ledger syncs to QuickBooks Online or Xero as the general ledger, along with the inventory movements that receiving creates. The QuickBooks Online and Xero connectors are live from the production beta on 13 November 2026, and GL sync is part of general availability on 23 November. See accounting sync for valuation and period close.

How can I try purchasing?

Open a sandbox from 30 October 2026. The apparel seed pack has open purchase orders across two warehouses and a 3PL; the food and beverage pack shows lead-time drift on real-looking history. The time machine jumps to the end of the month, so you can see how receipts and bills land at close.