End-to-end sourcing workflow in Source-to-Pay Operations
Summarize
Summary of End-to-end sourcing workflow in Source-to-Pay Operations
This workflow provides a comprehensive guide to the end-to-end sourcing process within ServiceNow's Source-to-Pay (S2P) suite, integrating the Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO), Supplier Lifecycle Operations (SLO), and Accounts Payable Operations (APO) products. It is designed to manage the entire lifecycle from sourcing requests to supplier onboarding, negotiation, awarding, order fulfillment, and invoice processing.
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The sourcing workflow activates when a product or service with an active contractual price is requested by a shopper.
Prerequisites
- Installation and activation of necessary plugins for SPO, SLO, and APO applications are required to enable the workflow.
Workflow Process and Roles
- Shopper (snshop.shopper): Initiates sourcing requests in Shopping Hub or Employee Center for products/services not available in the catalog or without contractual pricing.
- Approver (snshop.procurementspecialist): Reviews and approves sourcing requests via Employee Center.
- Procurement Specialist/Sourcing Manager (snshop.procurementspecialist): Adds approved requests to negotiation events, manages supplier negotiations, and reviews auto-created purchase requisitions and orders within Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Supplier Manager (snslm.manager): Oversees supplier onboarding by assigning supplier tasks and managing supplier risk assessments using playbooks in Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Supplier Contact (snslm.contact): Completes assigned tasks and risk assessment questionnaires through the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
- Accounts Payable Specialist (snapapm.accountspayablespecialist): Handles invoice processing, including managing auto-created invoices, resolving exceptions, manual invoice creation, and converting invoice types within Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Accounts Payable Agent (snapcm.agent): Manages invoice cases, requests additional information, and assigns tasks as needed in Source-to-Pay Workspace.
Key Functional Steps
- Sourcing requests are routed for approval and then assigned to procurement specialists for negotiation events.
- Supplier qualification and onboarding include risk assessment and data collection tasks automatically managed via playbooks.
- Negotiations are conducted with qualified suppliers, including onboarding new suppliers if necessary.
- Upon supplier response closure, awards are granted to one or more suppliers.
- Purchase requisitions and orders are auto-created and reviewed before fulfillment.
- Employees confirm product receipt through Shopping Hub or Employee Center.
- Invoice creation and exception handling involve accounts payable specialists and agents to ensure accurate payment processing.
- All stakeholders have visibility into workflow status and progress from their respective portals throughout the process.
Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
This integrated sourcing workflow enables ServiceNow customers to streamline procurement from request to payment while ensuring compliance, supplier management, and invoice accuracy. It supports role-based actions across the organization with automated routing, playbook-guided onboarding, and comprehensive visibility, facilitating efficient and transparent source-to-pay operations.
Gather a high-level understanding of the end-to-end sourcing workflow with the Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO), Supplier Lifecycle Operations (SLO), and Accounts Payable Operations (APO) products within the Source-to-Pay (S2P) suite.
The sourcing workflow is triggered when there is an active contractual price for a product or service that the shopper intends to purchase.
Prerequisites
Workflow of the sourcing process
The following figure shows how different personas use the various applications withing the SPO, SLO, and APO products to complete the end-to-end sourcing process within the Source-to-Pay (S2P) suite.
- An employee creates a sourcing request for a product or service that doesn't have a contractual price, or isn’t available in the catalog. For more information, see Complete sourcing checkout and Requesting for products or services that you don't see on ShoppingHub, respectively.
Role: sn_shop.shopper.
Application portal: Shopping Hub and Employee Center respectively.
- Approval rules route the sourcing request to one or more assigned approvers.
- An approver reviews the sourcing request and approves it. For more information, see Approve a request from Employee Center.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Employee Center.
- Work assignment rules route the sourcing request to an assigned procurement specialist.
- The procurement specialist, with the contained role of a sourcing manager, adds the sourcing request to a negotiation event. For more information, see Add a sourcing request to a sourcing event.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Negotiations are auto-created with qualified suppliers. For more information, see Sourcing intake guided experience with playbooks.
If sourcing with a new supplier, see End-to-end sourcing and supplier onboarding workflow in Source-to-Pay Operations.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Begin the qualification process to onboard the new supplier. For more information, see Supplier qualification.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Review the supplier onboarding case and start the supplier onboarding using playbooks. For more information, see Use the supplier onboarding playbook to onboard suppliers.
The playbook automatically creates supplier tasks to conduct risk assessment and to collect supplier information, such as banking information and location details.
Role: sn_slm.manager.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- The supplier manager assigns the supplier tasks to the supplier contact.
Role: sn_slm.manager.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- The supplier contact completes the following tasks:
- Assigned tasks. For more information, see Viewing supplier contact tasks from the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
- Risk assessment questionnaire. For more information, see Complete a risk assessment from the Supplier Collaboration Portal.
Role: sn_slm.contact.
Application portal: Supplier Collaboration Portal.
- After the supplier manager reviews the supplier risk score and completes the different activities in each stage of the playbook, the supplier is successfully onboarded.
Role: sn_slm.manager.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- On reaching supplier responses close date, the sourcing manager awards one or more suppliers. For more information, see Award multiple suppliers from a sourcing event.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- Purchase requisitions are auto-created. The procurement specialist reviews the purchase requisitions and its associated purchase lines, and creates purchase orders. For more information, see SPO list page.
Role: sn_shop.procurement_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- On fulfillment, the employee confirms receipt of the requested product. For more information, see Confirm receipt of your order from Shopping Hub Home and Confirm receipt of your order from Employee Center.
Role: sn_shop.shopper.
Application portal: Shopping Hub or Employee Center.
- Invoices are auto-created. When invoices aren’t auto-submitted or don’t match the purchase orders, or when invoice exceptions must be resolved, an accounts payable specialist gets involved. For more information, see Accounts Payable Invoice Processing.
Alternatively, the accounts payable specialist manually creates invoices. For more information, see Accounts Payable Specialist manual tasks.
Role: sn_ap_apm.accounts_payable_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- The accounts payable specialist converts invoices of purchase order type to invoice types such as non-purchase order, credit memo, and debit memo, based on their interactions with shoppers and suppliers of business services.
For more information, see Accounts Payable Specialist manual tasks.
Role: sn_ap_apm.accounts_payable_specialist.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- An accounts payable agent manages and works on assigned invoice cases, requests more information from suppliers or employees if necessary, and creates and assigns tasks to the users. For more information, see Invoice Case Management.
Role: sn_ap_cm.agent.
Application portal: Source-to-Pay Workspace.
- The employee, approver, sourcing manager, procurement specialist, supplier manager, accounts payable specialist, and accounts payable agent have complete visibility into the status of the workflow through process completion, from their respective portals.