Our Sales & Marketing Expert for France, Sebastien Urios will give you a full presentation about ‘How to keep your competitors at bay with X-Search PunchOut software’, at the Orovibe 2022. You can attend his presentation by signing up here. 
Ask him about our reference cases and his experiences in connecting Oro throughout PunchOut software with Coupa, Proactis, and Ivalua.

OroVibe brings various B2B experts and eCommerce professionals together under one roof.

You’ll get tons of networking opportunities to connect with industry experts, and learn about case studies that solve real business challenges.

This event is especially useful for:

• CEOs and Presidents
• Sales and Marketing Executives
• Digital Strategy Managers
• eCommerce Integrators
• B2B Payment & Shipping Providers

Come together with like-minded peers and discuss what matters in B2B. Register now! 

Our team of PunchOut experts are ready to help you and your customers build PunchOut integration for your B2B eCommerce solutions today!

Here is a quick overview of the primary points of communication between all aspects of a PunchOut website:

1. Connect: Employees use a purchasing system to navigate their B2B shopping experience when they need to buy goods or services to perform their job. B2B customers can access product catalogs and data through PunchOut integration with you and the supplier’s e-commerce store.
2. Data Transfer: PunchOut sends a PunchOut Setup Request (PSR) message to examine incoming data and route to the correct supplier catalog. PSR is usually formatted in specific commerce extensible markup languages like cXML or OCI.
3. Shop: Once connected, users can interact with a supplier’s e-commerce site quickly and easily. Once they find the goods and services they are looking for. Users can checkout with the items in their shopping cart. Users have their shopping cart items transferred to the buyer’s procurement application for processing.
4. Purchase Order: Once transferred to the buyer’s e-procurement system, the PunchOut solution guides workflow automation behind the scenes like checking approvals and accounting information. Once everything is approved, the buyer’s ERP sends the order through your fulfillment process.
5. Shipment Notice: A PunchOut website sends communication between the supplier’s eCommerce platform and the buying organization throughout the entire shipping process. PunchOut catalogs send notices between the seller and buyer so all parties can track packages in real-time.
6. Invoice & Reporting: Once items are delivered, the PunchOut site will relay information about the requisition back to the buying organization. This information will be used for accurate reports, budgets, and enterprise resource planning.

A PunchOut website uses various connections and automation processes to make requisition easier for everyone throughout the procurement process.

• Save Money: Electronic catalogs like PunchOut offer substantial savings on goods for B2B purchases due to the reduced labor costs and the automated process. These savings are passed on to organizations to secure discounted costs from large suppliers.
• Save Time: PunchOut eliminates the need to manually import a supplier catalog into your organization’s procurement system. The constant connection between your organization and the stores of your supplies means that you will save time, money, and resources since PunchOut automates the entire process!
• Real-Time Updates: PunchOut Catalogs use enhanced interfaces to display items, prices, and availability in real-time based on employee permissions. This means you won’t have to update vendor catalogs nor worry about outdated information manually!
• Improve Order Accuracy & Speed: PunchOut helps everyone throughout the procurement process. For buyers, this catalog makes it easier for employees to find approved items to buy. For sellers, a PunchOut catalog reduces the time and resources to process purchase requests and handles records and notifications with the buyer.
• Centralized Solutions: Organizations can benefit in numerous ways by using PunchOut to create a single solution for their procurement needs. With an automated system, companies can keep all information updated and manage vendor catalogs with ease.

Once items are purchased, PunchOut relays information about the shopping cart back to the organization to confirm financial approvals. This process also helps ensure purchases and approvals follow the organization’s standard workflow steps set out by the Chief Procurement Officer and department managers.

The term “PunchOut” was initially developed in 1999 by Ariba as a way to connect ERP applications to e-commerce hubs. Ariba, now owned by SAP and known as SAP Ariba, named the process “PunchOut” because users would literally “punchout” of their procurement application to access the supplier’s catalog, then “punch” back in to process the order after checkout.

PunchOut makes it fast and easy for employees to browse available items on a supplier’s website directly through the organization’s existing ERP or e-procurement system.

PunchOut handles communication between the buyer and seller to display specific information like items, prices, and purchase terms, so buyers have access to information they need to streamline the procurement process.

1. Save Employee Time: The procurement process in large organizations can be long and tedious as employees have to check pricing, vendors, and compare to procurement policies manually.
2. Automate Approval Workflow: Sometimes, an employee will need to make a large purchase outside their budget permissions. Instead of wasting time with emails and phone calls, an e-procurement system will send a purchase request to the appropriate department manager for approval as needed. The system handles all the heavy lifting and communication so employees can focus on their job at hand.
3. Access Preferred Vendors: Organizations typically have preferred vendors to ensure low prices. An e-procurement system stores vendor contact information, payment terms, and other information for easy retrieval and review.
4. Improved Budget Control: Organizations are looking for ways to reduce overhead, and e-procurement systems ensure employees never spend more than they are authorized to spend.
5. Streamlined Record-Keeping: Once a purchase is approved, an e-purchase system handles the communication of purchase orders, shipping/receiving confirmations, and invoice management for accounts payable.
6. Preventing Dark Purchases: Dark purchases are items that are bought by an employee that falls outside of the organization’s defined procurement process. Dark purchases are uncontrolled costs, and companies can experience lost revenue if dark purchases are not controlled.
7. Resolve Sourcing Issues: Supplier management is a critical challenge for procurement professionals. E-procurement systems help organizations keep track of quality, vendor performance, and other complications.
8. Shortened Procurement Cycle: Sometimes, items are ordered with urgency, but the long purchasing process can end with employees not receiving their items for weeks or months after the scheduled delivery date.
9. Enforce Risk Management: All procurement processes contain inherent levels of risk to compliance, policy adherence, and conflict between participants.

While the procurement process is complicated, employees need to order the goods and services to do their jobs. Enterprise-level companies and organizations need a system to help employees purchase items from approved vendors and streamline the entire process.

E-procurement systems are a necessary component for all large organizations, and one way to support an organization even more is with the PunchOut solution.

This process may sound similar to an individual jumping onto Amazon or Walmart.com to buy personal items. However, B2B e-commerce requires an e-procurement solution with specialized functionality and customizations to regulate employee management policies, vendor agreements, and other spend management considerations.

From government agencies looking to save taxpayer dollars to large corporations that need a way to remain competitive, e-procurement systems support all organizations because they govern employee permissions, automate approval workflow, and reduce time wasted on inter-department communication.

So how does supporting PunchOut catalogs from your WooCommerce web store translate into increased online sales from Global 2000 customers? 

First, Global 2000 companies almost exclusively use procurement systems to buy online from suppliers.  Because procurement system ROI (return on investment) is based 100% of orders originating in the procurement system, having a customer place orders from outside of the procurement system – for example, logging into your WooCommerce web store from a browser – is prohibited by your customer’s purchasing policies.

So, to get and keep their business, you need to integrate your WooCommerce web store with their procurement system; and PunchOut is how you do it!

The Vurbis PunchOut Plugin™ enables your WooCommerce web store to support PunchOut catalogs without modification using the cloud. Once installed, Vurbis PunchOut Plugin™ recognizes PunchOut requests (while ignoring other login requests) from your customers any procurement system.  Working with the web store API and the Vurbis Cloud, it initiates and manages the PunchOut session on your behalf.

The PunchOut user shops you store just like they logged in from the web. This allows your PunchOut customers the same access to the advanced B2B features and functionality in your WooCommerce web store as your other online customers.

In addition to increased sales, other benefits of supporting PunchOut catalogs include lower cost of sales, fewer errors and exceptions, increased brand exposure, and higher customer satisfaction levels.

If your Global 2000 customers haven’t already started asking for PunchOut catalogs, assume they will be soon. A recent study conducted by Mordor Intelligence indicates the global procurement market can expect a 10.2% CAGR between 2020 and 2025.

Still not convinced PunchOut catalogs can work for you? Amazon Business started supporting PunchOut on their site in late 2015. By the end of 2018, sales increased more than 10X from under $1B to over $10B and are in excess of $25B today!

If PunchOut catalogs worked for Amazon Business, it can work for you too.

Because of the benefits, using the eProcurement system for all purchases are typically mandated within a company, and placing orders outside the eProcurement system – for example, going directly to a supplier’s B2B web store from their browser – is a big no-no.

As a result, the typical web ordering process, where the customer logins, shops, creates a cart, clicks “order,” and their credit card is charged can’t be used with an eProcurement system.

Today, customers require that their suppliers integrate their B2B web stores with their eProcurement system, and the industry-standard method for doing this is “PunchOut” (aka PunchOut catalogs, PunchOut integration, cXML PunchOut, OCI roundtrip.)

Here’s how PunchOut integrates your B2B web store with your customer’s eProcurement system:

First, eProcurement systems have their own shopping cart, and B2B web stores have their own shopping carts. The eProcurement user needs to populate the eProcurement shopping cart with items from the web store shopping cart. PunchOut gives him the ability to log into the web store from the eProcurement system, create a cart, and then send the cart contents back to the eProcurement system shopping cart without placing an order.

Speaking of orders, after the eProcurement system shopping cart is approved, a cXML purchase order is sent to the B2B web store. PunchOut enables the web store to process the cXML purchase order – and, if needed, send the eProcurement system a cXML ship notice or even a cXML invoice.

So just having a robust, high functional B2B web store is no longer good enough if your customers are using eProcurement systems – and most are or plan to in the future. Your B2B web store also needs PunchOut capability.

1. Source-to-pay
2. Purchase-to-pay
3. Procure-to-pay

Here’s how. In essence, we are buyers that procure resources, whether they are physical or virtual. We then go ahead and process them into products or services.

From here, we become sellers that ultimately want to get paid for our services and products.

So while our B2B processes may vary in size and complexity, they are essentially the same.  So what is the definition of these three terms? And how does it fit in the B2B Supply Chain?

Source-To-Pay

Source-to-Pay is the process of obtaining raw materials or components necessary to manufacture a product or provide a service and pay for products purchased from sellers or merchants. Typically a term used with manufacturers. Think Bill Of Materials, Logistics, etc.

Source-to-Pay relies on tech, big data as well as digital networks to enable procurement efficiency. So, instead of looking at the procurement process as a series of unrelated tasks, the source-to-pay method is integrated, allowing companies to purchase across different departments while also improving performance, spend analysis and overall business value.

Organizations that adopt a source-to-pay platform ultimately witness higher sourcing savings due to increased visibility into the procurement process. These organizations also have better-negotiating pricing power as well as more accurate forecasting.

Purchase-To-Pay

Purchase-to-pay is an integrated system that fully automates the goods and services purchasing process for a business.

The purchase-to-pay process enables pre-negotiated contracts, better communication with vendors, reduced overall supply chain and inventory costs, improved operational performance, improved financial decisions and overall efficiency,

Note: the purchase-to-pay process does not intrinsically include the Account Payable department or integrates with budgets or cost center.

Procure-To-Pay

Procure-to-pay is a term used in the software industry to designate a specific subdivision of the procurement process.

The P2P process involves integrating purchasing and accounts payable (AP) systems to create overall better efficiency within the procurement process.

This process exists within a more extensive procurement management process and typically involves the following:

• Selection of goods and services
• Carrying out compliance and order
• Receiving
• Invoicing
• Payment

The procure-to-pay process can help businesses and organizations purchase from preferred suppliers at already negotiated prices without manual paperwork and spreadsheet headaches, ultimately strengthening compliance and control over vendors, regulations, buyers, contracts, and accounts payable.

Vurbis Procure-2-Pay Solutions

Vurbis Solutions can be integrated into any part of the procure-to-pay process through a non-invasive approach. What does this mean? It just means we eliminate the need to change any existing code or processes on both the supplier and buyer side.

To get started with Vurbis today, or to learn more, contact us.