The following describes the basic process for a Customer to create an Order, and for the Supplier to fulfil the Order. The order passes through many stages in this process which are collectively referred to as ‘the Order Lifecycle’.
As the order progresses through these stages, it will be managed by different user “roles” in ConSol. Users in an organisation may be configured to have more than one role. For example, in a very small supplier organisation, all the supplier roles may be fulfilled by only one person.
1. The Create Order process is performed by a person with the Job Originator role. The Job Originator outlines the basic requirements of an Order such as description, location and service period.
2. The Job Originator then assigns the Order to a Contract Administrator. The Contract Administrator is responsible for the Categorise Order stage.
3. The choice can then be made whether to go to the Pre-itemise Order stage (adding items and quantities without pricing) or pass the Order to the Scheduler to select a Supplier to carry out the work on the Order.
Note:
The advantage of the Pre-itemise stage is that only Suppliers who can deliver the required items will be available to select at the Allocation stage.
4. After the Allocate Order stage, in which a Supplier is selected by the Scheduler, the Order goes back to the Contract Administrator for the final Itemise Order stage where the contractually agreed cost of the items is displayed. At this point, items and quantities can be added or removed before the Transmit Order stage, in which the Order is sent to the selected Supplier.
5. When the Order is received by the Supplier, the person in the Supplier role of Allocation must Accept or Reject the Order.
6. If accepted, the Order is forwarded to the Supplier Operations role to update work progress before completing the Order.
Note:
The Supplier may request variations to the Order and/or an extension of time to complete the Order. These requests may or may not be approved by the Customer Contract Administrator. These are alternative workflows to the basic flow.
7. Once the necessary work has been completed for the Order, the Supplier marks the Order as Work Complete in ConSol and submits a Claim for payment to the Customer.
8. After the Supplier has submitted a Claim, the person in the Customer Verification role must approve the Claim. If the Verification role rejects the Claim, it will be returned to the Supplier to be adjusted as required, and re-submitted.
9. Once the person in the Verification role verifies the Claim, the Order returns to the Supplier side. The person with the Supplier Accounts role enters the Invoice number and submits the Invoice to Customer Accounts.
10. Lastly, Customer Accounts approves the Invoice for payment. If the Invoice is rejected, it is returned to Supplier Accounts to be adjusted as required, and re-submitted.