The FlexProcess Purchasing module covers the series of work flows from the purchase requisitions of raw materials to purchase order, receiving, and invoice management for production related materials, and automates your procurement process to simplify and reduce the overall costs of purchasing. The functional requirements required for the global business, such as multiple languages, currencies, taxes, trade charges are also supported.

Vendor Resources are used to define the master information about goods and services purchased from the vendor. By defining details for each vendor's purchasing materials, FlexProcess Purchasing establishes better visibility and control of purchasing activities.

• One item can be purchased from multiple vendors (Multi-vendor purchasing).
• Unit costs can be defined for each vendor item and time period.
• Materials can be ordered by UM other than inventory control UM (e.g. KG for inventory UM, BAG for order UM).
• Lead time and lot sizing can be defined for each vendor resource.
• Updating the receiving activity will automatically update its inventory unit.

A purchase order line item contains information such as vendor resource, order quantity, unit price, dates of delivery, deliver-to trading partner, and lots. Each line item has its status to manage the progress. 
Two settings are used to automatically determine if an approval is required or not: the user created the requisition, and the resource requested. Use of the approval feature ensures the security of data processed.

FlexProcess purchasing allows each site to process purchase orders individually, as well as centralized purchasing from different sites. Centralized purchasing improves operational efficiency and can reduce the purchasing costs.

The FlexProcess Purchasing module interacts with the Planning module and the Inventory module for more operational efficiencies.

• A purchase requisition is entered either by a user, or by importing planning run results.
• Received purchase orders are considered as expected receipts in the planning run.
• Updating the receiving activity will automatically update its inventory unit.
• The received unit costs are used in the costing run.
• Invoice data is transferred to the Financials module as Accounts Payable.