Managing Suppliers
In the context of Risk Assess, a supplier is any party, internal or external, that provides goods and/or services to a business. External suppliers provide goods, such as printer paper, and services, such as document management. Internal suppliers also provide goods and/or services. For example, the Help Desk provides assistance to internal associates under a service level agreement.
The Risk Assess application provides the ability to store and manage the documents, attributes and processes around a relationship with internal and external suppliers, including:
- Assessing the risk of doing business with a supplier
- Measuring a supplier’s performance
- Confirming that the supplier is compliant with the organization’s business practices and policies, as well as government regulations
- Understanding the mix of supplier sites/locations from which products/services are being delivered
- Providing an online community for people to collaborate and track relevant documents.
A logical connection between a supplier and its subsidiary organizations can be created through designation of a parent/child association between any two suppliers (to any number of levels).
Supplier records are comprised of a combination of standard- and user-defined fields and objects. Inclusion of fields in the “Supplier Management” page (Suppliers tab) is managed through the Data Dictionary (Admin tab > Configuration Data Management section > Data Dictionary Management link). For more information on the Data Dictionary, see the Data Dictionary Management help topic.
Standard fields in the supplier record and their descriptions are listed in the following table. Required fields are designated with an asterisk (*):
FIELD TITLE |
FIELD DESCRIPTION |
---|---|
Corporate Name* |
Business name of the supplier |
Supplier Number* |
Auto-generated/pre-assigned by the application, but can be changed manually by the user, if preferred |
Default Account Manager* |
Name of the supplier employee who is responsible for the supplier’s account with the customer company |
Default Account Manager Email |
Contact email address for the supplier employee who is responsible for the supplier’s account with the customer company |
Status |
Active or Inactive designation of the supplier in the application’s workflow |
Supplier Life Cycle Status |
Stage of the sourcing process in which the supplier is categorized |
External Reference |
Reference key that uniquely identified the supplier in one or more external systems (for example, SAP, Oracle) |
Corporate Short Name |
Common abbreviation or acronym representing the supplier |
Legal Name |
Name by which the supplier corporation conducts its operations |
Business Type |
Business category by which the supplier corporation was established |
Supplier Type |
Industry in which the supplier conducts its business |
DUNS Number |
Data Universal Numbering System 9-digit number issued by Dun & Bradstreet to uniquely identify the supplier for the purpose of credit reporting |
On Hold |
Status indicating whether the supplier is barred from entering into relationships |
Hold Reason |
Description of why the supplier has been indicated as “On Hold,” if applicable |
Ticker Symbol |
Stock trading symbol that uniquely identifies the supplier as a public business entity |
Industry Classification |
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code identifying the primary business activity of the supplier |
Classification |
Supplier segmentation classification indicating the type of business relationship the customer has with the supplier (e.g., commodity, strategic) |
Risk Rating |
Assessment of overall risk assigned to the supplier |
Tax ID |
9-digit identifier issued by the federal government for the purpose of reporting income |
VAT Number |
5-12 alphanumeric character identifier issued by many countries, including countries of the European Union for Value Added (consumption) Tax purposes |
Year Established |
Year the supplier was founded |
EDI Enabled |
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) protocol type used for the supplier |
TEL |
Indicator of whether the supplier is on the U.S. State Department’s Terrorist Exclusion List |
Auto Approve Compliance |
Indicator of whether all compliance programs in which the supplier is enrolled will be automatically approved or will require review and approval by the designated approver |
Supplier Group |
Name of the customer-defined supplier group in which the supplier is a member |
Supplier Parent |
Name of the parent supplier to which the subordinate supplier (child) is a subsidiary organization |
Default Supplier Manager* |
Application user name for the internal (customer) user responsible for managing the supplier |
Phone |
Contact telephone number for the supplier |
Fax |
Contact facsimile number for the supplier |
Country of Origin |
Country from which the supplier’s goods are shipper or services are rendered |
Default Language |
Primary language by which the supplier communicates |
Website |
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address of the supplier’s corporate website |
Available Supplier Groups |
List of all user groups to which the supplier users may belong |
Selected Supplier Groups |
Designation of an internal user group to the supplier in the event of an incomplete external only program; this group assignment can be utilized to delegate the external program to an internal user for completion on behalf of the supplier |
Products and/or Services |
Description of products and services provided by the supplier |