The goal is to remove the barriers between the agency and the supplier so that data can be obtained as easily from any vendor as it can be from a colleague in the next office. With such a system, as soon as a need is identified and the purchase is approved, the data is transferred to the appropriate contractor and the government purchaser is informed of whether it is in stock and when the item is shipped. Two such programs are available from ERP giants SAP and PeopleSoft. SAP offers SAP Business to Business Procurement 2.0, which manages the purchasing cycle from the creation of the requisition through to the payment of the invoice. This software allows the procurement department to create its own catalog of approved items, which can then be ordered by others in the agency from their own desktops.
Users can engage in real-time interactions with the suppliers before placing the orders.
The vendors can then submit their invoices electronically. There is even the option of giving them access to the system so that they can link their invoices directly to the original purchase orders. PeopleSoft Procurement is an open-architecture, procurement management tool that can operate over a LAN or WAN or on the Web. The system monitors inventory levels and item distribution throughout the enterprise. It generates new orders when necessary based on economical purchase quantities, and purchase orders are tracked and approved online.