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Overview

Procurement in COMS is built around the Purchase Request (PR). A PR is the hub: everything else in a buy — the items you need, the bidders you invite, the RFQ/RFP you send them, the quotes that come back, the approvals, and finally the Purchase Order — hangs off it.

This chapter has four pages. Start here for the shape of the process, then go to the page that matches what you're doing:

Where to find it

In the left sidebar: Procurement → Purchase Requests. That opens the procurement workspace, which is a set of tabs over the whole module:

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The life of a Purchase Request

A PR moves through four stages. The gauge at the top of every PR shows where it is:

Stage What it means What you can still change
PR Created The PR exists. You're building it up — items, bidders, RFQ, quotes. Everything.
Bid Selected You've marked one bid as the winner. Most things. But the PR can no longer be deleted, and bid item costs are frozen for every bidder on the PR.
Ready For Purchase You've declared the PR complete and handed it to procurement to buy. Nothing. The PR and everything under it is locked.
PO Created A Purchase Order has been raised from the PR. Nothing.

If an approval on the PR is rejected, the gauge drops back and shows REJECTED in red.

The progress gauge, Suggested Next Steps, the Bidder List approval track, and the selected bid.

The progress gauge, Suggested Next Steps, the Bidder List approval track, and the selected bid.

Suggested Next Steps

COMS works out what the PR needs next and offers it as clickable chips in the dark panel at the top. You don't have to follow them, but they're the quickest route through, and they disappear one by one as you complete them. In order, they are:

Chip Appears when
Add items The PR has no items yet.
Add bidders The PR has no bidders yet.
Add SSJ A non-competitive PR has bidders but no Single Source Justification.
Request bidder list approval Bidders are added but not yet sent for approval.
Request SSJ approval An SSJ exists but hasn't been sent for approval.
Generate/upload RFQ/P & send to bidders A bidder has no quoted items yet and there's no RFX for them.
Upload quotes & update bid item costs The RFX has gone out but the costs aren't in yet.
Select winning bid Every bidder has quoted and no winner is chosen.
Mark as ready for purchase There's a selected bid, the bidder list is approved, and (for non-competitive PRs) the SSJ is approved.

ℹ️ Good to know: The Mark as ready for purchase chip is the one that tells you the PR has cleared everything it needs. If it hasn't appeared, something upstream is still outstanding — check the Bidder List and SSJ tracks in the hero.

Two approval tracks

Separately from the main stage, a PR carries up to two approval chains, each with its own little progress bar in the hero:

Track Applies to States
Bidder List Every PR. Bidder(s) Added → Pending Bidder List Approval → Bidder List Approved (or Rejected)
SSJ Non-competitive PRs only. SSJ Added → Pending SSJ Approval → SSJ Approved (or Rejected)

⚠️ Heads up: Once the Bidder List or the SSJ reaches Approved, the bidder list is frozen: you can no longer add, edit or remove bidders on that PR. Get the list right before you send it for approval. (Details: When bidder details freeze.)

Both tracks run through COMS's general Approvals module — see the Approvals chapter of this book for how requesting and deciding works.

What's different from BMS

If you know the BMS procurement process, the overall flow is familiar. However, there’s one key difference:

  • In BMS, you receive a quote from the supplier by email and manually enter the pricing into the system.
  • In COMS, you have the option to send the supplier a one-time link, allowing them to enter their own line-item costs and submit the quote directly. See more info here.


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