Expertise
Procurement & Source-to-Pay.
Every franc the company commits goes through procurement. We structure the function end to end, from sourcing to payment, on SAP Ariba, on SAP S/4HANA procurement or on Odoo: supplier master data, tenders, contracts, orders, receipts, invoices and matching. With the realities of the sub-region: local suppliers, imports in foreign currency, transit through the Port of Dakar, public procurement for institutions.
The problem
Commitments made everywhere and visible nowhere.
Orders placed by phone and regularised after the fact. A supplier file where the same partner exists three times, under three spellings. Contracts negotiated, then forgotten at the moment of ordering. Imports whose landed cost (freight, insurance, customs duties, transit, port handling) reaches the cost price only weeks later, if it reaches it at all. Invoices matched by hand, duplicates paid twice, a segregation of duties that relies on trust rather than on the system. The finance department discovers commitments at the invoice. General management discovers the drift at the balance sheet. This is not a question of buyers' rigour. It is a question of a properly equipped process.
Our approach
Make every commitment visible before it is paid.
Map
Spend by category and by supplier, real approval circuits, points where the commitment escapes the system: off-process orders, invoices without an order, untracked advances.
Design
Target process from request to payment: purchasing categories, approval thresholds and delegations, segregation of duties, single supplier master, matching rules and blocking of discrepancies.
Equip
Implementation on SAP Ariba, on SAP S/4HANA procurement or on Odoo, in the standard, integrated with finance and inventory. Supplier portal when the volume justifies it.
Anchor
Contract and process compliance indicators, training of buyers and requesters, regular supplier reviews. The procurement function is steered, no longer endured.
The scope
From request to payment, seven links.
Source-to-Pay covers the whole cycle: find, contract, order, receive, check, pay. Each link has its rules and its software building blocks. We address them together or separately, depending on your starting point.
- Sourcing & tenders
Structured consultations, comparison grids, history of bids received, traced award decision. For public institutions and donor-funded organisations, procurement procedures are carried by the tool and auditable.
- Supplier master data
Controlled creation, deduplication, supporting documents (NINEA, trade register, bank details), evaluation and segmentation between local and foreign suppliers. One supplier, one record, once.
- Contracts
Framework contracts, negotiated prices, committed quantities, deadlines and renewals. At the moment of ordering, the system proposes the contract in force: the negotiated price applies, the exception has to be justified.
- Requests & orders
Purchase requests, approval circuits by threshold and by category, orders issued from a contract or a tender, commitments visible in finance from the moment they are created. No more regularisations.
- Imports & receipts
Order in foreign currency, tracking of transit and documents (bill of lading, customs declaration), landed costs allocated to the right item on receipt, quality control and stock entry at the warehouse.
- Invoices & matching
Three-way matching of order, receipt and invoice, duplicate detection, automatic blocking of price or quantity discrepancies, automatic reading of supplier invoices to reduce data entry.
- Payments
Payment schedules, payment proposals, bank transfers or mobile money depending on the supplier, with a strict separation between the person who orders, the person who receives and the person who pays.
The context
Procurement in the sub-region has its own realities.
A procurement process copied from a generic manual rarely holds up against conditions in the field. We design with these realities, not against them.
Local suppliers
Artisans, SMEs, wholesalers, service providers: essential partners, sometimes with few tools of their own. The process must stay simple for them (a clear purchase order, quick receipt, payment on time) while keeping the traceability finance requires.
Imports and transit
Orders in foreign currency, payment on order or by documentary credit, transit through the Port of Dakar to Senegal or Mali, customs clearance, final-leg transport. The full cost of an imported item must be readable in the system, not reconstructed at the end of the quarter.
Public procurement
For government bodies, public institutions and donor-funded organisations: formalised procurement procedures, thresholds, publication, committees, traceability of every decision and accountability. The system must produce the evidence, not just the order.
Duplicates, fraud and segregation of duties
A supplier created twice, an invoice paid twice, an order and a receipt approved by the same person: the classic loopholes are closed through configuration. Distinct roles, approval thresholds, alerts on anomalies and a complete audit trail.
The technology
The building blocks of the Source-to-Pay cycle.
We choose the building block to fit the size of the company and its purchasing volumes, and we make it work with finance and inventory. A single thread, from tender to payment.
The result
Procurement that protects the margin.
- Commitments
Every order is known to finance from its approval. The budget is managed on what is committed, not on what is paid.
- Suppliers
A single, reliable master, evaluated suppliers, contracts applied at the moment of ordering rather than found after the fact.
- Cost price
The full cost of imported items, duties and transit included, is known on receipt. Selling prices and margins are decided on accurate figures.
- Control
Duplicates blocked, discrepancies stopped before payment, segregation of duties guaranteed by system roles, audit trail available for the statutory auditor and the donors.
- Treasury
Supplier due dates visible in advance, in CFA francs and foreign currency, feeding the cash forecast instead of surprising it.
- Teams
Buyers negotiate and evaluate instead of keying in and chasing. Requesters order in a few clicks, within the agreed framework.
Procurement diagnosis
Let's talk about your next commitments.
A first conversation with an AGILICIS consultant to situate your procurement function: processes, supplier master data, imports, controls and tools in place.
Let's talk →