Operations platform
Suppliers stop emailing
your payables inbox
A supplier-facing workspace covering onboarding and compliance records, purchase order acknowledgement, advance shipping notices, invoice submission and payment status. Invoices are matched against the order and the goods receipt at the point of submission, so exceptions are the supplier's problem before they become your team's.
- Cloud
- Private cloud
- On-premise
- Hybrid
Overview
Purchase orders, dispatch notes and invoices handled by suppliers themselves, matched before they reach accounts payable.
Accounts payable teams spend most of their week on two questions from suppliers: has my invoice been received, and when will I be paid. Vendor Portal answers both without a human, and prevents the invoices that cause the questions. Submission runs a three-way match against the purchase order and goods receipt with tolerances you set by category and value, and a submission that fails is rejected immediately with the failing lines named, rather than entering your ledger and stalling in an exception queue for a fortnight.
The compliance side is equally practical: bank detail changes require documentary evidence and dual approval, insurance certificates and licences carry expiry dates with escalating reminders, and supplier scorecards combine acknowledgement speed, delivery adherence and invoice accuracy. Below roughly 50 active suppliers the portal will not repay its integration cost, and a shared mailbox with a disciplined naming convention remains the cheaper answer.
- Down from 19% to 4% of submissions once matching moved to the point of entry
- Invoice exceptions
- About 340 supplier emails a month removed at Kestrel Industrial
- Payables queries
- 6 working days from invitation to first purchase order, previously 3 weeks
- Supplier onboarding
- GBP 0.9m of annual discount captured that late approval had been forfeiting
- Early payment discounts
Modules
What ships in the box
- Supplier onboarding and compliance records
- RFQ and quotation exchange
- Purchase order collaboration
- Dispatch notes and goods receipt
- Invoice submission and matching
- Payment status and dispute desk
Integrates with
- SAP S/4HANA
- Oracle NetSuite
- Coupa
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
- Tally Prime
- GSTN e-invoicing
- DocuSign
- Workday Financial Management
Capabilities
What it does
Supplier self-registration
Suppliers submit registration, tax and bank details with supporting documents. Bank details are verified by a test credit and need two internal approvals before any payment is released.
Purchase order acknowledgement
Suppliers accept, partially accept or reject each order line with a committed date and reason code, so buyers see a realistic delivery picture within hours rather than at the dock.
Advance shipping notices
Dispatch notes carry pack structure, batch and serial data, and generate scannable labels. Goods-in scans the label and receipt lines pre-populate, removing most keying errors.
Three-way match at submission
Invoices match to order and receipt with quantity and price tolerances set per category. Failures return instantly naming the offending lines, so the exception never reaches your ledger.
Tax-compliant e-invoicing
Invoice payloads are validated against GSTN e-invoicing rules and reference numbers are stored on the document, so a mismatch is caught at submission rather than at filing.
Payment status and remittance
Suppliers see scheduled payment date, held amounts and the reason for any hold, with remittance advice showing which invoices a settlement covered and any deduction applied.
Supplier scorecards
Acknowledgement time, on-time in-full delivery, quality rejection rate and invoice accuracy roll into a rating used in sourcing, visible to the supplier with the underlying orders.
Document expiry tracking
Insurance, licences and certifications hold expiry dates with reminders at 60, 30 and 7 days, and configurable blocks that stop new orders going to a supplier whose cover has lapsed.
Built for
Where this is deployed
Industry
Manufacturing
Getting the plant floor and the ERP to agree on what actually happened during the shift.
Industry
Logistics & Supply Chain
Visibility, customs filing and cost-to-serve systems for operators who move real freight.
Industry
Energy & Utilities
Meter data, settlement and grid integration for organisations where a rounding error becomes a regulatory finding.
Industry
Public Sector
Digital services that work for everyone who has to use them, including on a five-year-old phone.
Industry
Retail & E-commerce
Storefronts, stock ledgers and fulfilment logic that hold together on your busiest trading day.
FAQ
Questions we get asked
- Will suppliers actually use it?
They use it when it answers the payment question, which is why status and remittance sit on the landing page rather than three clicks in. The pattern that works is a cut-off date after which emailed invoices are returned, announced 60 days ahead, with a phone-supported onboarding week for the 20 suppliers who account for most of the volume.
- Can it work alongside SAP Ariba or Coupa?
Yes. Several clients run a sourcing suite for strategic categories and this portal for the long tail of suppliers that never justified a network licence. Orders and receipts flow in from the ERP, and matched invoices flow back, so the ledger stays single.
- How are bank detail change frauds prevented?
A change request freezes payments to that supplier, requires a document upload and a test credit, and needs approval from two named internal roles. The old and new details are both retained in the audit record with the approving users and timestamps.
Related
More Operations platforms
Operations
Inventory Management
Multi-warehouse stock, batch traceability and counting on handheld scanners.
Operations
Visitor Management
Visitor, contractor and delivery access control for multi-site campuses.
Operations
Booking Platform
Slots, resources and reschedules for organisations where an empty hour costs real money.

