The procurement department is charged with the purchasing of goods and services for the organisation, in a fair and transparent manner while obtaining the best value for money for the organisation. Different organisations will have different policies and procedures and some such as in the public and/or regulated sectors will have quite formal, open and controlled processes. Public Procurement globally has strict requirements often set down in legislation to ensure that all suppliers have a fair and equitable chance of bidding for business and can have confidence that due process has been followed. There are significant documents, records and defined processes required that must be open to internal and external audit, also potentially public challenge through freedom of information, or legal challenge should a participant believe due process or legal requirements were not followed or unfair/illegal practice was at play. Some of the documents/records within the process (Whether manual or automated on line) are:
- RFT/RFQ (Requests for Tender/Quotation)
- Formal Invitations to Tender
- Questions & Answers relating to a procurement
- Expressions of Interest
- Proposals
- BAFO’s (Best and Final Offers)
- Contracts
- Pricing & Commercials
- Service Level Agreements
- (Even internal documents and processes such as the Purchase Requisition or Purchase Order Process).
What they all have in common is that stakeholders must trust the authenticity and integrity of the process and related documents. Document ownership, receipt, processing dates etc. are all critical and must be able to be validated as authentic.
Digiprove Autoprotect allows procurement to create trust for their stakeholders by ensuring that all documents on creation, receipt or official change are digitally certified, date and time stamped so that ownership, authenticity and integrity can be established. In addition should there be an enquiry or challenge all sensitive documents and their audit trail can be verified quickly and simply on-line to verify the digital records are in fact true, accurate and have not been tampered with.
