PunchOut Vendors & Catalog
Make Financial Decisions With Confidence and Intelligence
See a quick overview video of PunchOut capabilities
PunchOut catalogs are accessed from within Paramount WorkPlace
A PunchOut site is an ecommerce website that lets your buyers make purchases from a supplier’s website accessed directly through your own eProcurement software. The PunchOut website communicates directly with the buying organization’s procurement system through cXML (commerce eXtensible Markup Language). The PunchOut site is essentially a catalog of products referencing your vendor-negotiated pricing and maintained by your supplier.
Paramount WorkPlace PunchOut capabilities are a great alternative (or addition) to maintaining guided buying catalog information for large or rapidly changing catalogs, because they reduce buyers’ catalog maintenance tasks, while continuing to keep purchases under visibility and control. Using PunchOut capabilities can speed order processing and lower procurement costs.
PunchOut in 8 easy steps:
- Select the PunchOut vendor from the requisition function in your eProcurement solution
- Shop on vendors’ website, viewing your company’s negotiated pricing
- View real-time inventory availability
- Place desired items in your shopping cart
- Requisitions auto populate with shopping cart items for quick, error-proof entry
- Checkout with ease – all items selected are added to the requisition
- Requisition then follows normal workflow established in your eProcurement solution
- Once approved, your purchase orders are created and automatically sent to the vendor
Features and Benefits:
- Faster order processing
- Lower overall procurement costs
- Less work spent by your buyers maintaining internal catalogs
- Provides familiar supplier interface to shoppers
- Always reflects current, negotiated pricing
- Keeps more purchases under your direct control
Ask your suppliers if they offer PunchOut capabilities
Forrester predicts that business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce transactions will reach $1.2 trillion by 2021. Suppliers aren’t blind to this trend and are increasing their market share by boosting their online presence, including adding PunchOut capabilities. And more and more large, global, and government-sector companies are demanding that their suppliers offer PunchOut catalogs because they recognize the tremendous time and labor savings involved.
PunchOut offers significant benefits to suppliers — they get paid more quickly, maintain better control over their inventory, and improve customer retention. For vendors not able or interested in developing their own PunchOut capabilities, companies such as PunchOut2Go, eStore-Connect, and Greenwing Technology enable all types and sizes of vendors to offer PunchOut.
Terms & Definitions
What is PunchOut:
A PunchOut site is an eCommerce website that lets your buyers make purchases from a supplier's website accessed directly through your own eProcurement software. It was named for the “punching out” action taken by the buyer organization as they exit their company's system and link to the suppliers’ web-based catalogs.
What is cXML:
cXML (commerce eXtensible Markup Language) is a programming language designed to standardize the communications between procurement applications and eCommerce suppliers.
What is a Guided Buying Catalog:
A Guided Buying Catalog is an internal catalog of products and/or services containing items of your choosing organized by vendor, department, type of item, etc.
What is Requisition:
A requisition is a documented way to request an action or item for delivery by a certain date, department or individual.
What is a Purchase Order:
A purchase order is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, terms, and agreed prices for products or services.
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