System and method for leveraging procurement across companies and company groups

• US 20070179894A1
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Gerald Robinson, Robert Evans, Sherry Wilson, Susan Cirulli
• Original Assignee: Gerald Robinson, Robert Evans, Sherry Wilson, Susan Cirulli
• Inventors: Wilson, Sherry, Evans, Robert, Cirulli, Susan, Robinson, Gerald
• Granted Patent: US 8,666,903 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/204 comprising interface for record bearing medium or carrier for electronic funds transfer or payment credit
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

A leveraged procurement network (LPN) system for leveraging purchasing across company and company groups includes a front-end requisition and catalog system accessible by users from a plurality of companies in different company groups. Access to procurement resources is controlled by user profiles and resource profiles specifying for each user and resource the applicable company group. Purchases against volume specific contracts are leveraged by requisitions for a plurality of company groups, while user access to procurement resources within the front-end system are controlled by company and/or company group.

Claims

1-26. -26. (canceled)

27. A method for providing procurement services to a plurality of customer companies with complex accounting rules while providing secure information viewing in support of said customer companies, said customer companies being organized in a plurality of customer company groups and procurement coalitions for volume discounts and access to shared contracts with respect to a plurality of vendors, with procurement contracts leveraged across company groups, comprising the steps of:

establishing in a computer database a user profile for associating acceptable accounting and system controls to each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services;

associating each said company with a company group of related companies;

providing common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

said user profile specifying for each said user a user company and company group so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

providing for each procurement resource to be shared among said users a resource profile in a computer database specifying for each resource those said companies to have access to and share said procurement resource; and

responsive to said user profile and said resource profiles, controlling user access to said procurement resources by users authorized by their user profile, from several company groups using a common catalog with said users not knowing that other users use said procurement resources or having access to knowledge of requisitions applied against its line items.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising the step of providing said procurement resources in a front-end catalog and requisition server.

29. The method of claim 28, further comprising the steps of:

receiving a user request from a first client browser to log in to said front-end server;

responsive to said request, providing a user interface at said client browser only to procurement resources authorized by said user profile and said resource profiles.

30. The method of claim 28, further comprising the steps of:

receiving requests from a plurality of users authorized by different company groups to enter a requisition to a vendor with respect to the same catalog or contract resource; and

generating separate purchase orders to said vendor with respect to requisitions originating with users from each said company group.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising the steps of:

leveraging procurement buys from a plurality of company groups with respect to the same volume specific contract for goods or services.

32. The method of claim 28, further comprising the steps of:

allowing said user to apply procurement charges to charge centers only within his company group.

33. The method of claim 29, said procurement resources including a vendor catalog.

34. The method of claim 29, said procurement resources including a blanket order procurement contract for goods or services.

35. The method of claim 29, said procurement resources including a user profile table.

36. The method of claim 29, said procurement resources including costs centers.

37. The method of claim 29, said procurement resources including accounting general ledger codes with company group specific accounting rules and defaults.

38. System for providing procurement services by an enterprise to a plurality of customer companies with complex accounting rules while providing secure information viewing in support of said customer companies, said customer companies being organized in a plurality of customer company groups and procurement coalitions for volume discounts and access to shared contracts with respect to a plurality of vendors, with procurement contracts leveraged across company groups, comprising:

a front end server;

a user profile associating acceptable accounting and system controls for each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services;

each said company associated with a company group of related companies;

common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

said user profile specifying for each said user a user company and company group so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

a plurality of procurement resources to be shared among said users;

a resource profile for each said procurement resource specifying those said companies to have access to and share said procurement resource; and

said user profile and said resource profiles for controlling user access to said procurement resources.

39. The system of claim 38, said procurement resources further comprising:

vendor catalog;

a blanket order procurement contract for goods or services; and

a table of user profiles.

40. The system of claim 38, said procurement resources further comprising:

costs centers; and

accounting general ledger codes with company group specific accounting rules and defaults.

41. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by a machine to perform method steps fir providing procurement services to a plurality of customer companies with complex accounting rules while providing secure information viewing in support of said customer companies, said customer companies being organized in a plurality of customer company groups and procurement coalitions for volume discounts and access to shared contracts with respect to a plurality of vendors, with procurement contracts leveraged across company groups, comprising:

a computer readable storage device;

first program instructions for establishing a user profile for associating acceptable accounting and system controls to each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services;

second program instructions for associating each said company with a company group of related companies;

third program instructions for providing common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

said user profile specifying for each said user a user company and company group so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

fourth program instructions for providing for each procurement resource to be shared among said users a resource profile specifying for each resource those said companies to have access to and share said procurement resource;

fifth program instructions responsive to said user profile and said resource profiles for controlling user access to said procurement resources; and

wherein

said first, second, third, fourth, and fifth program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

42. The program storage device of claim 41 further comprising sixth program instructions for providing said procurement resources in a front-end catalog and requisition server;

and wherein said sixth program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

43. The program storage device of claim 42, further comprising:

seventh program instructions for receiving a user request from a first client browser to log in to said front-end server;

eighth program instructions, responsive to said request, for providing a user interface at said client browser only to procurement resources authorized by said user profile and said resource profiles; and

wherein

said seventh and eighth program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

44. The program storage device of claim 42, further comprising:

seventh program instructions for receiving requests from a plurality of users authorized by different company groups to enter a requisition to a vendor with respect to the same catalog or contract resource;

eighth program instructions for generating separate purchase orders to said vendor with respect to requisitions originating with users from each said company group; and

wherein

said seventh and eighth program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

45. The program storage device of claim 44, further comprising:

ninth program instructions for leveraging procurement buys from a plurality of company groups with respect to the same volume specific contract for goods or services; and

wherein

said ninth program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

46. The program storage device of claim 42, further comprising:

seventh program instructions for allowing said user to apply procurement charges to charge centers only within his company group; and

wherein

said seventh program instructions are recorded on said computer readable storage device.

47. The program storage device of claim 43, said procurement resources including a vendor catalog.

48. The program storage device of claim 43, said procurement resources including a blanket order procurement contract for goods or services.

49. The program storage device of claim 43, said procurement resources including a user profile table.

50. The program storage device of claim 43, said procurement resources including costs centers.

51. The program storage device of claim 43, said procurement resources including accounting general ledger codes with company group specific accounting rules and defaults.

52. A computer program product or computer program element for providing procurement services to a plurality of customer companies according to method steps comprising:

establishing a user profile for associating acceptable accounting and system controls to each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services;

associating each said company with a company group of related companies;

providing common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

said user profile specifying for each said user a user company and company group so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

providing for each procurement resource to be shared among said users a resource profile specifying for each resource those said companies to have access to and share said procurement resource; and

responsive to said user profile and said resource profiles, controlling user access to said procurement resources.

53. A method for providing procurement services to a plurality of customer companies with complex accounting rules while providing secure information viewing in support of said customer companies, said customer companies being organized in a plurality of customer company groups and procurement coalitions for volume discounts and access to shared contracts with respect to a plurality of vendors, with procurement contracts leveraged across company groups, comprising the steps of:

providing a front end requisition and catalog server for providing a user interface to a user at a customer company browser to access catalogs and commodities managed by said enterprise and for providing approval notices and receiving approve/reject data with respect to customer approvers;

providing an enterprise procurement services system managed by said enterprise for accepting requisitions from said front end requisition and catalog server entered by said user and responsive thereto for causing said electronic data interchange application to generate transactions to said vendors and for generating accounting transactions to a leveraged procurement network data warehouse facility for said requisitions;

providing said leveraged procurement network data warehouse facility for storing and monitoring said electronic data interchange transactions and accounting transactions;

providing an enterprise hub server for transferring data between said front end requisition and catalog server, a back-end purchasing system, and said data warehouse facility;

establishing in a computer database a user profile for associating acceptable accounting and system controls to each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services;

associating each said company with a company group of related companies;

providing common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

specifying in said user profile for each said user a user company code and company group code so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

said procurement services including process requirements and data resources accessible only to those users identified in their profiles as members of a particular company and, therefore, company group;

using said company group code and said company code responsive to user login to associate said user with a given company in a company group for controlling catalog application code to display to said user only those catalogs for which a corresponding catalog profile includes said user'"'"'s company in said resource profile;

providing for each procurement resource to be shared among said users a resource profile in a computer database specifying for each resource those companies to have access to and share said procurement resource; and

responsive to said user profile and said resource profiles, controlling user access to said procurement resources.

54. System for providing procurement services by an enterprise to a plurality of customer companies with complex accounting rules while providing secure information viewing in support of said customer companies, said customer companies being organized in a plurality of customer company groups and procurement coalitions for volume discounts and access to shared contracts with respect to a plurality of vendors, with procurement contracts leveraged across company groups, comprising:

a front end requisition and catalog server for providing a user interface to a user at a customer company to access catalogs and commodities managed by said enterprise;

an enterprise procurement services system managed by said enterprise for accepting requisitions from said front end requisition and catalog server entered by said user and responsive thereto for generating transactions to said vendors and for generating accounting transactions to a leveraged procurement network data warehouse facility for said requisitions;

said leveraged procurement network hosted data warehouse facility for storing and monitoring said electronic data interchange transactions and accounting transactions;

said requisition and catalog server including a user profile table, a company group human resources file, a new employee profile build application, a table build application and a plurality of procurement resources;

said user profile table associating acceptable accounting and system controls for each person authorized by a customer company to access said procurement services for leveraging access and maintaining isolation of data by identifying a user at log on as associated with a particular company group;

said hub server including a company group human resources file connected through a fire wall to said requisition and catalog server for creating and maintaining said user profile table;

said procurement resources including process requirements and data resources accessible only to those users identified in their profiles as members of a particular company and, therefore, company group

each entry for a user in said user profile including company group code and company code;

said company group code and said company code being operable responsive to user login to associate said user with a given company in a company group, thereby controlling catalog application code to display to said user only those catalogs for which a corresponding catalog profile includes said user'"'"'s company in said resource profile;

each said company associated with a company group of related companies;

common code defining workflow components common to all companies within said company group, including accounting validation and approval processing;

said user profile specifying for each said user a user company and company group so as to define said controls based on company and company group;

a resource profile for each said procurement resource, each entry in said resource profile including a resource identifier and specifying companies to have access to and share said procurement resource; and

said user profile and said resource profiles for controlling user access to said procurement resources.