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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Setup Considerations: Suppliers

Setup Considerations: Suppliers

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of suppliers. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

You can set up and manage suppliers to procure goods, services, and contingent labor for your organization.

Business Benefits

Supplier functionality provides:
  • A collaborative environment for your business and its suppliers.
  • Customizable tools to help you efficiently manage the information flow, organization policies, and business processes.
  • Analytics and reporting for high visibility into your company spend to help you make informed decisions.
  • Your suppliers with the ability conduct transactions in your Workday tenant.

Use Cases

  • Connect with prospective suppliers and capture essential supplier information in your Workday tenant.
  • Register suppliers and create supplier accounts.
  • Enable your suppliers to:
    • Load their own catalogs and purchase items into Workday to generate a searchable directory of goods, services, and contingent labor catalogs within Workday.
    • View and approve purchase orders and Requests for Quotes (RFQs).
    • Log time and tasks.
    • Log activities against project-based services Purchase Orders (POs).
    • Issue invoices for you to approve and pay.
    • Maintain their own contact information.
  • Generate reports for spend overviews or see your outgoing funds by spend category or on individual suppliers.
  • Set up Workday accounts for your suppliers so you can complete the entire requisition-to-pay cycle in your supplier portal.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
What kind of security access do you want users to have to supplier transactions and reporting?
You can configure and customize segmented security to restrict worker access to suppliers on reports and transactions. Users with the appropriate segment access to suppliers can:
  • Create a new supplier.
  • Edit existing supplier information.
  • Print supplier details.
  • View suppliers.
Example: Create a segment-based security group of IT Manager. You can then edit domain access so that only IT managers can create IT suppliers and launch transactions with IT hardware suppliers.
How do you want to organize your suppliers in Workday?
For reporting and to make your suppliers easier to find, you can organize suppliers according to:
  • Supplier groups: Example: Suppliers within the same geographical location.
  • Categories: Can include suppliers with similar profiles, such as IT vendors or contingent labor agencies.
  • Classifications: Organize your suppliers based on a set of compliance criteria such as certification or business size.
To restrict access to certain subsets of suppliers, use supplier groups or categories along with supplier segmented security.
You can then configure supplier group profiles, display profile group tabs, and add custom reports on supplier documents.
How do you plan to capture supplier information?
Supplier contact questionnaires enable you to gather specific information about your suppliers and their contacts.
Include Workday provided questionnaires or create custom questionnaires for specific suppliers or groupings of suppliers when you configure your portal.
Use the
Supplier Request
 process to send requests for information directly to your suppliers through the supplier portal.
What payment terms do you want to set up for your suppliers?
You can create custom payment terms for a supplier or supplier groups that you can then apply to all their procurement documents.
You can configure:
  • Discounts.
  • Payment due dates and grace periods.
  • Rewards for early payment.
How do you want to view supplier information in Workday?
You can configure a composite view of your suppliers, making it easier for users to access information from a single source that includes:
  • Priority suppliers.
  • Profile group tabs.
  • Custom reports.
Ranking suppliers by priority makes it easier for buyers to use primary suppliers when they create requisitions for items for inventory and par replenishment.
How do you plan to manage suppliers with multiple sites and locations?
You can order from different supplier sites on requisitions and POs, enabling you to link supplier ordering sites and remit-to connection information without creating multiple supplier records.

Recommendations

For optimal performance, select no more than 10 reports when you configure custom reports to display on the
Supplier Composite Profiles View
 report.

Requirements

When you have contingent workers working through an agency or third-party business that pays the worker, create the agency as a supplier. You must contract the worker as a contingent worker.
To comply with federal, state, or local government requirements, add appropriate classifications to your supplier.

Limitations

No impact.

Tenant Setup

To record the correct pronunciation of supplier names and details on their settlement bank accounts, enable phonetic names on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Global
 task.
You can specify the attachment file types for supplier business documents in the
Edit Tenant Setup - System
 task.

Security

Use the
Domain Security Policies for Functional Area
 report and filter by
Suppliers
 to find security domains.
This table describes some of the security domains that you'll need:
Domain
Considerations
Set Up: Supplier
Enables you to create new suppliers.
Set Up: Supplier Maintenance
Enables you to create new and manage existing suppliers.
Supplier Segmented Setup
Enables you to restrict access to supplier transactions and reports by:
  • Individual supplier.
  • Supplier category.
  • Supplier group.
Set Up: Supplier Contacts
Enables you to set up and maintain supplier contact information and view related reporting.
Set Up: Supplier Sites
Enables you to set up external supplier sites in Workday.
Set Up: Supplier Categories
Enables you to create supplier categories to organize suppliers for searching and reporting purposes.
Set Up: Supplier Administration
Enables you to restrict access to tasks and reports to Supplier Administrators only.
Set Up: Spend External Party Checks
Enables you to set up and maintain integrations with external APIs.
Process: Supplier Request
Enables you to process supplier requests and view related reporting.
Process: Supplier Request - Cancel
Enables you to cancel supplier requests that you have created. You must have view and modify access to
Set Up: Supplier Administration
 to cancel supplier requests created by other users.

Business Processes

Business Processes
Considerations
Catalog Load
Supplier Invoice Event
To enable supplier contacts to load catalog items onto your external supplier website, add:
  • The
    Supplier Contact as Self
     security group to the
    Catalog Load Request for Supplier
    .
  • Create Invoice from Purchase Order
     as an initiating action.
Order-From Supplier Connection Event
Configure to set up alternate locations for a main supplier to enable you to order from specific sites.
You can use the business process to route orders from supplier connection details for approval.
Prospective Supplier Request Event
Controls self-registration of prospective suppliers.
Purchase Order Event
Enable supplier contacts to approve your purchase orders using the
Supplier Collaboration
 step.
Supplier Change Event
Change supplier details to maintain or set up supplier information.
Check supplier name against the Consolidated Screening List from the International Trade Administration (ITA), using the
Sanction List Screening
 service step.
Supplier Event
Controls the approvals process for suppliers.
You can set up conditional workflows based on organizational roles, cost centers, and companies.
To review and update trackable asset lines, include the
Review Trackable Lines for Assets
 action step.
To configure role-based security groups for non-worker initiators, you can change the approval step for the security group from role-based to user-based in the business process definition.
Check supplier name against the Consolidated Screening List from the International Trade Administration (ITA), using the
Sanction List Screening
 service step.
Supplier Remit-To Connection Event
Configure to set up conditions to create supplier connections to remit invoices and payments to different supplier contact details.

Reporting

Use these reports for information on:
  • How much you're spending on goods and services.
  • What you're buying.
  • Who you're buying it from.
Report
Considerations
Spend Analysis for Invoices
Track how much your business spends on supplier invoices. View graphics and drill down into details of your invoice spending to see trends in your company spending.
Spend Analysis for Procurement Card
Apply the same level of oversight over your punchout spend as you have over your invoiced procurement spending.
Top Suppliers by Spend
View a list of suppliers your business most frequently uses to source its procurement needs.
Use these reports to understand how your business currently manages spending and to gain insights into potential opportunities to save money by:
  • Negotiating contracts and discounts by identifying suppliers accessed through unmanaged spending.
  • Consolidating spending.
Report
Considerations
Managed vs Unmanaged Invoice Spend
Compare your managed invoiced card spending with your unmanaged invoice spend.
Managed vs Unmanaged Procurement Card Spend
Compare your managed procurement card spending with your unmanaged punchout spend.
Use these reports to help you understand:
  • How much you currently owe each supplier.
  • The uninvoiced proportion of your spending.
  • Your current and forecast future payment liabilities.
Report
Considerations
Payables Aging
View payable amounts for the different aging categories in the aging group, any pending payments, and the total amount for each supplier.
Payables Aging Detail
View outstanding payable amounts for each supplier by aging bracket. Details include unpaid or partially paid payments and totals across all aging brackets.
Use these reports to:
  • View changes to existing suppliers.
  • Track approvals for new suppliers.
  • View and detect potential duplicate suppliers.
Report
Considerations
Find Supplier Events
View all open and in-progress Supplier Requests and Supplier Events.
Supplier Change History
View changes to the history of these supplier information categories:
  • Contact Information.
  • Invoices and Payments.
  • Payment Details.
  • Sanction List Screening
  • Settlement Bank Details, except for intermediary bank accounts.
  • Supplier Connections.
  • Supplier Contact Name.
  • Tax Details, except for tax identification information.
Find Supplier Duplicates
Detect and view potential duplicates of supplier records.
You can also use the Supplier Duplication report data source to create custom reports for supplier duplicates.

Integrations

You can build integration templates to support different EDI file formats:
Integration Template
Description
Purchase Order EDI 850 Outbound
Exports purchase orders in the American Standards Committee (ASC) X12 850 EDI format.
Supplier Invoice EDI 810 Inbound
Imports supplier invoices in the American Standards Committee (ASC) X12 810 EDI format.
Advance Ship Notice EDI 856 Inbound
Imports any advance ship notices in the American Standards Committee (ASC) X12 856 EDI format.
Purchase Order Acknowledgment EDI 855 Inbound
Imports purchase order acknowledgments in the American Standards Committee (ASC) X12 855 EDI format.

Connections and Touchpoints

Supplier functionality interacts with these areas in Workday:
Features
Considerations
Inventory
You can complete the request-to-pay cycle and:
  • Send items for inventory put-away.
  • Enable requests for items from stock.
  • Automate stock replenishment.
Supplier Accounts
You can create and schedule purchase orders, log time for contingent workers, and generate supplier invoices.
Supplier Contracts
You can enable the awarding of RFQs to successful suppliers and set up and process scheduled purchase orders.
Financial Accounting
You can create receipt accruals from approved, uninvoiced receipts, supplier invoices, and bill-only purchase orders for goods and services.
Banking and Settlement
You can verify procurement card transactions.
Business Assets
You can track assets your company acquires through the procurement process. You can:
  • Account for them based on your own accounting practices.
  • Categorize them according to business use.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.