Epicor Kinetic Procurement and Purchasing Module

Purchase management

Creating, approving, amending and tracking purchase orders, including blanket POs for negotiated bulk agreements drawn down over time, drop shipments that ship supplier-direct to a customer, and return material authorisations (RMAs) back to the supplier.

Requisition and approval automation

Employees raise requisitions against a budget or project; Kinetic routes them through configurable approval levels before converting an approved requisition into a purchase order. Epicor's own Advanced Requisition Management materials claim up to a 30% reduction in procurement administration time for customers moving off manual requisition handling — a vendor figure, so treat it as directional rather than an independent benchmark.

Supplier relationship management

Supplier records, performance ratings, certification and compliance tracking, and price and lead-time history, so sourcing decisions are made on measured performance rather than habit.

Contract and price enforcement

Supplier contracts with agreed price breaks, effective dates and quantity commitments are enforced automatically when a buyer raises a PO, so off-contract buying is caught at entry rather than at invoice.

Supplier portal (Supplier Connect)

A self-service portal where suppliers view open POs, submit advance shipment notifications and upload invoices — the mechanism that removes most inbound email and phone chasing from a buying team's day.

Demand-driven buying

MRP and demand forecasting feed suggested purchase orders, and cross-docking moves inbound receipts straight to outbound shipments, sharing the same item master, lot and serial records as inventory.

Project and mobile purchasing

Purchases tie to specific projects for project-based cost tracking, and approvals can be actioned from a phone, which is usually what unblocks a slow approval chain in practice.

1. Requisition raised

A requester enters what they need against a part number or free-text description, with a project, department or cost centre attached. Budget checks happen here, not after the money is committed.

2. Multi-level authorisation routing

Kinetic routes the requisition by rules you define — typically value bands, cost centre, commodity type or project. A £2,000 consumable request and a £200,000 capital purchase follow different chains. Approvals can be sequential or parallel, and out-of-office delegation stops a single absent approver stalling the queue.

3. PO generation

Once fully approved, the requisition converts to a purchase order without re-keying, inheriting the supplier, contract pricing and delivery terms already held against that supplier record.

4. Supplier acknowledgement

The PO is issued through the supplier portal or email, and the supplier acknowledges it, confirming price, quantity and promised date. Acknowledged dates flow back so planners schedule against a supplier commitment rather than an assumption.

5. PO change orders

Amendments after issue — quantity, price, date, part — are handled as revisions with a version history, and can be re-routed for approval when the change pushes the order past its original authorisation band.

6. Receipt and three-way match

Goods receipt is recorded against the PO line, and supplier invoices are matched against PO and receipt before release to payment. Tolerances handle small variances automatically; anything outside them is held for review.