Overview of the Source to pay business process areas
Applies to: Dynamics 365 Commerce, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Supply Chain Center
The source to pay process is broken down into multiple business process areas. The following sections further describe the business process areas.
Develop procurement and sourcing strategies
This business process area involves developing procurement and sourcing strategies by analyzing spend data, selecting suitable procurement and sourcing methods, establishing purchasing guidelines, defining the roles and responsibilities of procurement personnel, ensuring compliance with regulations and internal policies, identifying avenues for cost-saving, and negotiating vendor contracts.
In Dynamics 365, you can configure products to determine the sourcing method for supply forecasting and master planning, as well as set pricing within trade agreements and purchase agreements, manage signing limits, setup approval hierarchies, and configure workflows to streamline the approval process along with procurement policies for multiple rules such as, when a purchase requisition is required, when a request for quotation is required, and when a purchase is considered capitalized with integration for fixed assets, among other functionalities.
Learn more at Define procurement and sourcing strategy overview.
Define procurement catalogs
Important
This business process area is deprecated. Instead, a new business process appears in the Define procurement catalogs business process area.
Manage supplier relationships
This business process area involves managing relationships with the prospective and chosen suppliers by identifying and selecting qualified suppliers, and creating and maintaining vendor records with all relevant information. Additionally, this business process area also covers monitoring vendor performance using various metrics and maintaining a positive relationship with vendors. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management has a vendor collaboration module that supports a range of business processes for suppliers.
Learn more at Manage supplier relationships overview.
Source and contract goods and services
We added this business process area in 2024. It covers the business processes of requesting information, quotes, and proposals from different suppliers, and then evaluating the submitted bids. The business process area also covers budget spend and registering contracts with the chosen suppliers.
Procure goods and services
This business process area focuses on procuring materials or services and encompasses the necessary steps to initiate a purchase order with external vendors. This includes creating purchase requisitions, request for quotations (RFQ), purchase orders, and purchase agreements. Once purchase orders are created and approved, these can be confirmed and sent to the vendors.
Communication with vendors regarding the purchases can be made either manually, electronically including EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), or using a portal such as the vendor collaboration portal that allows external vendors to participate in the purchasing process. The purchase orders may also originate from other business process areas such as Project to profit or Plan to produce. Additionally, this business process area also includes the process of returning products to vendors.
Learn more at Procure goods and services overview.
Manage accounts payable
This business process area involves processing supplier invoices by verifying invoice accuracy, matching invoices to purchase orders and goods receipts, and reconciling discrepancies in invoices, issuing debit memos, and managing chargebacks in accordance with contractual agreements. It also includes the process of disputing charges from vendors. Dynamics 365 also provides invoice register functionality for quick entry to accrue the expense.
You can also generate a prepayment invoice for advance vendor payment prior to the delivery of goods or services. The invoices can be received and processed manually, through automation, or EDI. For instance, the invoice capture solution in Dynamics 365 Finance is designed to automatically create vendor invoices from digital images via email inbox or manual upload.
Learn more at Manage accounts payable.
Note
In the first versions of the business process catalog, this business process area had the name Process vendor invoices overview. We're in process of updating the article based on the November 2024 version.
Issue and settle vendor payments
Important
This business process area is deprecated. Instead, a new business process appears in the Manage accounts payable business process area.
Process supplier rebates and incentives
Important
This business process area is deprecated. Instead, a new business process appears in the Manage accounts payable business process area.
Analyze procurement and sourcing
We added this business process area in 2024. It covers business processes for measuring and analyzing procurement spend and supplier performance. It includes analysis of rebate and incentives, the efficiency of the organization's sourcing processes, and management of risks in the procurement processes.
Next steps
If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to assist with your source to pay business processes, learn more at the following resources and steps.
- Source to pay - introduction to the end-to-end business process
- Source to pay end-to-end overview
- Learn about the business process catalog at About the business process catalog for Dynamics 365 apps and services
Related information
You can use the following resources to learn more about the source to pay process in Dynamics 365.