Private-company purchasing

A company that buys with its own rules, not under public procurement law, can run its purchasing in Tendergate: ask a few companies for prices, pick one, have the right person approve it, and see later what was bought, from whom and against which budget.

Most of this page applies once an owner or admin ticks Private company under Account settings → Organization → Workspaces. Groups, plan budgets and supplier purchase history work for every organization. For planning as a private company, see Private companies.

Groups

Groups describe your company in your own words: department, unit, team, site or cost centre. Each procurement remembers the groups of the person it is bought for, so Reports and Spending can show what each group bought.

Owners and admins set them up in the Groups card under Account settings → Members:

1. Click Add group type and enter a Group type name, for example "Department".
2. Under Members can have, choose One per member or Several per member, and tick Required if every member must have one. Click Add.
3. Use + Add value to add the values, for example "Sales" and "Logistics".

Click a value to Rename or Archive it. A group type can be renamed or archived too. Members keep the values they already have, and past procurements stay readable.

The members table gets a column for each group type. Owners and admins pick each member's values there; the change saves on its own. A required group that is still empty shows Choose.

Buying rules and approvers

With Private company ticked, Buying rules appear under it. Owners and admins set:

The amounts are compared with the value in EUR as entered in the request; amounts in other currencies are not converted. An amount equal to the limit is not over it.

Approvers are chosen for one group type, usually the department. When you have several group types, pick it in Group type that approvers are chosen for. Then, in the Approves column under Account settings → Members, choose for each member No, All groups or the group they approve for.

Requesting prices

Open Workspaces → Buying → Start new work → Request prices. It works like a price quote, with defaults for a private company: your own money, open bids that you see as they arrive, and only the companies you invite can bid.

The form adds:

• Estimated value (optional): what you expect to pay. With it, Tendergate checks the buying rule before prices arrive.
• Counts towards: the groups this purchase belongs to, filled from your own groups. Change it when you buy for another team. When the plan has a budget for that group, a bar shows how much of it is already awarded.
• Plan line: shown when you start the request from a line in Planning.
• Repeats: for a regular purchase, enter the months between purchases. Leave it empty for a one-off purchase. See Renewals.

Before you publish, confirm that the information is correct and that you may publish the request for your company. You choose the companies to invite right after publishing; only they can open the request.

The buying rule shows as a badge on Invitations and on the price comparison, for example "Buying rule met: 3 invited, at least 3 needed" or "Below the buying rule". Without an estimated value, the rule is checked at the award.

Prices from invited companies

Invited companies do not need an account. The invitation email has a link to the request, its details and your files. There they enter their prices, add files and click Send prices. Until the deadline they can Change prices or Withdraw prices.

You see each bid as soon as it is sent, and your team gets an email for every new, changed or withdrawn bid. Companies you invite are saved to your Suppliers.

Awarding and approval

Compare the prices and prepare the award as described in Compare prices and award. For a private company:

• Bidders get no award notices. Each company has an Internal note for your team instead.
• When you pick a company that is not the lowest price, Not the lowest price shows the difference. Say why in Advantages of the selected offer; management sees the reason in Spending.
• Over the approval limit, the Approval card names who can approve. Until then the award stays a draft. Click Send for approval: each approver gets a task and an email.

Approvers of the request's group, approvers for All groups, owners and admins can approve. The workspace owner and whoever prepared or sent the award cannot approve it. The approver opens the award, uses Review and approve and then Approve award. If you change the draft after sending it, send it again.

When nobody else can approve, you can approve it yourself. The award is then marked Self-approved: nobody else could approve.

Renewals

A request with Repeats creates a renewal when its award is approved: the plan line gets a renewal date that many months after the award. Without a plan line, Tendergate adds one to that year's plan.

On a plan line, tick Recurring purchase to set Renews on, Every (months) and, for a contract that renews by itself, Notice period (days). The register shows a Renews column and a Renewing in 90 days filter. Within 90 days of the date, the line offers Request prices.

Tendergate emails a reminder 4 weeks and 1 week before the renewal date, or before the notice date when there is a notice period. If the line has a workspace, the reminder also becomes a task there. When the notice date has passed, the line says so and you can Mark handled.

Budgets

When your organization uses groups, ⋯ → Plan settings in Planning has budgets for the year, one amount in EUR per value of a group type. The plan line's Department uses the same groups.

Spending

Spending is a third Planning view next to Register and Roadmap. It shows what was awarded this year against the plan and the budgets, built from approved awards on price requests and tenders.

• Tiles: Awarded (against the budget), the share of awards over the buying-rule amount that had enough companies priced, Outside the plan (awards with no plan line) and Need a look.
• Split by any group type or by Supplier: a table with the planned and awarded value, budget used, the number of awards, how many had enough companies, how many had only one company, and the top supplier.
• Need a look lists awards priced by one company only, awards that were not the lowest price with their reason, and self-approved awards, each linked to its award.

Amounts in EUR are added up; other currencies are listed apart, not converted.

Purchase history of a supplier

Every organization sees what it has bought from a company:

• On the supplier's page, Purchases shows the awarded value, how many price requests the company won, the groups that bought from it, and the last price paid.
• In the price comparison, Your history shows your earlier purchases from each bidder, with the last price for a matching item, or the earlier quotes it gave that were never picked, or New supplier.