Procurement where every purchase request reaches a quote, an approval and a delivery — including on the supplier’s side

Mi Retail is an operations center that manages the human work around your purchasing systems. The ERP or source-to-pay suite keeps requisitions, purchase orders, contracts and receipts; Mi Retail handles what happens between those records — the quote a supplier still has not sent, the approval waiting with the wrong person, the delivery the plant is asking about. Each situation becomes an Operational Work Item with an owner, a state, a due date and evidence, and it travels between requesters, buyers, approvers, receiving and suppliers until the purchase is complete. The requester can see where the purchase is without calling procurement, and the buyer stops spending the day on follow-ups.

No. Your ERP or source-to-pay suite stays the system of record for requisitions, catalogs, contracts, purchase orders, receipts and invoice matching, and Mi Retail never keeps a second copy of them. Mi Retail covers what those systems leave to email: coordinating the requester, the buyer, the approvers, the receiving dock and each supplier while the purchase is in motion. The ERP knows a purchase order exists; Mi Retail manages which quote is missing, who must approve at that amount, what the delivery is waiting for and with which evidence the request can close. Keep your purchasing system; Mi Retail takes over where the work leaves it.

The buyer opens the RFQ from the purchase request and selects the supplier organizations from the directory. Each supplier receives its own derived work item in its intake queue, with the specifications, quantities, required date and quote deadline. The buyer’s RFQ shows which suppliers have answered, which are working on it and which have not opened it, so a missing quote is visible without chasing anyone. When the quotes are in, the buyer compares price, lead time, warranty and terms side by side and records the recommended award. Suppliers that are not chosen are notified, and every quote stays linked to the purchase for later review.

Suppliers need their own organization on Mi Retail to receive RFQs and purchase orders as derived work items, and no, they never see each other’s quotes. Each supplier works in its own intake queue and assigns the request inside its own teams; the buying company follows the state, the due date and the result, but not the supplier’s internal work, and each supplier sees only its own exchange with the buyer. Onboarding a new supplier is part of the same model: its documents, certificates and bank details are requested as work items and reviewed before the first order, so the supplier record starts complete and with evidence.

Your organization defines who approves at each level — a plant manager up to one threshold, a finance controller above it, leadership for exceptional amounts — and the approval work item goes to the right person based on the amount and the category, not on who the buyer remembers. The approver sees the request, the quotes compared and the recommended award in one place, and approves or rejects with the reason recorded. If the due date passes, the approval shows as at risk and can be escalated with the same context. Leadership only receives the purchases that truly exceed the lower levels.

Every purchase keeps its full trail: the original request with its specifications, the suppliers invited, each quote as received, the comparison with the recommended award, the approval with its reason, the purchase order and the goods receipt. When an internal auditor, a finance team or a leadership review asks why a supplier won, the answer is one link, not a search through inboxes. Control & Assurance lets auditors review those trails, record findings and request corrections. Because the evidence is captured while the purchase happens, it reflects what was actually decided, not a reconstruction made weeks later.

The purchase order reaches the awarded supplier as a derived work item to confirm and ship, so the buyer sees whether it was accepted, whether the date holds and whether a partial delivery is coming. Receiving gets a work item to check the goods against the order, with photos if something arrives damaged or short; a problem becomes an exception back to the supplier instead of a phone call. When the goods receipt is recorded in the ERP, the original request closes and the requester is notified. If the invoice later fails its match, finance picks up from the same trail.

Each role gets its own surface on the same operation. A requester sees in My Requests where each purchase is and what it is waiting for, without calling anyone. A buyer works from My Work and Team Operations, with RFQs waiting on suppliers, comparisons to prepare and orders to issue, ordered by due date. An approver sees only the approvals within their threshold, with the case attached. A chief procurement officer sees in Operational Portfolio the requests by age, suppliers that answer late and approvals at risk, and in Executive Operations only what needs a decision at that level.

Because every RFQ, purchase order and delivery with a supplier moves as a work item with dates and states, supplier performance stops being an opinion. Procurement can see which suppliers answer quotes on time, which confirm orders quickly, which deliver short or late and which generate the most receiving exceptions. Recurring problems surface as findings that can be discussed with the supplier through a derived work item, with the history attached. The Supplier Performance app in StoneOS keeps the scorecards; Mi Retail makes sure that each issue behind a score reached someone and was resolved.

Yes. In a small company the owner or an office manager usually requests, quotes, approves and receives, and Mi Retail adapts to that: the experience collapses to the essentials, without approval chains or teams that do not exist. The value is the same — every purchase request, quote pending from a supplier and delivery to check is a work item with a date instead of a note. As the company grows and buying splits between requesters, buyers and approvers, the same work items start moving between those people and thresholds are added, without migrating or redesigning anything.

The Procurement suite of StoneOS brings apps for the domain work of buying — purchase requests, sourcing, RFQ, quote comparison, purchase orders, receiving, supplier onboarding, supplier performance and spend control — on top of the Business Core apps every team uses, such as Sheets, Docs, Drive, Chat and Calendar. Those apps keep the depth of each domain. Mi Retail is where the work they generate meets the people who must act on it: a quote that is late, an approval above a threshold or a delivery that arrives short lands as a work item in the right queue, inside your company or at the supplier. If you keep your current ERP, it stays the record.

Start with the part of buying that costs the most follow-up — usually RFQs that wait on suppliers or approvals that stall — instead of modeling the whole source-to-pay process. Create a procurement workspace, invite the buyers, the approvers and the areas that request the most, and open the next purchase requests as work items instead of emails. Invite your most frequent suppliers to their own organizations so the next RFQ reaches them as derived work items. Within a few weeks you will know where purchases wait and which suppliers answer late. Then connect the ERP you already use and, if it fits, add the StoneOS Procurement suite. Mi Retail is free to start.