Liability Cycle
Automation of goods and services purchasing process

The PROCUREMENT application is a modular application that tracks the entire procurement process, from the determination of procurement needs, to purchase requisitions, up to invoice payment, through a series of phases that are linked with the related administrative processes according to the regulations governing the purchase of goods and services.

This figure illustrates the Procurement process by showing the main macro-activities of each phase. In particular: the Procurement Needs Definition phase includes: Procurement Needs Collection and Revision, Procurement Needs Determination, Purchase Budget Formulation the Requisition Management Phase includes: Requisition, Requisition Analysis and Evaluation, Requisition Approval, Stocking of Goods the Supplier selection and Order Issue phase includes: Purchasing Channel Identification, Supplier Selection, Contract Preparation and Signing, Commitment of Expenditure Recording, Authorization, Purchase Order Registration/Issue the Order Management, Invoice and Payment phase includes: Goods Distribution, Invoice Recording, Payment and Filing the Monitoring and Reporting phase includes: Periodic Statements, Customer Satisfaction, Inventory Monitoring, Data Analysis and Evaluation, Event Monitoring

The application tracks every phase of the process, allowing the integrated management of the entire procurement process, is interoperable with the transversal applications that are widely used in the Public Administration, such as SICOGE and GECO, and produces "certified" data, i.e. derived directly from the administrative process, that can serve as input for cost accounting and management control.

The application, whose primary stakeholders are the central and peripheral Procurement Offices, requires the involvement of every Office of the State General Accounting Department in the various phases of the process. Particularly relevant in the automation of the process is the planning phase (bottom-up) where the directors of the Offices (Cost centers) define their procurement requirements/budget on the basis of the financial resources that are predetermined by the head of the Procurement Office.

The second figure illustrates the Planning process and shows the detail of the main activities and of the responsible organizational units. In particular, the Purchasing Office, which performs the analysis of available financial resources, allocates the resources to the Inspectorates and determines what goods and services to purchase; the Secretariats, which allocate resources at the Office level and the Offices that determine their procurement needs for the reference period. The figure also shows the budget revision activity that may be requested by the Offices to the Inspectorates and by the latter, when they cannot operate autonomously, to the Procurement Office.

The technological innovation of the "Procurement" application in the e-government framework provides a comprehensive solution that:

· rationalizes the process and defines a uniform "modus operandi" for the whole organization and therefore simplifies procurement procedures

· provides support for the identification of procurement needs and allows to coherently plan acquisitions

· offers an expenditure monitoring tool designed to enable better expenditure management and cost containment

· provides an aid to the acquisition process that covers the entire administrative process, minimizes paper-based communication flows and eliminates repetitive activities

· offers the possibility to use collected analytical data as an input for cost accounting

· has the advantage of disseminating the information among all interested parties