Purchasing and best-price supplier routing

• Every order, whatever channel it came from, lands in one place and is split into waves timed to each supplier's cut-off.
• Each line is routed to the best-priced supplier for that account, using rules for contract prices, rebates, minimum order quantities and delivery thresholds.
• Machine learning predicts each supplier's likely availability and real lead time from its own history, so the cheapest supplier only wins if it can actually deliver on time.
• The negotiated price goes on every purchase order. A confirmation or invoice at a different price is caught and raised, never accepted silently.
• Orders agreed by reps are matched against orders actually placed, and anything agreed but not placed is raised the same day.
• An agent reads every supplier confirmation and handles routine chasers. Buyers decide every exception: substitutions, price changes, routing above contract price, and split deliveries.

• UK lawLate Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998
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  Late payers owe statutory interest of 8% over the Bank of England base rate, plus fixed compensation. A wholesaler is both a payer and a payee. Faster matching of confirmations, deliveries and invoices means disputes are raised early and suppliers are paid on time, so the design tracks invoice, dispute and payment dates for every line.

• BIST and the Small Business CommissionerThe Commercial Payments Bill (in Parliament) and the Fair Payment Code
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  The government's March 2026 response confirmed plans for a 60-day cap on most business payment terms (no earlier than 2027), statutory interest that can't be contracted out of, a time limit for raising invoice disputes, and powers for the Small Business Commissioner to investigate and fine. It isn't law yet. Large companies already report payment performance twice a year under the 2017 reporting regulations, so the same data feeds that report.

• CMACompetition Act 1998, Chapter I: sharing competitively sensitive information
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  Comparing supplier prices to buy well is normal. Passing one supplier's prices, terms or volumes to another is not, and nor is acting as a channel for suppliers to learn about each other. Supplier prices and terms are confidential to the buying team, and the agent can't include them in any message to a supplier. Get your own competition advice on how rebates and supplier data are used.

• Cabinet OfficeProcurement Act 2023 (if you supply public bodies)
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  Since 24 February 2025, public contracts carry an implied 30-day payment term, and it flows down to subcontracts that are wholly or substantially for that public contract. Public-sector accounts often buy on framework prices too. The routing rules hold framework prices and terms per account, and supplier lines for those accounts are flagged for 30-day payment.

• HMRCMandatory B2B e-invoicing from 1 April 2029
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  E-invoicing will run on a Peppol model, with a roadmap published on 28 October 2026. Purchase orders, confirmations and invoices are held as structured data from day one, so moving supplier invoices onto Peppol is a new channel, not a new process. Existing EDI keeps working alongside it.

• ICOUK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018
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  There's little personal data here: buyer and rep names, account contacts, and sole-trader suppliers. Standard controls apply: collect only what's needed, a clear retention period, and a contract that stops providers training their models on your data. Routing and prediction are about suppliers and products, not people.

On a phone, the table shows the platform you pick. Sovereign / on-prem means open, portable components you can run in your own data centre or with a UK or European provider; IONOS is shown as one example, and others exist. What sovereign cloud means →

• A price book owner in the commercial team, who loads every new contract price, rebate and threshold, with change control and a second check.
• An exception queue for buyers with clear priorities: customer-promised orders first, then price differences, then date changes.
• Override rules, so a buyer can route away from the best price for a reason (quality, a supplier issue, a customer request), and the reason is recorded.
• A daily list of agreed orders not placed, owned by sales ops, closed only when each one is placed or confirmed as not agreed.
• A monthly review of routing decisions and lead-time accuracy by supplier, shared with the commercial team for supplier reviews.
• Buyers and reps trained before go-live, including how to see why a line went to a supplier.

1. 3 weeks

   Discovery

   Map today's ordering and buying, measure how often lines are bought off-contract and how many agreed orders go missing, collect a year of order and delivery history, and check the price book is complete.

2. Gate · must be true to passBaseline agreed, price book owner named, ERP and EDI integration route confirmed.

3. 8–10 weeks

   Pilot

   One supplier group in shadow mode: the routing service recommends, buyers order as normal, and the two are compared. The order capture check runs from day one, because it only raises tasks.

4. Gate · must be true to passRouting matches or beats buyers on price without hurting on-time delivery, prediction accuracy within agreed limits, and buyer sign-off.

5. 4–6 weeks

   Production

   Routing goes live for the pilot group, then the confirmation agent, with monitoring, support and a rollback to the ERP price book.

6. Gate · must be true to passMonitoring, support model, rollback plan and buyer training in place.

7. Ongoing

   Scale

   Add supplier groups in waves, single-source products last, then structured supplier invoices ready for Peppol.

8. Gate · must be true to passEach new supplier group passes the same pilot gate.

R ResponsibleA AccountableC ConsultedI Informed· not involved

Where I'd fit

1. 1

   Goes wrong

   The cheapest supplier always wins, and on-time delivery quietly gets worse.

   How the design avoids it

   Predicted availability and lead time are part of every routing choice, and on-time, in-full is a pilot gate alongside price.

2. 2

   Goes wrong

   The price book is out of date, so the system enforces the wrong prices perfectly.

   How the design avoids it

   A named price book owner, change control, and price differences on confirmations fed back as price book fixes.

3. 3

   Goes wrong

   A model picks suppliers, and nobody can explain why a line went where it did.

   How the design avoids it

   Rules make the choice and record the reasons. Machine learning only supplies the predictions the rules use.

4. 4

   Goes wrong

   The agent mentions a competitor's price to push a supplier, and creates a competition law problem.

   How the design avoids it

   The agent can't negotiate, supplier terms are walled off, and guardrails block other suppliers' names and prices in any message.

5. 5

   Goes wrong

   Buyers don't trust it and override everything, so nothing changes.

   How the design avoids it

   Shadow mode first, every routing reason visible, overrides allowed with a reason, and the reasons used to improve the rules.

1. No earlier than 2027
   The Commercial Payments Bill: a 60-day cap on most business payment terms, statutory interest that can't be contracted out of, a time limit for invoice disputes, and fines from the Small Business Commissioner. It is going through Parliament.

   Record invoice, dispute and payment dates against every supplier line now, so you can prove you pay on time and challenge customers who don't.

2. 1 April 2029
   Mandatory B2B e-invoicing on a Peppol model, with HMRC's roadmap published on 28 October 2026.

   Hold purchase orders, confirmations and invoices as structured data, and ask your ERP and EDI providers for their Peppol plans.

3. Late 2026–2028
   The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill brings medium and large managed service providers into regulation, with duties set by secondary legislation by about 2028.

   Expect your EDI, hosting and IT providers to face new duties. Update supplier assurance and contracts, since a stopped order flow stops the business.

4. 2028
   The NCSC's post-quantum cryptography milestone: a full migration plan by 2028.

   Record which encryption the EDI links, APIs and stored price data use, and keep it easy to change.