Documenting purchases with the Unite purchasing protocol
For each order on Unite, the purchasing protocol transparently records which offers and criteria formed the basis of your selection. It’s created automatically and contains valuable information about your spend – from the selection of offers to detailed price breakdowns.
Administrators can find the purchasing protocol in the order archive.
Note: If you use Unite via PunchOut, a link to the order archive can be transferred to your system.
How to access the order archive:
Log in to your Unite account via the web browser.
Click ‘Account’ in the top right corner of the screen and select ‘Order archive’ from the menu.
Note: To support public procurement processes, suppliers are listed by their real names exclusively for the public sector.
The purchasing protocol contains these sections:
List of requirements: ‘Purchase order request’ provides an overview of all requested items without supplier reference.
Offer selection: Shows the selected suppliers and items, including terms and the final shopping basket.
Offer overview: Summarises all received offers.
Selection criteria and justification: The ‘total cost of ownership calculation’ section lists the selection criteria and, if applicable, any individual additional reasons.
List of offers: The three offers for each request, as required by law. If fewer than three offers are available, three suppliers from the relevant product category are displayed.
As a requester, you can provide an additional reason for your decision before sending your basket. For example, you might explain why you chose not to use the basket optimisation. This justification appears in both the purchasing protocol and the extended order report. In some cases, providing this additional justification is mandatory.
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