About supplier negotiation of terms

A supplier may want to negotiate or dispute the terms attached to an event.

When terms negotiation is allowed and there are terms on an event

  • On the event response, the supplier can select an option that says "I would like to negotiate the Terms and Conditions for this event."

  • If the buyer is entering a manual response for a supplier, they can select "Request to Negotiate Terms."

When a supplier or buyer chooses this option, they can enter a comment or create an attachment. These fields are not required.

Setup

The buyer needs to indicate that terms negotiation is allowed when they create the event. The field Allow Terms To Be Negotiated must be checked on the event (or defaulted from the Sourcing Group or Sourcing Company). You can enter text on the Sourcing Group or Sourcing Company which will display on the supplier response page if the supplier requests negotiation. The Negotiation Text field is on the Event Response Text tab.

Negotiate terms during the award process

Note: 

Access Response Analysis by selecting the View link in the Responses column from the tabs on the Buyer Page.

The Response Analysis form will indicate if an event has at least one supplier request for negotiation of terms. A column called Negotiate Terms shows that a request for terms negotiation exists. A yellow alert with the label "Supplier would like to negotiate terms and conditions" is displayed. Also, a link to any comment or attachment pertaining to the negotiation is provided, if such text exists.

After the buyer reviews this information, the buyer should contact the supplier and negotiate the terms changes.

Once all parties are in agreement, the terms will be changed if necessary.

Once this process is complete, awarding will take place.

For events and suppliers where terms negotiation has been requested, when the form comes up to award the event or event line to the supplier, an additional Terms Have Been Negotiated field displays. Selecting this field indicates to the system that negotiation has concluded, since the actual negotiation is not something that is captured in the system. The Terms Have Been Negotiated field does not have to be selected during award creation. If an award is created for a supplier requiring negotiation and the Terms Have Been Negotiated field has not been selected, a warning message displays that says "Supplier disputed terms and conditions are you sure you want to award to this supplier?"

If the Terms Have Been Negotiated field is selected at event line level, it is automatically checked for all other event lines for that supplier, since negotiation is always done at event level.

Note: 

In Contract Management, if a contract created from an event still requires negotiation, when the contract is viewed, a field labeled Event Terms Need To Be Negotiated is selected, and a field labeled Event Terms Have Been Negotiated is unselected. If there are any comments or attachments pertaining to the supplier request to negotiate terms, a comment is created on the contract that contains this information. The field labeled Event Terms Have Been Negotiated must be selected before the contract can be activated. This can happen in two ways:

  1. The box can be checked manually

  2. If the contract classification is one that requires negotiation, when the action is taken on the contract that indicates negotiation is complete, the box is checked automatically.