Procure Smarter. Spend Less.

Note Requests / Indents

Procurement begins with a need: production raises an indent for raw material, maintenance raises one for a critical spare, the office raises one for stationery. ARC ERP gives each department a simple, mobile-friendly indent screen with an item lookup that respects user roles — a maintenance technician sees only spares, a production supervisor sees only materials. Indents carry justification, required-by date, cost centre, and an attached approval workflow that mirrors your delegation of authority. Approved indents either flow into stock issue (if available) or trigger a purchase enquiry (if to be procured).

Purchase Enquiry

The buyer consolidates approved indents into purchase enquiries. For a single item, the system suggests qualified vendors based on the approved vendor list, past performance, and current price trends. The enquiry can go to multiple vendors simultaneously through email or a vendor portal, with a defined response deadline. Vendors respond either through reply email (which the buyer can transcribe) or directly through a self-service portal that captures structured price, validity, lead time and terms data. This portal is one of the simplest ways to professionalise the buying process and reduce the buyer’s clerical load.

Purchase Quotation

Each vendor response becomes a purchase quotation in the system, with full audit history. Files, drawings and technical clarifications are attached to the quotation, so when finance later questions why vendor B was chosen over the cheapest vendor C, the buyer has the answer one click away.

Quote Comparison

This is where ARC ERP earns its keep. A side-by-side comparison grid puts every vendor’s quote against the same item, with landed cost calculation that includes freight, insurance, tax, customs duty (for imports) and any payment-term financing impact. The buyer recommends a winner; the comparison goes for approval to the appropriate authority based on value bands. Approvers see the same grid the buyer saw, plus past purchase prices and price trends, so they can challenge intelligently rather than rubber-stamp.

Purchase Order

Approved quotes convert to purchase orders with full terms — pricing, taxes, payment, delivery schedule, packaging, warranty, liquidated damages, and quality requirements. POs can be single delivery or schedule-based; the latter is essential for factories that buy on annual rate contracts but call off material weekly or daily. The PO is e-signed where required, sent to the vendor by email, and made visible to stores so the security gate knows what to expect.

Goods Receipt Note (Purchase GRN)

When the truck arrives, stores opens the relevant PO on a tablet at the security gate, scans the items, captures any short-supply or damage, and posts the GRN. Inventory updates in real time; quality inspection is triggered for items that require it; the supplier’s payable is created with full GST and TDS treatment. The GRN screen handles partial deliveries, over-supply (within tolerance, with approval), free supply, and bonded items for SEZ and EOU units in MEPZ and Sriperumbudur.

Purchase Return

Defective material is rejected through a purchase return that generates a debit note with proper ITC reversal, prints a rejection memo with reasons and photos, and triggers a return shipment with the appropriate transport documentation. Vendor-wise rejection rates feed back into the vendor scorecard, ensuring chronic poor performers lose business to better suppliers