Glossary

Terms used across Procurement XP and the Supply Chain Management guide.

A · B · C · D · E · F · G · I · L · M · N · O · P · R · S · T · U · V

A

Term	Definition
Applicable Mandatory Policy	A field completed by the contract initiator that records which school or group policy the contract must comply with. Set alongside the risk assessment when the contract is created.
Approved Bids	The section on a vendor's record listing the sourcing projects they have won. Used as the starting point for creating the resulting contract.
Assessments	Questionnaires attached to a sourcing project or contract that vendors must complete. The assessments that apply are determined by the company type selected — some types require few or none.
Attachment	The tab on a contract used to upload documents, including the contract itself under Upload Contract and any supporting risk assessment.
Auction	A competitive bidding round opened from a sourcing project when there is no clear winner. Started with the Next Round button on the Approve quotations page.
Award	The act of assigning a sourcing project to a winning vendor. Awarding closes the project — the status changes to closed and awarded — and cannot be undone.

B

Term	Definition
Bid	A vendor's response to a sourcing project, made up of four parts: technical, terms and conditions, assessments, and price bid. All four must be complete before the bid can be submitted, and a submitted bid cannot be recalled.
Bot Validation	An automated check run on a prospective vendor's submitted form. Takes 3–5 minutes to release the form to procurement for review. If the check cannot complete, the status changes to manual intervention.
Business Approval	The review stage carried out by the business team, either after legal approval on the standard pathway or when a vendor returns a contract during negotiation.

C

Term	Definition
CEO Approval	The final approval stage before a contract is signed. The CEO confirms risk and government compliance, checks execution confirmation, uploads the signed contract, and marks it as signed.
Collaboration	An optional section on a sourcing project or contract where additional users are added and given an access level so they can work on it with you.
Company Type	The classification selected for a sourcing project or contract that determines which assessments a vendor must complete.
Conflict of Interest	A declaration page completed by a prospective vendor during registration, confirming there is no conflict between the vendor and the school.
Contract Initiator	The person who creates a contract and completes the first stage — basic information, contract specifics, attachments, and reviewers and approvers — before submitting it to the contract manager.
Contract Manager	The person assigned by the initiator to review a contract, upload any modifications, and select the legal, business, CPO and CEO reviewers. Can also bypass legal and business and send a contract directly to the vendor.
Copy from Library	An option when building sourcing project content that reuses previously saved introduction, scope of work, or requirement text.
CPO Approval	The review stage carried out by the Chief Procurement Officer after the vendor has approved a contract. Includes two extra checks — risk confirmation and government compliance confirmation — before the contract passes to the CEO.

D

Term	Definition
D365 F&O	Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. Purchase requisitions are raised there and flow into Procurement XP, and approved vendors and signed contracts flow back into it.
Download Current Version	The button on a contract that retrieves the latest uploaded version of the document. Always used before making edits, so changes are applied to the current file rather than a superseded one.

E

Term	Definition
Event Communication	The tab on a sourcing project or contract holding the notifications and correspondence exchanged with vendors for that event.
Execution Confirmation	A checkbox available to the CEO confirming the contract is ready for execution. Ticked before the contract moves to the signed stage.
Expiring Contracts	An Overview tab listing contracts approaching their end date that may need renewal or other action.

F

Term	Definition
Finance Approval	The second approval stage for a prospective vendor. The finance team verifies the values extracted from the vendor's documents and either approves — moving the status to vendor creation in progress — or returns the form to procurement with comments.

G

Term	Definition
Generate with AI	An option when building sourcing project content that drafts introduction or requirement text from a short description.
Government Compliance Confirmation	A checkbox completed by the CPO and again by the CEO confirming the contract meets government compliance requirements.

I

Term	Definition
Import from Template	An option in the Terms and conditions section that pulls in an approved set of terms rather than writing new ones for the project.
In Negotiation	The contract status set when a vendor uploads a counteroffer or modified contract. The approval pathway stays blocked until the vendor approves or the parties agree a version.
Invite Vendor	The action taken from the Prospective Vendors table that sends the vendor portal account invitation email. Adding a prospective vendor record does not send this automatically.

L

Term	Definition
Legal Approval	The review stage carried out by the legal team to align a contract with the school's legal framework and safeguard its assets. Can be bypassed by the contract manager.
Local Vendor	A vendor based in the same country as the school. Local vendors have different documentation requirements from overseas vendors during registration.

M

Term	Definition
Manual Intervention	A prospective vendor status set when bot validation cannot complete automatically. The procurement team must verify the form manually before approval can continue.

N

Term	Definition
Next Round	The button on the Approve quotations page that opens an auction instead of awarding the project. Used when there is no clear winner or further detail is needed from vendors.
Notifications	The bell icon at the right of the navigation bar showing alerts for actions that need your attention.

O

Term	Definition
Order Confirmation	The final section on a contract created from a sourcing project, used to confirm the order and finalise it with the awarded vendor.
Overseas Vendor	A vendor based outside the school's country. Overseas vendors have different documentation requirements from local vendors during registration.
Overview	The Procurement XP landing page. Its tabs cycle through expiring contracts, procurement projects in progress, vendors in review, approaching bid deadlines, and trade licences expiring soon. Also the name of the summary step within a sourcing project.

P

Term	Definition
Participate	The button a vendor clicks on an invited sourcing project in the vendor portal to open it and begin their bid.
Price Bid	The section of a sourcing project or bid holding the currency, the items covered, and the unit price entered against each one.
Price Visibility	A setting on a sourcing project that controls whether pricing is visible to participants.
Procurement Review	The first approval stage for a prospective vendor, carried out by the procurement team once bot validation has completed. The vendor can be approved, returned, or rejected with a comment.
Procurement XP	The procurement platform covered by this guide, used to register vendors, manage contracts, and run sourcing events. Also the home link at the far left of the navigation bar.
Project Messages	The section of a sourcing project holding the invitation email sent to vendors. Reviewed and added to before publishing.
Prospective Vendor	A vendor working through the registration and review process. Prospective vendors can be invited to sourcing projects but must complete onboarding before a bid can be accepted.
Purchase Requisition	A request raised in D365 F&O that a sourcing project is built from. Each requisition can hold multiple line items, which become the items vendors bid on.

R

Term	Definition
Reviewers and Approvers	The step in contract creation where the initiator selects the contract manager, and the contract manager later selects the legal, business, CPO and CEO reviewers.
RFP / RFQ	Request for Proposal and Request for Quotation. The two forms a sourcing project can take when published to invited vendors.
Risk Assessment	A document uploaded against a contract, and optionally against an award, recording the assessed risk of the arrangement.
Risk Category	The risk level assigned to a contract by the initiator when the risk assessment is uploaded.
Risk Confirmation	A checkbox completed by the CPO and again by the CEO confirming the contract's risk position has been reviewed.

S

Term	Definition
Schedule	The section of a sourcing project or contract where the submission close date — the last day vendors can submit — and any run and end dates are set.
Scope of Work	Part of the technical content of a sourcing project, describing what the vendor is being asked to deliver.
Send Back	The button used by any contract reviewer to return a contract to the initiator or contract manager for updating rather than approving it.
Service Providers	The section of a sourcing project or contract where the vendors and prospective vendors it applies to are selected.
Signed	The final contract status, set once the CEO has uploaded the signed document and completed the signed date. Signed contracts appear in D365 F&O under Procurement and sourcing ▸ Contracts ▸ All contracts.
Sourcing Project	An RFP or RFQ built from a purchase requisition, containing technical specifications, terms, a price sheet and vendor assessments, and published to invite vendors to bid.
Submission Close Date	The last day a vendor can submit a bid on a sourcing project, set under Schedule.

T

Term	Definition
Technical Document	The section of a sourcing project where the specifications vendors must meet are entered or uploaded, and where vendors attach their technical response.
Terms and Conditions	The section of a sourcing project or contract holding the terms that apply. Imported from a template or written for the project, and accepted by the vendor as part of their bid.
Trade Licence	A document supplied by a vendor during registration. Licences approaching expiry are listed on the Overview under trade licences expiring soon.

U

Term	Definition
Unit Price	The price a vendor enters against each item in the price section of their bid.
User Menu	The person icon at the right of the navigation bar, used to access your profile, adjust settings, or sign out.

V

Term	Definition
VAT Certificate	A tax registration document supplied by a vendor during registration. Listed among the required documents in the vendor's invitation email.
Vendor	An approved, active supplier. Vendors appear in the Vendors tab and in D365 F&O under Accounts payable ▸ Vendors ▸ All vendors.
Vendor Portal	The separate view of the platform used by external vendors, reached through Are you a vendor? Sign in here below the main sign-in square. Credentials are issued in the vendor's invitation email.
Vendors in Review	An Overview tab listing prospective vendors currently working through the approval process.
Version History	A record of every uploaded version of a contract, opened with View version history in the top-left corner. Used to access previous versions during negotiation.