Claritum Definitions

Quote Request

A request for quotation is a standard business process whose purpose is to invite suppliers into a bidding process to bid on specific products or services.

Claritum allows for Quote Requests to be submitted via the Customer Portal (by Customer Users) and through the Main Service Platform ( by Administrators, on behalf of Customer Users)

Project

In Claritum a Project is created when a Customer User requests a quote for a product or service or when an order is placed either via the Customer Portal or via the Main Service Platform.

A Project manages an end-to-end customer requirement and contains details such as: contact details, product / service specification, Project Workflow, tracking purchase, Invoicing details, cost and sale attached to the goods plus many more.

Rate Card

A Rate Card is a type of an item that can be purchased from within a catalogue.

A Rate carded item is an item which differs to a quote request in that it already contains prices and specification. The price is often agreed with suppliers through a contract.

Rate Card prices may differ depending on quantities required and additional options available for the product.

Rate Carded items can simply be added to a basket in a Customer Portal where no quoting process is required as the price is already available.

Stock Item

A Stock Item is a type of a product.

A Stock Item has a fixed specification and a single price.

It is mostly available through Suppliers who have warehouses.

Customer Users can order stock items via a Customer Portal. These orders will be routed to the Suppliers who will then take the goods out of their warehouse and ship to the Customer User.

Customer

A Customer on Claritum is a single entity / organisation which contains a number of Customer Users ( contacts for this entity / organisation )

Customer refers to the entity / organisation that uses Claritum in order to source and purchase goods and services for their business. They will mainly do it using Customer Portal where Customer Users can log in and browse through a catalogue of items.

A Customer will have at least one address created which is used for invoicing purposes and also delivery.

Each Customer can be configured in a different way with additional information / settings available on Claritum to address this Customer’s business needs.

Customer User

A Customer User is an individual that is a member of the Customer.

There can be a number of Customer Users configured for a given Customer on Claritum.

Each Customer User will be identified by their email address as default. Other forms of identification are also available (External ID, etc).

A Customer User can access a Customer Portal and request a quote for a product or a service or order an already available and defined item such as a rate carded item, stock item or a template item.

Supplier

A Supplier is an organisation / entity that sources products and services which are then delivered to the Customer Users within Customer organisations.

Suppliers have the ability to provide prices on the quote requests which they were selected to bid on by the Administrators.

Suppliers can also submit their invoices via Claritum system, if they are permitted to do so by the Claritum Administrators.

Suppliers do not have a direct communication with the Customers and Customer Users.

Administrators coordinate pricing communication and goods delivery between the Suppliers and Customer / Customer Users.

Supplier User

A Supplier User is an individual that is a member of the Supplier entity / organisation.

There can be a number of Supplier Users configured for a given Supplier on Claritum.

Each Supplier User will be identified by their email address as default. Other forms of identification are also available (External ID, etc).

A Supplier User can access the Supplier Portal and provide a quote request response for a product or a service requested by a Customer User or ship products which do not require quoting ( rate carded, stock and templated items).

Administrators

An Administrator in Claritum is a User who has access to the Claritum Service Platform and acts as a coordinator between Customers, the Administrator’s organisation and Suppliers.

Administrators may fulfil different roles within their organisations such as: Account Managers, Supplier Chain Managers, Account Team Members

Depending on a role within their organisation they can have a different set of permissions.

Some of the administrators may have a full access to the system allowing them to manage Claritum system configuration.

Customer Portal

A Customer Portal is a customer facing platform and is integrated with the Main Service Platform.

Its purpose is to ensure easy and automated purchasing experience for Customer Users.

It contains a catalogue of items through which Customer Users can order goods / services or request a quotes for goods / services.

These catalogue items can be rate carded, stock, templates or quote request item type.

Customer Users simply choose a catalogue item and place it in a basket, following checkout procedure and order submission.

Each Customer on Claritum can have their own branded Customer Portal.

One Customer Portal branding can be used across multiple Customers.

A login id and a password are required in order to access a Customer Portal.

Supplier Portal

The Supplier Portal is used by the Supplier Users to respond to Customer Users and Administrators quote requests.

Supplier Users access the portal in order to enter the prices on the bid they were invited to.

Through the Supplier Portal they can also see Projects they were awarded for order fulfilment.

Supplier Portal is also used for uploading invoices by the Suppliers which will be available to the Administrators via the Main System Platform.

Project Workflow

Each Project is driven by a workflow that contains a number of steps to be completed before the Project can be considered as complete.

Those steps represent the main tasks that need to be actioned throughout the Project’s life cycle.

It allows Administrators to keep a track of the Project’s progress and key dates.

Catalogue

The catalogue consists of structured folders where each folder contains a number of products / services configured by an Administrator for a Customer.

The catalogue is configured on the Main Service Platform and then published to Customer Users via a single or multiple Customer Portals.

Different catalogue folders / catalogue items can be visible to different Customers.

On the Customer Portal the catalogue is displayed in a tree structure allowing product and service categorisation.

Each catalogue folder can contain multiple catalogue items (products or / and services).

Catalogue Item

A Catalogue item is a single product / service that is a part of the catalogue.

There are different types of catalogue items: quote requests, stocked items, rate carded items or templated items.

Different products / services will require different types of items to be used and will depend on the product’s / service’s specification.

Template

A Template, also known as web-to-print item is a type of item that can be purchased from within a catalogue.

Being very specific to the print industry, this item normally has a number of different design options available and a Customer User selects one of the designs / artworks to be printed out on the goods that are ordered.

It may also allow to enter manually / select from options available a certain level of text personalisation.

A good example of a template item is a business card where a template item allows to choose a design (logo and its colour) to be applied on the business card and also allows to enter personalised information such as name, phone number, etc.

Specification Form

A Specification Form contains a number of different fields, options, drop-down menus that is then used to configure a catalogue item, often for a particular product or service.

Specification Forms can only apply to rate card and quote request types of catalogue items.

Specification Forms are detailed attributes of a requirement such as size, color, materials and quantities. Each attribute can have multiple attributes eg 'size' can have height, width and depth.

They allow Customer Users to specify the product/ service they want from a set of pre-defined options available.

Different specification forms contain different levels of options available. Some specification forms contain just text fields, others have more complex options available.

Sales Order

This is an order placed by a Customer User.

The Sales Order normally contains a Purchase Order number reference but other information can be captured at this point as well, such as Department, Line of Business, etc.

The sales order details are managed in Claritum via the Sales Order tab on a project.

Supplier Purchase Order

The Supplier will be sent a Purchase Order in order to fulfil Customer User’s order.

This is a confirmation to go ahead with the work.

On Claritum Supplier Purchase Order is a document that contains all the details about the order such as order number, description, delivery date, delivery address, etc.

Service

A Service describes a Supplier's ability to provide certain goods and services.

A Service describes what a Supplier specialises at which then allows the Administrators on Claritum to select a right supplier(s) for quoting / fulfilling an order.

Business Unit

It allows for the Administrator’s organisation to set up separate invoicing entities.

Business Units are important for those organisations who operate in multiple countries where different set of invoice numbers may be required.