# Deliveries chased before they are late For procurement heads, buyers and planners. Agents follow up every open purchase order, confirm the dates, tell planning the moment one slips and match each delivery to its order when it arrives. [Talk to the team](https://qantara.systems/contact) / [Read the thesis](https://qantara.systems/original/thesis) Five open orders and the dates promised. Each flag stands at the date its supplier promised; the dashed line is the day production needs it. A flag that slides is a date that moved; orange moved past the need. A delivery date is a promise, and promises move. We put agents on every open order, so planning hears while there is still time to act. ## What the agents do around every purchase order Four desks touch a purchase order after it goes out: buying, which gets the promise, planning, which builds on it, stores, which receives what comes, and accounts payable, which pays for it. Agents work alongside all four, inside the systems you already run. ### Buying: Every order acknowledged and its date confirmed Which open orders has no supplier confirmed? - **Get the acknowledgement.** Each purchase order is acknowledged, and the supplier's proforma is read against it: a different quantity, price or date is flagged to the buyer before it becomes the delivery. - **Ask ahead of the date, not after it.** Follow-ups are set by the lead time and by how well each supplier has kept its word, so a slip is heard about while it is still a warning. - **Read the reply, whatever form it takes.** A voice note, a photo of a shipping schedule, a line in an email: the date and the quantity are taken from it and written on the order in your ERP. - **Keep the buyer for what needs a buyer.** Price, an alternative supplier, a hard conversation: those come to your buyer with the facts gathered, and the routine asking does not. ### Planning: Every slipped date reaches planning in time Which late delivery stops production next week? - **Set each date against the need.** Every promised date is read against the day the goods are needed: the production run, the customer's order, the delivery to site. - **Flag the slip with what it touches.** A date that moves past the need reaches the planner with the run, the customer orders and the stock it affects, not as a bare date. - **Bring the options with the facts.** Another supplier's stock, a part delivery, faster freight and what each would cost, gathered for the planner to choose from. - **Give sales the date to give.** When a slip reaches a customer's order, the salesman hears the new date to promise, not a guess, before the customer asks. [See orders and confirmations](https://qantara.systems/solutions/orders) ### Stores: Every delivery expected, checked and put away Does the store know what is arriving tomorrow? - **Know what is coming each day.** The supplier's shipping notice and packing list are read ahead, so the store knows what arrives tomorrow and how it is packed. - **Ask for the certificates with the goods.** Mill certificates for steel, analyses for chemicals and food, certificates of origin and conformity: asked for before the truck leaves, checked before the goods go to stock. - **Put rejected goods back on the supplier.** Goods that fail the check are sent back with the photos and the reason, and the replacement goes onto the order with its own date. - **Spread the trucks over the day.** Deliveries are booked into the store's hours, so the bay, the forklift and the people are free when each truck comes. ### Accounts payable: Every supplier invoice answered from the record How much of the week goes on suppliers asking when they will be paid? - **Answer when they will be paid.** A supplier asking about an invoice hears its status and the payment date from your ERP, in the language they wrote in. - **Agree the statement.** The supplier's statement is set against your ledger every month, and each difference is traced to the invoice or credit note behind it. - **Chase the credit note.** A credit note promised for a return or a price difference is followed up until it arrives and is posted. - **Catch the same invoice twice.** An invoice sent again by email after the original came on paper is recognised, and only one is paid. ## Beyond the four desks Some purchases do not go from one order to one delivery: imports behind a stack of shipping documents, goods sent straight to a project site, releases against a yearly agreement, and the one part a stopped machine is waiting for. - **Imports, through the forwarder.** For goods shipped from abroad, the agent follows the supplier for the documents and the forwarder for the vessel and the arrival, so the papers are ready before the container lands. No container waiting at the port for a missing paper. - **Deliveries to a project site.** Materials sent straight to a site are booked into the site's delivery windows, with the gate pass and the contact, and the site engineer hears when the truck sets off. No truck turned away at the gate. - **Releases against a yearly agreement.** Under a yearly price agreement, each release is placed against what is left on it, and the buyer hears before the agreed quantity runs out. The next agreement negotiated before the last one ends. - **The part a stopped machine needs.** When a machine is down, the part is asked for from every supplier that might hold it, and the answers come back side by side: who has it, the price, when it can be there. The machine running again sooner. ## How it works for supplier follow-ups 01 **Embed.** Our engineers sit with your buyers and planners for a week and follow the open orders: where each date is written, how often the copies disagree, and how many hours go on asking. That becomes the baseline and shows where to start. 02 **Build.** When goods arrive, an agent lays the delivery note over the purchase order. What matches is received; what is short stays open on the order, and the supplier is asked for the rest with a date. 03 **Scale.** Every buyer's open orders, for raw materials, packaging and spares, sit on one record against the day each is needed, so planning sees the few that will be late before anyone has to ask. 04 **Measure.** How late deliveries arrive, order by order, and the hours your buyers spend asking, against the weeks before we start, counted with your procurement head. ## New suppliers, promises with no history This year many Gulf buyers got goods moving again by ordering more, ordering earlier and turning to suppliers they had not used before, often nearer home. A new supplier's promise has no history behind it, and a date that moves is usually found out when the goods do not arrive. Agents record every promise and every arrival, so each supplier's record builds order by order and your buyers know whose dates to plan on. Each supplier's record, order by order. The tick is the date promised and the dot the day the goods came, so a long line is a late delivery. Orange is an open order whose date moved again. ## Built around the systems you run Nothing has to be replaced to start. Agents work inside your ERP's purchasing, read the supplier portals you already log in to, and write to suppliers on the email and WhatsApp they already answer. - ERP purchasing - Production planning - Warehouse and stores - Accounts payable - Supplier portals - Email - WhatsApp Business - Forwarders' tracking - Spreadsheets ## What procurement heads ask us **Do our suppliers need new software?** No. They get messages on the email and WhatsApp they already use, and on a portal only where your team already works through one. **Who negotiates with suppliers?** Your buyers. The agent gathers the facts for the conversation, the dates, the history and the alternatives, and never agrees a price or a change of terms. **What counts as a risk?** Your planners decide, item by item: how close to the day it is needed a date may come, and how long a supplier may stay silent, before someone is told. **Can the agent call a supplier?** Suppliers are written to on WhatsApp and email, and a call your buyer makes is noted on the order. **Will suppliers know they are dealing with an agent?** Yes. Messages come from your purchasing team's assistant, signed as such, and a supplier who wants a person is passed to the buyer. **Can it place purchase orders?** It sends only orders your buyer has approved. Drafting them from your reorder rules is a separate step that you can switch on later. **Where do we start?** With the open orders for one category, the ones that stop production when they are late, followed with your buyers for a week. ## Supplier follow-ups in your industry - [Logistics and freight](https://qantara.systems/solutions/logistics): Quotes, bookings, customs and delivery, on time. - [Distribution and trading](https://qantara.systems/solutions/distribution): Orders confirmed, delivered and collected. - [Manufacturing and industrial](https://qantara.systems/solutions/manufacturing): Suppliers, schedules and the line kept moving. ## Start with the order that stops the line Tell us which deliveries hold up your work today and who chases them. Our engineers take it from there, on site. [Talk to the team](https://qantara.systems/contact) / [Email us](mailto:hello@qantara.example) Muscat and across the Gulf --- This is the Markdown twin of the page at https://qantara.systems/solutions/supplier-follow-ups