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How to Set Up a New Supplier

If you cannot find the supplier you wish to buy from as part of the active R12 database then it is possible to set them up as a new supplier. This is quite an exact process which involves input from the End User, the Supplier, NDCN Orders and the University Purchasing Department so it should only be begun where necessary.

Please be aware that a company set up can take some time, depending on how quickly they respond in providing their details, so it is important to contact NDCN Orders as soon as possible in the process to make sure we can get everything resolved in good time.

Identifying whether a New Supplier is Necessary

There are a lot of suppliers on R12, and the search function is very sensitive to syntax, reacting to spaces, hyphens, abbreviations and word order so please make sure you've searched thoroughly.

The best way to do this is to select a small but distinctive part of the name and surround it with the % symbol as this acts as a wildcard and will bring up all results with that word anywhere in the name. (For example "AD Instruments" will not give results but "A D Instruments" will, so try %Instruments% as your search).

Check the company website to make sure they don't trade under a different name to the one you're searching for. (For example the brand names R&D Systems, Novus Biologicals and Tocris all trade as "Bio-Techne (R&D Systems)" on R12).

If it is a foreign supplier (particularly US-based) then search their website and see if they have any UK/European distributors who sell their products, and look to see if those companies are already set up. If so, please contact the distributor for pricing and catalogue information and purchase the goods from them instead.

Finally, please check the supplier with NDCN Orders by emailing us with the supplier name and address, and a short description of what you're looking to buy. We may be able to help you identify the supplier on R12, or find their dormant entry from the previous R11 system and apply to have that reactivated. Failing this, we can often suggest alternative suppliers you can order from instead, saving you having to undergo the set-up process.

Checking the Willingness and Suitability of the Prospective New Supplier

If, after the above checks, we do need to set up a new supplier then the first thing is for the end user to contact the company to explain that you're looking to buy from them for the University using a University PO number and check that they do offer purchasing with POs and then invoicing (for bank transfer payment). Most suppliers will do this, but some companies will only take credit card/PayPal payments online and do not accept Purchase Orders.

It is now down to individual Departments (rather than Central Finance) to check the suitability of new suppliers to trade with the University, so we will need them to complete a Supplier Questionnaire, as well as confirm that they accept the principles and T&Cs of the University of Oxford.

If you can provide NDCN Orders with the email address of your contact at the prospective supplier then we can send these documents out to them. This would ideally be a personal email (e.g. John.Smith@newcompany.com) rather than a generic one (e.g. sales@newcompany.com) as the individual's email address is better monitored and the email is less likely to get lost or deleted.

Raising the Requisition

Once we have confirmed all the information above with the prospective new supplier you'll need to raise a requisition to start the supplier set-up process within R12. This will be a non-catalogue requisition, but you'll need to tick the "new supplier" box and manually enter the name and address details.

This must include the email address of a contact at the new supplier who is authorised to complete a further set of online forms with their company and banking details (see below). Please take care to make sure you enter this correctly with no mistakes as the email is generated by the system and cannot be easily re-sent without withdrawing the requisition and starting the approvals process from scratch.

Once the Requisition has been Submitted

When the requisition has been raised and submitted it'll come to NDCN Orders for approval, and after this it goes on to the University Purchasing Department (UPD) for them to check there are no immediate reasons not to set up the new supplier.

Once all approvals have been given this will trigger the email to the prospective supplier containing the link to the online set-up forms. They need to complete and submit their company and bank details to the University via these forms and the University Purchasing Team will review these and implement the set-up.

It's also best to let them know that the email with the link to these forms will be coming and will be triggered from the "Workflow Mailer - R12LIVE <wfr12live@it.ox.ac.uk>" account so that they can keep an eye out for it and prevent it being ignored or deleted as junk. The process will stall with them until they complete and submit those forms.

This can take several working days, but once the supplier has gone live on R12 we will manually transform the requisition into a completed Purchase Order, which will be sent out to the supplier electronically. The Purchase Order number will appear in your requisitions list as usual, and we'll email you to confirm this.

Once set up, the supplier will remain on the system for future use so subsequent orders can be made via your R12 Shopper access in the usual fashion.