Vendor Onboarding in Procurement

Overview

Save time collecting information from vendors, with a tailored vendor onboarding experience you can launch directly from a procurement request approval workflow.

How to configure approvals

Configure vendor onboarding (Admin only)

A structured vendor onboarding approval workflow can be configured in the vendors page as described in this article. Important Configuration Note: For Procurement requests to trigger this specific workflow, you must ensure the "Creation Source" is correctly configured in your approval workflow editor.

• Open the Edit view for your Vendor Approval workflow.
• Ensure that "Procurement request" is selected as a valid Creation Source (alongside Manual or Bulk import).
• If this source is not selected, procurement requests will bypass this specific vendor approval flow.

How the approval flows work

Once enabled, every time a new vendor is added as part of a procurement request, Ramp will handle both the request and vendor approval in one of two ways.

Scenario a: vendor approvals are turned ON (recommended)

When a user submits a Procurement Request that includes a new vendor, two approval flows will begin in parallel:

1. The Procurement Request Approval
2. The Vendor Approval

Approval Logic:

• Pending State: The Procurement Request will not be fully approved until BOTH the request approval and the vendor approval have been completed.
• Rejections: To keep your data clean, the two flows are linked:
  • If the Request is rejected, the pending vendor approval is removed unless the vendor is already approved or another active procurement request uses the same vendor.
  • If the Vendor is rejected, the Request is rejected.

Scenario b: vendor approvals are turned OFF

If you do not enable the new vendor approval settings:

• The Vendor will be automatically approved once the Procurement Request has been approved.

Important Note: If Vendor Approvals are turned ON but there are no conditions that apply to procurement, all vendor onboarding from procurement requests will follow scenario B.

Syncing new vendors to your ERP

When purchase order sync is enabled and your connected accounting provider supports vendor creation, Ramp may create the new vendor in your accounting provider when the request is approved. If automatic creation fails, request approval still completes. Open the purchase order's Accounting section and select Add vendor to [accounting provider]. See Syncing Ramp purchase orders into accounting for supported providers and settings.