Terms used in Unimarket
Marketplace – The University’s e-procurement system (provided by Unimarket) that allows buyers to select goods from supplier catalogues and transact the purchase electronically with the supplier.
Purchasing – A transaction with a supplier to buy something.
Procurement – The strategic process of negotiating and entering a contract for supply.
Requisition – A requisition provides details of the desired item or service that once approved becomes a purchase order/order. Sometimes called a purchasing request.
Catalogue – A list of products or services available from a supplier within Unimarket.
Non-Catalogue – A requisition within Unimarket that allows a user to describe the item or service that they wish to purchase.
Roundtrip – Some Unimarket suppliers have enabled the roundtrip function, allowing you to follow a link to the supplier’s site, select and return items, and then complete your request in Unimarket.
Blanket Order – A purchase order for a pre-determined value that covers multiple invoices during a financial period. Previously called a standing order.
Request For Quote (RFQ) – An option to request pricing for goods and services from selected suppliers.
Purchase Order (PO) / Order – A University-initiated request for a good or service, including authorisation to charge the University for that particular good or service. In Unimarket this is referred to as an order.
Sensitive Order – An option in Unimarket to make a requisition and subsequent purchase order only visible to you, Supply Chain and any approvers.
Retrofit Order – A purchase order that is raised after the invoice is received. Usually, a purchase order should be in place before an invoice is received, so this is used in exceptional circumstances only.
Browser – A user in Unimarket who can browse suppliers and catalogues, add items to a cart and reassign the requisition to a Buyer (Supply Chain hub) to progress the purchase.
Reassign – A browser will reassign a requisition to a Buyer to enable it to be approved and converted to an order.
Buyer – A user in Unimarket who can browse suppliers and catalogues, add items to a cart and submit the requisition for approval.
Supply Chain (team) – The team that supports the purchasing process at the University. This includes purchasing and stores staff.
Approver – A user in Unimarket who can approve a purchase request.
Delegated Financial Authority (DFA) – The authority given to a person that allows them to approve a purchase up to a specified amount.
Delegated Finance Authority Form – An online form where people can request delegated financial authority and send it to an appropriate DFA holder for approval.
Category Approval – Additional approvals for certain purchases, e.g. where MPI permits are required.
Justification – The justification field in Unimarket is used to communicate information to approvers internally. Information in the justification field is not sent to the supplier.
Justification Attachments – Attachments that are used to support the approval process internally. Justification attachments are not sent to the supplier.
Special Instructions – The special instructions field in Unimarket is used to communicate any special requirements to the supplier.
Order Attachments – Attachments relating to an order that are sent to the supplier.
Permit – Regulatory documentation required as part of purchasing of restricted and/or controlled items.
Receiving – Physically receiving a good or obtaining a service. In Unimarket, this means marking a purchase order line/s as having been received.
Receipt – This means marking a purchase order line/s as having been received. In Unimarket, this is called receiving.
Supplier / Creditor / Vendor – A person or company that provides goods or services to the University on receipt of a purchase order.
Approved Suppliers – Supplier who has been appointed to supply goods or services to the University under contract. These suppliers should be used in the first instance.
Lite Supplier – Suppliers that have opted not to register for a supplier portal with Unimarket.
Registered Supplier – A supplier who can log in to a Unimarket supplier portal.
Premium Supplier – A supplier who can log in to a Unimarket supplier portal. They pay a monthly fee to access additional features including catalogues, and integration with their systems.
Organisation Unit – Unimarket terminology equivalent to a department or cost centre at the University.
Account Code – Basic unit for collating income and expenditure for a University department, research grant etc. For more information please click here.
Entity – This value is always 10 and represents the University of Otago in the account code structure.
Cost Centre – Department or area within the University which costs will be allocated.
Activity Centre – An account within a cost centre.
Dissection Code – The section of the account code that identifies what the category of the purchase is (e.g. 3181 = stationery).
Subdissection Code – Additional information that specifies a sub category of purchase.
Ledger – Holds details about specific transactions e.g. dates, amounts, narratives.
PL – Projects (Research) Ledger
PL (Extended) – Similar to PL but with additional fields for entry of additional, analysis code, employee ID and requested for, information.
GL – General Ledger
GL (Extended) – Similar to GL but with additional fields for entry of additional, analysis code, employee ID and requested for, information.
Property Services – Property Services Ledger
Trust Ledger – Trust Ledger
Campus Dev – Campus Development Ledger
Invoice Matching Exception – The process of accepting or declining an invoice that does not exactly match a purchase order.
Incomplete Requisition – A requisition that has been saved or reassigned to a Supply Chain hub and is waiting to be checked out.
Pending Requisition – A requisition that is awaiting approval.
Approved Requisition – A requisition that has been approved and a purchase order has been created.
Abandoned Requisition – An incomplete requisition that was cancelled before being checked out and routed for approval, or all items have been moved to another requisition (which is also known as consolidating).
Cancelled Requisition – All items on the requisition have been cancelled before the approval process has completed.
Declined Requisition – A requisition where the approver has declined during the approval process.
Smartform – The online purchase requisition form previously used to request the purchase of goods and services. This has been replaced by Unimarket.
Filemaker Request Systems (e.g. SHOP, Kingpin, Biochemistry) – Requisition systems previously used to request the purchase of goods and services. These have been replaced by Unimarket.
