Project Overview
A UK manufacturing conglomerate with 28 operating companies, 4,200 employees, and £840M annual procurement spe...
Technology Stack
Compliance & Standards
The Challenge
A UK manufacturing conglomerate with 28 operating companies, 4,200 employees, and £840M annual procurement spend needed a unified procurement platform — replacing 28 different supplier relationships with a single B2B marketplace and automated purchase order workflow. HMRC CIS (Construction Industry Scheme for building materials), VAT invoice compliance, FRS 102 accruals (UK GAAP), UK GDPR for supplier data, and integration with the group's SAP S/4HANA ERP were the requirements. Budget: £130,000.
Our Approach
SAP S/4HANA procurement APIs
Purchase Order creation (OData API — SAP ODATA/sap/opu/odata/sap/API_PURCHASEORDER_PROCESS_SRV), Purchase Requisition approval (workflow integration), Goods Receipt posting (inventory management), and Supplier Master Data (vendor creation, bank details, payment terms).
Integration pattern
- REST API gateway (Node.js middleware) → SAP OData API (SOAP/REST SAP integration).
- SAP RFC (Remote Function Call): legacy integration for older SAP modules via SAP RFC library for Node.js.
- Multi-
Entity Procurement and Approval Workflows
28 operating companies: each with separate budget holder, separate cost centre, separate VAT registration (some group relief, some separate).
Purchase authority matrix
- configurable per operating company (engineer £5,000, manager £25,000, director unlimited).
- Cross-entity purchase: operating company A purchasing from operating company B — intercompany billing (transfer pricing compliance).
Consolidated group spend dashboard
group CFO sees total procurement spend by category, supplier, and operating company.
Supplier onboarding
Companies House verification, bank detail verification (Creditsafe), insurance certificate upload, and ISO 9001/14001 certification check.
Product catalogue
240,000 SKUs from 340 suppliers, category hierarchy (UNSPSC codes — UN Standard Products and Services Code), lead time, minimum order quantity, and pricing tiers (based on annual volume).
Contract pricing
framework agreement prices loaded per supplier — automatic application to operating companies within framework.
HMRC CIS
construction materials purchased by CIS contractors.
Platform
operating company flags as CIS contractor → materials invoices have CIS-relevant VAT treatment.
VAT invoice
each operating company has separate VAT registration — invoices issued in correct entity name with correct VAT number.
Group VAT registration
some operating companies on group VAT return — platform separates VAT reporting by registration group.
FRS 102 accruals
purchase orders received but not invoiced → month-end accrual automatically generated.
The Results
Platform live at 20 weeks, £122,000 — under budget.
Purchase order processing time: 3.4 days → 4.2 hours.
Procurement spend visibility: group CFO has real-time visibility for first time.
Supplier consolidation: 340 supplier relationships managed in one platform (previously 28 × multiple per company = hundreds of relationships).
CIS compliance: 100% (previously manual tracking).
FRS 102 month-end accrual: automated — previously 3 days.
Annual procurement saving (consolidated pricing): £2.4M year 1 (better pricing from consolidated volumes).
“£2.4M procurement saving in year 1 from consolidated pricing. Group CFO real-time visibility for the first time. Purchase order 3.4 days to 4.2 hours. CIS compliance automated — it was manual tracking before and manual means gaps. FRS 102 month-end accrual automated saving 3 days per month for the finance team." — Group CFO, UK Manufacturing Conglomerate (name withheld)”
Project Details
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