Custom supplier portal

What is a supplier portal and what is it for?

A supplier portal, also called a vendor portal or supplier extranet, is a secure space that lets a company and its suppliers exchange information without relying on emails, Excel files, and duplicate entry on both sides.

It can cover all or part of the supplier cycle: onboarding, documents, orders, confirmations, shipments, receipts, invoices, and disputes. The ERP can remain the source of truth while the portal exposes only the data and actions needed by the supplier.

The portal becomes an interface between the supplier and the internal information system without directly exposing the software used by the internal teams.

What features should a supplier portal include?

Each supplier should have a space adapted to its role: company data, contacts, open orders, required documents, planned deliveries, invoices, requests, and exchange history. Permissions ensure that a supplier only sees the data relevant to them.

The portal can also centralize the supplier master data, meaning the reference information used by the company: legal entity, sites, contacts, bank details, certifications, insurance, purchasing categories, or contractual terms.

The real value is turning this information into action: expiring document, order to confirm, delayed delivery, bank detail change to validate, or blocked invoice.

How do you automate supplier onboarding and onboarding review?

Supplier onboarding is the process of bringing a new supplier into the company’s workflows and tools. The flow can become: invitation, account creation, company information, documents, questionnaire, checks, internal approval, activation.

The supplier fills in the requested information and uploads supporting documents itself. The portal can detect missing documents, track their expiration dates, and automatically request a new version before expiry.

Critical changes, especially bank details or legal name, can remain subject to internal approval before synchronization.

How do you manage orders and deliveries with a supplier portal?

An order created in the ERP can be automatically published in the portal. The supplier reviews it, confirms quantities and planned dates, or flags a discrepancy. The buyer then gets structured information instead of a confirmation buried in email.

Before delivery, the supplier can also create an ASN - Advanced Shipping Notice. It can include the shipped references, quantities, expected date, pallets, or carrier.

The portal can then follow a full process: order, confirmation, shipment, receipt, possible discrepancy, closure, with a shared history across purchasing, logistics, and the supplier.

How do you connect a supplier portal to an ERP, SRM, WMS, or TMS?

A supplier portal becomes truly valuable when it communicates with existing tools. Each acronym corresponds to a different role and should be clearly defined before development.

Supplier portal, EDI, or API: which solution should you choose?

A portal is not necessarily a replacement for EDI - Electronic Data Interchange, which automatically exchanges structured documents between systems, nor for APIs, which let different software tools exchange data directly.

The three can coexist. A supplier handling several thousand monthly exchanges can connect directly by EDI or API, while a more occasional supplier simply uses the web portal.

This approach is especially useful in a P2P - Procure-to-Pay process, sometimes called Purchase-to-Pay: the full cycle from purchase request to supplier payment.

How do you secure supplier portal data and changes?

Each supplier should only have the permissions needed for its work. The portal can enforce role-based permissions, stronger authentication, and an audit trail, meaning a history showing who changed what, when, and possibly why.

Sensitive changes deserve special handling. A bank account change should, for example, not instantly replace the details stored in the ERP. It can trigger a verification, a second-person approval, or an independent control before use.

The same logic applies to access: SSO - Single Sign-On can, when relevant, share authentication with the company identity system, while MFA - multi-factor authentication adds a second proof of identity on top of the password.

E-invoicing 2026: how do you integrate it into the supplier portal?

The French e-invoicing reform is particularly relevant here. From 1 September 2026, the companies concerned must be able to receive electronic invoices; issuance obligations then enter into force progressively depending on company size, with a new deadline of 1 September 2027 for SMEs and microbusinesses.

The supplier portal should not be presented as a replacement for an approved platform used within the regulatory framework. It can instead centralize the supplier experience: displaying invoices, statuses, discrepancies, or disputes while synchronizing those elements with the ERP, accounting, and the regulated exchange platform.

The process can therefore become: supplier, portal, ERP and accounting, approved platform, with the status sent back into the portal.

How do you automate matching between order, receipt, and invoice?

Three-way matching compares three elements: the purchase order, the goods actually received, and the invoice received. If quantities, references, and amounts match within the defined tolerances, the process can continue automatically.

If there is a discrepancy, the portal can instead open a case: invoiced quantity higher than received, price different from the order, missing delivery, or incorrect reference. The supplier then has the context needed to respond right away.

This is especially valuable when the goal is to reduce manual work across the Purchase-to-Pay cycle.

How do you measure supplier performance and risk?

The portal naturally produces useful steering data: confirmation delays, late deliveries, quantity discrepancies, non-conformities, disputes, expired documents, or resolution times.

A common indicator is OTIF - On Time In Full, which measures the share of orders delivered on the expected date and in the expected quantity. It lets you measure supplier reliability without rebuilding data manually in Excel.

The portal can then provide analysis by supplier, purchasing family, site, or period to highlight recurring delays, critical suppliers, and the parts of the process that generate the most interventions.

Standard supplier portal or custom development: which should you choose?

A portal already included in an ERP or SRM solution is generally the best choice when the company’s processes match what the vendor has already planned. It will be faster to deploy and require less custom development.

A custom supplier portal becomes relevant when the difficulty lies precisely in the existing organization: multiple ERPs, special workflows, very different supplier profiles, specific approval rules, legacy systems, or integrations that cannot be cleanly reproduced in a standard product.

At Koragence, the project can start by mapping the flows and the systems that own each piece of data, then prototyping the supplier experience before building integrations, migrating existing data, and rolling out progressively to an initial group of suppliers.