This release brings powerful improvements to how you manage contracts, oversee evaluations, and align procurement plans with contract records in the VendorPanel platform. With structured custom contract roles, a new evaluation summary landing page, and the ability to use procurement plan numbers as contract numbers, this release is all about control, clarity, and consistency across your workflows.

Managing “who can do what” on contracts is now much clearer and more aligned to your organisation’s language. Instead of relying on free-text role names, you can configure structured custom roles that drive permissions, workflows, and reminders.

This solves a long-standing problem where contract access and notifications depended on inconsistent, free‑text labels. Now, roles are defined centrally, applied consistently, and enforced reliably across the system.

Note: All existing free text custom roles will be converted to the new structured custom roles and by default will have no permissions (to reflect current behaviour). Admins will be able to change these migrated custom roles to have read and write permissions where required.

Key capabilities include:

• Admin-defined custom roles in Settings

  • Configure custom contract roles via Contracts "Manage Module" > "Roles Configuration".
  • Define a name (e.g. “Contract Administrator”, “Business Owner”) and a permission level (Read Only or Edit) for each role.
  • Adjust roles over time with create, edit, and delete functionality supported, while still preserving roles on existing contracts.
  • Roles defined here automatically populate the role selectors on contract forms.

• Clean, guided role assignment on contracts

  • When creating or editing a contract, users now choose from the admin-defined structured roles instead of typing free-text.
  • Multiple users can be assigned to the same custom role (e.g. two “Contract Administrators” on a complex arrangement).
  • Key roles (Contract Manager, Owner, Sponsor) remain single-select and mandatory where applicable.
  • The permission level (Edit / Read) is clearly displayed alongside each role to guide assigners.

  • Legacy free-text custom role entry is removed/hidden to prevent inconsistent naming going forward.
    
    
    

    

    
    
    

• Custom roles in approval routes & reminders

  • Approval workflows can include these new structured custom roles. This article guides you through approval settings: Manage Your Approval Settings – VendorPanel
  • Contract reminders will also support structured custom roles as recipients. This article guides you through editing and creating reminders: Manage Email Reminder Settings – VendorPanel
    

In short, you can now define contract roles your way, assign them consistently, and rely on them for permissions, approvals, and reminders across your contract lifecycle.

Evaluation Chairs managing evaluations can now land on a dedicated Summary page that surfaces the most important information at a glance. Instead of dropping straight into a workflow step, Chairs first see a dashboard-style overview of status, participants, and key actions.

This addresses the pain of having to click around multiple screens just to answer simple questions like “Who has finished scoring?” or “What’s the current COI status?”.

Highlights include:

• New default landing page for evaluations

  • When a Chair opens an evaluation, they now arrive on the Summary view by default.
  • Exceptions are built in for scenarios such as ongoing setup or evaluator views, ensuring users still land where they need to be based on their role and the evaluation phase.

• Clear, phase-based status display

  • A consolidated status block shows progress across Setup, Scoring, and Review phases (Completed / In Progress / Not Started).

• Tasks & actions in one place

  • A dedicated Tasks and Actions area surfaces what needs attention for that specific evaluation.

• Key evaluation metrics at a glance

  • The summary shows:

    • Evaluation due date
    • Chair name
    • Number of evaluators and a list of their names
    • Number of responses received
  • A prominent “Go To Evaluation” button takes users directly to the detailed workflow when they are ready to dive in.

The new Evaluation Summary page lets Chairs instantly understand progress, spot bottlenecks, and jump straight to the actions that matter.

For organisations that want tight alignment between procurement plans and contract records, this release introduces an option to use the procurement plan number as the contract number when a contract is awarded from a plan.

Previously, procurement plans and contracts used entirely separate numbering sequences, making it hard to track which contract came from which plan without additional cross-referencing. The new configuration improves data integrity and reporting by aligning these sequences.

Key behaviours:

• Configurable linkage between procurement and contracts

  • A new setting can be found in Procurement Planning "Manage Module" > "Procurement Number Generation" > “Use Procurement Number on Contracts”
  • When enabled, the procurement module’s number generation also drives contract numbers.

• Consistent numbering on award

  • When a contract is created from a procurement plan, the contract number is the same as the plan’s procurement number, providing immediate traceability.

  • Special cases are handled intelligently:

    • Head agreements use the procurement number as their base contract number.
    • Subcontracts from head agreements use the head agreement number as a prefix and add a '-1', -2', '-3' ... , preserving existing behaviour while aligning with the primary number.
    • If a procurement number matches an existing contract number (e.g. a contract was entered into the system with this number prior to enabling this setting), when creating the contract that links to this plan, a suffix will be added to ensure all contract numbers are unique (e.g. Plan number is "PP123", contract number will be "PP123 (2)")

• Unified sequencing when enabled

  • When the setting is turned on:

    • Generating a procurement number (including manually specified numbers) advances the sequence for both procurement and contracts.
    • Contracts created without an associated plan do not pre-populate a number; generating a number uses the procurement sequence so numbering stays consistent across the two modules.
    • The "Contract Number Generation" area in Contracts "Manage Module" will have most options disabled as this configuration is managed within Procurement Planning. The option to allow manual contract number input can still be configured here.

• Preserved independence when disabled

  • With the setting off (default behaviour):

    • Procurement and contract numbering function independently, as they do today.
    • Contract number generation follows the existing contract settings, including standard prefixes for head agreements and subcontracts.
    • Generating or manually specifying a number in one module only affects that module’s sequence.

By linking procurement and contract numbering, this feature delivers clearer traceability from initial planning through to executed contracts, especially in complex head agreement and subcontract structures.

We are thrilled to announce a significant update to Advanced Evaluations, designed to give you even greater flexibility and control over your procurement process. This upcoming release introduces a new scoring methodology, the Cost Effective Ratio, providing you with more options to tailor your evaluations to the unique needs of your organisation.

This release also include UI/UX changes to the shortlist and final decision stages to streamline decision making. 

Please note that this change will come into effect on Wednesday the 24th of September. 

🚀 New Feature: The Cost Effective Ratio

Every organisation has different priorities. This release introduces a new scoring methodology, the Cost Effective Ratio (CER), as an alternative to our existing Weighted Cost Scoring. This approach is inspired by procurement guidelines that treat price as a variable of the overall value, allowing you to choose the method that best aligns with your objectives. 

• You now have two distinct scoring methods available that can be configured at an organisation level: the new Cost Effective Ratio and the existing Weighted Cost Scoring.
• Admins can change this from Weighted Cost Scoring to Cost Effective Ratio under the General Advanced Evaluations settings. 
• When using the new CER method, the cost criterion will no longer have a weight assigned to it, as the ratio inherently accounts for its impact on the overall value.
• On the Shortlist and Final Decision screens, a new column will dynamically appear. It will display either the Cost Effective Ratio or the Weighted Cost Score depending on the method you've selected for your evaluation.
• We've updated the visual reports and mail merges to seamlessly accommodate the new Cost Effective Ratio data, ensuring all your documentation is comprehensive and accurate.

🎯 Enhanced Decision-Making Tables

We've completely overhauled the tables on the Shortlist and Final Decision screens to provide a cleaner, more intuitive user experience. While the core functionality remains the same, these visual improvements will make it even easier to analyse and compare offers at a glance.

• The refreshed table design provides a cleaner, more modern interface for reviewing and comparing respondents.
• You can now sort any column in the table, giving you the flexibility to organise data however you need whether by score, cost or respondent.
• New badges now highlight the respondents with the highest score and the lowest cost, making it simple to quickly identify top performers and budget-friendly options.

We believe these updates will significantly enhance your ability to run fair, transparent, and effective evaluations. Your feedback is what drives our progress, so please don't hesitate to let us know what you think of the new features!

We're delighted to present a new release focused on optimising your analytics experience. This update delivers key enhancements to your analytics platform, including the introduction of Global Filters and other powerful improvements. We've also made a crucial refinement to the evaluations module to further streamline your procurement process.

🚀 New: Global Filters

We're pleased to introduce a fundamental feature to our Analytics platform: Global Filters. Previously, you could only apply filters to individual reports, which made it challenging to analyse your data holistically. Now, you can filter across all reports at once, making it easier to gain a complete view of your data.

• Filter Across All Reports: The new Global Filters button at the top of your Sourcing and Contracts Analytics page allows you to apply filters across your entire reporting suite.
• A Clearer View: Once you apply your filters, every report on the page will automatically update, ensuring you can quickly and easily analyse a specific data set.
• Customise Further: While the Global Filters provide a great starting point, you still have the flexibility to apply additional filters on individual reports if you need to drill down further.

This new feature is a core component of a modern analytics tool, built to give you effortless control over your data.

🎯 Enhanced: Analytics & Evaluations

We’ve also made several other key enhancements to improve your overall experience:

• Searchable Dropdowns: All dropdown menus within the Analytics module are now fully searchable, saving you time and effort when looking for specific values.
• Match Requests & Responses Report: The filter section in this report is now expandable, providing you with more space and a better user experience for interacting with the filters.
• Refined Evaluations Logic: We've updated the logic for creating requests from Procurement Planning. If you select Advanced Evaluations during planning, the system will now automatically set this as the default evaluation method with Go To Market, saving you a manual step.
  • UPDATE: An issue was found with this update and was rolled back. It will be re-released in a future release

🛠️ Other Enhancements & Fixes

• Resolved an issue that caused discrepancies in cost avoidance values
• Resolved an issue that caused validation errors to persist after unlocking a stage in Procurement Planning
  
  

Manually validating a high volume of supplier TINs is a time-consuming and expensive process. It can lead to compliance issues and potential delays in procurement and payment to the supplier. 

Our new TIN Validation feature addresses these challenges directly. With a single click, users can verify the TIN of any supplier, ensuring the information is accurate and legitimate. This functionality integrates seamlessly into the procurement workflow, allowing for real-time checks as new suppliers are onboarded.

The Benefits

• Mitigate Risk: By automatically verifying supplier TINs, the feature helps prevent fraud and ensures compliance with US tax and government regulations. 🛡️
• Enhance Efficiency: It eliminates the need for manual, time-intensive checks, freeing up procurement staff to focus on strategic tasks. ⏱️
• Improve Data Accuracy: The automated system reduces the risk of human error, ensuring a clean and reliable supplier database. ✅

Click here to find out more, or book a demo. 

We've released a new update to help you gain more insight and accountability in your evaluation process. While this may seem like a small change, it's designed to bring greater clarity to how scores are provided and a more transparent evaluation journey.

💬 New! Mandatory Comments for Evaluators

Based on valuable feedback, we've added a setting to the advanced evaluations that allows you to require evaluators to provide a comment for each score they give. This ensures that every score is backed by a clear rationale, giving you the context needed to justify final decisions during consensus scoring.

This setting is off by default. If you want to use it for your evaluations, you will need to enable it in the advanced evaluation module settings.

🛠️ Other Enhancements & Fixes

We've also included a number of other improvements and fixes to enhance your experience across the platform.

• Mail Merge Codes: We've updated the mail merge codes for evaluation document generation to accurately show both initial and consensus scores.
• PDF Generation: We've resolved an issue where KPI labels were overlapping other text when generating a PDF document, ensuring a cleaner layout.

We hope these updates help to make your evaluation process more effective. As always, we appreciate your feedback on how we can continue to improve.

We're excited to announce a powerful new feature in our marketplace: our brand new product comparison tool! 

We know how challenging it can be to find the perfect item to purchase, and we built this tool to make the decision-making process for buyers faster and easier.

Now, you can select and compare products side-by-side in a clear, easy-to-read table. This table gives you a head-to-head view of key details like:

• Price: Quickly see which option fits your budget.
• Supplier: Identify your trusted vendors at a glance.
• Description: Get a clear overview of features and benefits.
• Code & Manufacturer Part ID: Ensure you're looking at the right product every time.

To get started with this comparison, search for any hosted catalog item in the marketplace. 

Whether you prefer Grid or List view, select the Add to Compare option:

You can also do this when viewing a specific item

This new tool is designed to give you all the information you need in one place, so you can make confident, informed decisions and find the best value for your business.

We've had some great feedback on this feature already and are actively considering these improvements:

- Comparing Index-roundtrip and RFQ items in addition to Hosted

- Saving your comparison as a permanent Shopping List.

Ready to find your perfect match? Start comparing today!

Welcome to the next wave of enhancements for our Advanced Evaluations (AE) module! Continuing our mission to uplift the platform based on your direct feedback, this release introduces a powerful new report and major upgrades to existing screens. These changes are designed to help you build consensus faster, navigate complex data with ease, and gain clearer insights.

🚀 New! Zero in on What Matters: The Significant Discrepancies Report

Running a consensus meeting can be challenging when trying to spot major scoring differences on a screen filled with data. This brand-new report is designed to eliminate the noise and guide your team through resolving only the most significant scoring variations, one by one.

• The report automatically isolates and displays only the scores for a single supplier and a single question where evaluators are in significant disagreement.
• This focused view allows your panel to discuss and resolve each discrepancy in a structured, step-by-step manner.
• It is designed as a powerful alternative to the all-encompassing Comparative Scoring screen, giving you the choice of how to best run your consensus phase.

This report streamlines your consensus process by turning a mountain of data into a manageable, actionable checklist.

🎯 Enhanced! A More Powerful & Readable Comparative Scoring Screen

The Comparative Scoring screen is a data powerhouse, and we've just given it a major upgrade to make it more intuitive and insightful. Based on your feedback, we've added new functionality and improved the layout to help you analyse and compare responses more effectively.

• Navigate with ease using new collapsible criteria sections to group related questions.
• Focus your analysis by temporarily hiding and showing specific respondents for direct, side-by-side comparisons.
• Instantly see who's leading, as respondents are now sorted by their overall rank instead of alphabetically.
• Get the complete picture with a new total weighted score displayed at the bottom of the screen.
• Maintain context during blind reviews: the price weighting is now visible even when the specific price details are configured to be hidden.
• Experience a cleaner, more intuitive layout designed for improved readability during complex reviews.

These enhancements give you more control to dissect evaluation data, allowing for richer analysis and better-informed decisions.

🎨 New Look! A Clearer, More Insightful Consensus Hub

The Consensus page is your central hub for finalising scores, and we've redesigned it to be more intuitive and transparent. Acting on feedback that the previous layout could be confusing, we've uplifted the user interface to make the workflow clearer than ever.

• The page layout has been reorganised to more clearly distinguish between actions you can take and the information you are viewing.
• Respondent rankings are now displayed directly on the page, giving you an immediate understanding of the current standings without having to open a report.
• This hub is your clear entry point to both the new Significant Discrepancies Report and the enhanced Comparative Scoring screen.

With a more logical layout and at-a-glance rankings, the redesigned consensus hub makes managing the final stages of your evaluation a breeze.

🛠️ Other Enhancements & Fixes

We've also included a number of other improvements and fixes to enhance your experience across the platform.

• Administrators now have the flexibility to include or exclude respondents at any stage of the evaluation, right up to the final decision.
• Strengthened validation rules when submitting a Purchase Order for approval to prevent errors.
• Vendors now have visibility of the 'Refresh Schedule of Rates' action on payment certificates for improved transparency.
• The remaining budget calculation on Purchase Orders now correctly accounts for all receipted amounts from other POs within the same contract.
• Resolved an issue that prevented procurement-specific custom fields from being added to tabular reports.
• Ensured that sign-off steps are now correctly included when configuring custom reminders.

We are thrilled to deliver these powerful new tools and look forward to your feedback as we continue this journey of improvement together.

Say Goodbye to 1099 Headaches!

For our US customers, tax season often brings a unique set of challenges, especially when it comes to 1099 reporting for contractors and non-employed suppliers. We've heard your feedback loud and clear: the manual process of identifying 1099-applicable invoices and tracking spend can be a major drain on your time and resources.

That's why we're thrilled to announce powerful new functionality in Unimarket designed to make your 1099 reporting process effortless!

Gone are the days of manually reviewing every single invoice to determine its 1099 status. Our new features empower you to take control and streamline your workflow, ensuring accuracy and saving you countless hours.

How Our New 1099 Reporting Works:

We've built this functionality into our new Create Invoice screen, and the codes can be configured to match any integrated ERP system:

• Easy Activation & Pre-populated Income Types: Simply enable 1099 Reporting within your community, and all IRS income types (like Nonemployee Compensation - NC) will be automatically populated in a clear format.
• Default & Supplier-Level Overrides: Define a default 1099 reporting code for your organization, and easily override it at the individual supplier level when needed.
• Automated Invoice Tagging: With each invoice, the default 1099 Reporting code will be automatically populated, significantly reducing manual effort.
• Invoice-Specific Overrides: Need to adjust a specific invoice? No problem! You can easily override the 1099 code inside Create Invoice.
• Seamless Finance System Integration: All 1099 information is integrated directly back into your finance system (e.g., Banner) via our Outbound Invoice integration, ensuring a single source of truth.

Here is a sample of the Administration screen, where you can choose specific codes you want to use and exclude any that aren't relevant:

Within Create Invoice you can just use the default, select a different 1099 code, or even flag an Invoice as Not 1099 Reportable:

With this feature enabled, few invoices will require manual intervention from your Accounts Payable team, freeing up significant time. With our integration changes, data will be synchronized to your finance system. Generating required reports will be streamlined, quick and painless!

You can find more details on this functionality here.

For all our customers across the globe, we have some more exciting updates coming later this month, both in the Invoicing module and more generally across Unimarket. 

Stay tuned for more news soon!

We're thrilled to announce a significant update to our contract management platform, designed to give you more power, flexibility, and precision in managing your contracts. This release introduces a brand-new Contract Admin Area and major enhancements to our Custom Reporting Fields. This will be released, and available tomorrow morning Let's dive in!

🚀 New! Contract Admin Area: Empowering Administrators

We understand that sometimes, administrators need the ability to make direct adjustments to contracts that fall outside standard workflows or require correction. The new Contract Admin Area, accessible via the "Go to Admin Area" button located above the contract title, is a dedicated toolkit designed to provide authorized administrators with the power to efficiently manage and rectify contract details, reducing the need for external support and streamlining your processes.

This secure area allows administrators to:

• Modify Initial End Dates: Correct or adjust the initial end date of a contract, even after it has been activated. This is invaluable for rectifying data entry errors or accommodating pre-agreed changes that weren't captured at activation.
• Update Imported Values: For contracts brought into our system during your initial implementation, administrators can now directly amend those imported data fields, ensuring historical data accuracy.
• Re-assign Vendors: Seamlessly update the vendor associated with a contract. This is particularly useful for internal restructures or when a formal novation process isn't required, but records need to be accurate.
• Adjust Approved Extensions & Variations: Make necessary modifications to contract extension or variation details that have already been approved. This allows for corrections or minor agreed adjustments without needing to undo and redo entire approval processes.
• Link to Procurement Plan: Directly associate contracts with their corresponding procurement plans. This enhances visibility and creates a clear audit trail from planning to execution.
• Link to Market Request: Establish a clear connection between a contract and its originating market request (e.g., RFP, RFQ). This further solidifies the contract lifecycle breadcrumb trail, making it easier to trace contract origins and context.

Self-service corrections and direct administrative control mean faster resolutions and more accurate contract data, all managed securely within your team.

🎯 Enhanced Custom Reporting Fields: Tailored Insights, Your Way!

Our Custom Reporting Fields feature has always allowed you to capture specific data points relevant to your unique business needs. We've now taken this a step further by introducing granularity by Contract Type!

Previously, custom fields were global, applying uniformly across all contracts. Now, you have the flexibility to:

• Define Custom Fields by Contract Type: Create specific sets of custom reporting fields that are relevant only to certain types of contracts (e.g., "Software Licenses" might have different custom fields than "Service Agreements"). This means more targeted and relevant data capture.

• Mix and Match: You can choose to use:

  • Only global custom reporting fields.
  • Only contract-type specific custom reporting fields.
  • A combination of both global fields (that apply to all contracts) and type-specific fields for further detail.
• Selective Application: You now have the option to turn off global custom fields for certain contract types if they are not relevant, or disable custom fields entirely for specific types, preventing unnecessary data entry.

This enhancement means more relevant data, less clutter, and reporting that truly reflects the nuances of your different contract categories.

Contract Module Settings

Construction Contract Type Settings

🛠️ Other Enhancements & Fixes  

In addition to these major updates, this release also includes a number of under-the-hood improvements and bug fixes to enhance the stability and performance of the platform. We are continually working to refine your experience. These include:

• DocuSign File Validation: Ensured only valid file types can be uploaded for DocuSign integration, preventing potential errors.
• Expanded Contracts API Fields: Added more data fields to the GET endpoint for the Contracts API, allowing for more comprehensive external integrations.
• Go to Market Data Editability: Resolved an issue where data points for Go to Market requests were uneditable even when the associated Procurement was unlocked.
• Approval Button Access: Corrected an issue where some buttons within approval workflows were clickable by users with read-only access.
• Long Approval Title Handling: Improved the display and handling of long titles within the approval workflow to prevent text overflow or truncation.
• Manual Number Entry: Addressed cases where users were unable to manually enter procurement or contract numbers.
• Pre-Market COI Completion: Fixed a permission-related issue that prevented some users from completing pre-market Conflict of Interest (COI) declarations.
• Read-Only Resubmit Button: Ensured the "Resubmit" button is no longer active or clickable for users with read-only permissions.
• DocuSign Failure & Approver List: Rectified a problem where approvers listed for an approval were incorrectly removed if the DocuSign integration failed.

We're confident these new features and improvements will provide significant value, offering you enhanced administrative capabilities and more precise, flexible reporting. As always, we welcome your feedback as you begin to explore these new tools!

Hi again,

We're excited to announce that our suite of Expense Pro features are now available and ready for use! 

If you haven't looked at our Expenses Management suite in the past, the module allows buyers to easily submit their expenses for reimbursement. It utilizes a great range of familiar Unimarket features: 

• Customize expense categories with automated workflows to ensure precise and accurate data.
• Easily attach supporting documents like receipts to each expense claim.
• Automatically capture accounting codes with every submission for seamless integration.
• Enable administrative staff to submit expense claims on behalf of others, streamlining the process.

With Expenses Pro, our key new features will help you Reconcile your Credit Card Transactions and simplify loading Receipts and other Attachments onto Expenses.

Full details of our Expenses offering are available here. Please reach out to our team if you're interested in exploring these more!

What's Changed?

If you currently issue credit cards to your buyers and allow them to make purchases with these, we have new automated support to bring those transactions into Unimarket. 

This can be done regularly via SFTP, or imported via our new menu:

The user can take these Credit Card transactions as the base to build out their Expense Claims & ensure they are costed to the right Account Codes and all other supporting information is present. 

Any outstanding transactions also form part of the emailed Tasks Digest. You'll notice the red icon in the top right of the image above, reminding the user to action these!

To help speed up the reconciliation, users will be able to email in their receipt attachments to our new Receipt Inbox. 

If the email address matches the email on their user profile, we'll automatically assign that to their User account. 

If you're familiar with our Invoice Inbox, this screen has been designed to work in a similar way, with great features like Notes and an expanded view of the Email contents.

Together, these new screens will help you speed up the Expense Claim creation:

We've also taken this time to address key pieces of feedback in Expenses

• It's now possible to comment on Expenses, this includes user mentioning.
• Our new Expenses Administrator role gives you more flexibility if you don't want to rely on Community Administrator.
• We're currently working in View Expenses to make the columns sortable.

What's Next

More change is coming to help with the Team Management of card transactions, and to give additional options in reporting and exporting.

There's a lot of work underway in our Invoicing module too, including AI data extraction, new options to help streamline 1099 reporting, and further enhancements to our Peppol e-Invoicing. We'll share details of these soon!