Blog · Procurement and supply chain · Procurement
The ten questions a CPO puts to the category managers, how much spend do we actually manage, where is off-contract buying coming from, did the savings reach the ledger, how many suppliers are in the tail and which to keep, are we paying to terms, where is single-source risk, which suppliers are slipping, is the contract price being applied, which contracts expire when, and what changed, each with the computed table from the payables ledger and the contract register, the identity behind it, and the answer a CPO should not accept.
A chief procurement officer asks category managers for numbers and gets percentages. Each question has a table from the payables ledger and the contract register, with the denominator on it. This guide is the ten questions, the tables, and the answers not to accept.
| # | The CPO asks | The table | Identity | Do not accept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How much spend do we actually manage? | Spend under management by category and unit; unmanaged suppliers | Three buckets sum to total spend | A savings figure without this beside it |
| 2 | Where is off-contract buying coming from? | Off-contract by site and requester, with pattern | Ledger lines sum | A category compliance percentage alone |
| 3 | Did the savings reach the ledger? | Claimed vs realised per project; leakage by cause | Realised equals baseline less actual spend | Claimed savings |
| 4 | How many suppliers are in the tail? | Suppliers per category; tail cost; overlap; specialists named | Every active supplier in one group | A supplier count |
| 5 | Are we paying to terms? | Days to pay vs contracted; early with no discount; cost | Payments equal invoices paid | Company DPO |
| 6 | Where is single-source risk? | Categories and parts with one supplier; spend; substitution list | Parts sum to master | A count |
| 7 | Which suppliers are slipping? | OTIF per supplier per site, trend, spend at risk | Receipts join to PO lines | Supplier-level scorecard |
| 8 | Is the contract price being applied? | Invoiced vs contracted per line; over and under | Lines at contract plus over plus under equals lines | Compliance on contract, not price |
| 9 | Which contracts expire when? | Expiry calendar with utilisation and activity | Revenue under agreements plus off equals spend | A list of dates |
| 10 | What changed? | The movements page | Every line cites | Narrative |
CPO: How much of professional services spend do we manage? Category manager: 43 percent. $12.1m total; $3.2m on contract; $2.0m approved off contract; $6.9m unmanaged, mostly Unit B and one consultancy at $2.1m. Table 1, row 2. CPO: Then the twelve percent saving on that category is on what? Category manager: On the $3.2m. Realised to date $140,000 against $480,000 claimed; $190,000 of the leakage is two plants still buying from the old supplier. Table 3. CPO: Which contracts expire this quarter? Category manager: Seven, $9.8m. Four inside the window with no activity logged; the largest at four million buys four of its twelve contracted categories.
Three questions, three tables, and a category manager who now has a list.
Percentages without denominators. Twelve percent of what.
Compliance at category level. The site and requester invisible.
Savings claimed, not realised. The CFO finds three percent in the ledger.
Tail counted, not costed. The specialists consolidated with the rest.
Covirage produces the ten tables from the payables, contract, PO and receipts exports, with the identities checked. The procurement page describes the setup, and the spend under management guide covers the first table.
Spend under management, because it is the denominator of every savings claim. A twelve percent saving on a category where procurement touches a third of the spend is a claim on a third. The CPO reads that table before any savings figure.
Payables invoice lines, the contract register, the approved supplier list, the PO export with requesters, and the receipts file. All exports; all on supplier and item identifiers. Mapped once, the ten tables compute monthly.
A savings percentage without spend under management beside it; a compliance figure without the requester breakdown; a supplier count without the tail cost and the specialists named. Each is a number with the denominator missing, and the table has the denominator.