The Procurement ClassRoom

Record Keeping

Importance of Using Checklists in Public Procurement

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The procurement process is repetitive, and although most steps are fairly easy to remember, missing or forgetting small things in the process can lead to misinterpretation of your actions as a procurement practitioner and public official.

Especially when you are a beginner, you need to find a way to remember the things that need to be done so that you can begin to gain a certain degree of independence and require reduced supervision over time.

Given that procurement is a step by step process, it is better to use checklists rather than rely on your memory to ensure all the steps are covered. This is especially important because in public procurement any mistake could be misinterpreted as intentional action on your part to favor a particular bidder, and this is something you want to avoid at all cost because not only will it put your credibility in question, but it will also affect the public’s perception of the integrity of the procuring entity and the Government.

Developing and using checklists can be a great help to increase your understanding of the procurement process and to lessen mistakes you could make if you forget certain important steps. Also, by quickly learning the basic elements of the procurement process and how to successfully carry them out, you will acquire a better understanding and be more confident of your ability to learn, and this may open doors to opportunities for enhancing your career as a procurement practitioner.

Types of public procurement checklists

As a beginner, you may wonder how you will be able to develop checklists and on what. But you can develop checklists as you learn about the procurement process and verify your notes with whoever is teaching you the process. You can also consult the procurement manuals or guidelines at your disposal.

You can develop a checklist to help you remember the basic steps of the procurement and contract administration process. This would be a general checklist briefly covering the following:

  • Need identification
  • Specification development
  • Market research
  • Procurement planning and scheduling
  • Requesting and receiving offers cheska-lekarna.com
  • Evaluation offers
  • Contract award
  • Managing the contract

Additionally, it would be immensely beneficial if you would develop a detailed checklist of each of the steps in the procurement and contract administration process. As you are learning each, you should write down all the steps used to identify a procurement need, steps for developing a specification, steps for preparing a procurement plan, steps for preparing solicitation documents, and so on. By doing this, you will have written down all the details related to the entire procurement process.

Besides the above, I’ve found checklist particularly useful for ensuring procurement records are well maintained and as a reminder of any record that may be missing from the files. For an overview of creating a checklist for record keeping, go here.

Developing a checklist can involve a considerable amount of work, but the time invested is well worth it because you’ll then have a tool that can be used for quite some time with minor modifications for improvement or changes in the procurement rules.

You should make an effort to prepare checklists on whatever you are learning and to verify them with whoever is training and mentoring you. Better yet, you should encourage your trainer to use checklists when teaching the procurement process and share them with you for future use. But rather than rely solely on checklists developed by others, you should make an effort to develop them yourself as part of the learning process and they will not only help you to better understand the procurement process but to remember the essential steps to effective public procurement management.

Have you used checklists before? What has been your experience using checklists? Leave a comment.

Three Ways to Make Procurement Records Tell a Story

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When building a procurement record-keeping system you must consider what documents should be placed on file, and how easy reviewer of those records will be able to reconstruct the entire procurement process in order to understand exactly how it was carried out from beginning to end.

One of the ways to do this is to ensure that procurement records are placed on file in such a manner that they give a complete picture of the entire procurement process.

Here are 3 ways to ensure procurement records tell a story.

1. Keep a record on each step of the procurement process

The procurement requisition and approval triggers the start of the procurement process. This must be kept on file along with records of the solicitation documents, the evaluation and selection process, contract negotiations and award, up to contract close out.

2. Keep record of any relevant communication carried out during the process

Important documents created during the procurement process must be kept on file for reference. There are solicitation documents, announcements, evaluations reports, contracts, and so on. There are also communications between the entities and individuals participating in the process: procurement officers, approving authority, evaluation panel members, and others. Keeping a record of such communication is very important to understand how the procurement process was undertaken.

3. Ensure records are placed on file in the order in which they occurred

Finally, common practice is to keep paper-based procurement records in reverse chronological order (the most recent record placed on top of the last). But placing them on file in the sequence in which they occurred helps to rebuild the story from start to finish sverige-ed.com.

What other ways can you think of to ensure procurement records tell a story?

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Importance of Keeping Procurement and Contract Records

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Procurement and contract records are important because they serve as an audit trail of how the process was carried out.

Procurement and contract records are the evidence of all actions taken to award contracts, and of the results of the monitoring and oversight of contract implementation sverige-ed.com.

Procurement and contract records are the basis for internal and external audits, and are needed to determine compliance with the procurement legal and institutional framework.

Maintaining procurement and contract records should be mandated by law given the use of public funds and the need for transparency and accountability.

For what other reasons are procurement and contract records important?

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Procurement Record Keeping

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Procurement records include all documents relevant to the pre-tendering, tendering and contract administration phases. It should be possible to reconstruct the entire procurement and contract administration processes from these records.

Every event in the procurement process must be recorded and all records appropriately filed osterreichische-apotheke.com. This is important in order to maintain an audit trail of the requirement from the initial receipt of the procurement requisition to the closing out of the contract.

The procuring entity is responsible for maintaining the procurement and contract records of each requirement. The procuring entity develops the filing system and maintains a complete record on the entire procurement and contract administration processes for each requirement.

Although all records are maintained by the procuring entity, the entity responsible for contract administration should also maintain working copies of relevant documents, while sending pertinent documents to the procuring entity and other entities (such as finance) as determined in the contract administration plan.

The length of time procurement records are kept in active files, and the internal and external audit of those records, is determined by the procurement legal and regulatory framework.

Ideally, the general public should have controlled access to public procurement files; however, the confidentiality of proprietary information of suppliers, contractors and service providers must be safeguarded.

In order to eliminate the need for duplication of relevant procurement documents, while making them available to relevant stakeholders, such documents could be made available electronically, via an electronic document management system, on a controlled access network, or a management information system.