Procure-to-pay (P2P)
The end-to-end workflow from a purchase need being identified through the vendor being paid, covering requisition, sourcing, approval, PO, receipt, invoice, and payment.
In more detail
Procure-to-pay (often abbreviated P2P) is the cross-departmental process that joins procurement and accounts payable. The cycle starts when somebody on the team identifies a purchase need and ends when the vendor's invoice is paid. The seven canonical steps are requisition, sourcing, approval, purchase order, receipt, invoice, and payment.
The cycle is shaped the same way at every business size. The difference is how formally each step is recorded. Enterprises run the cycle through a procurement platform plus an ERP. Small businesses run it through email, a credit card, and a spreadsheet. Either way, the bottleneck is the exception handling rather than the standard happy path.
Where this shows up at Ceven
Ceven's automation focuses on the exception handling specifically: vendor not in the approved list triggers the supplier-onboarding flow, receipt-PO mismatch triggers the agent to chase the vendor, invoice-PO variance triggers a credit memo draft. The standard happy-path PO does not need automation because it works fine.