Plant catalogs and contract price files, built the way each buyer's system loads them.

The plant's buyer sends a spreadsheet: the items for their catalog, the agreed price for each or a discount off list by brand, and an effective date. Someone matches each line to your item, converts the price to the plant's unit, adds part numbers, codes and lead times, retires items you no longer sell, and builds the file in that buyer's layout.

For the test, AI does the same from copies and drafts each catalog file, line by line, with a short list of the lines it couldn't settle and why. It opens no portal, uploads nothing and changes nothing on your punchout site.

Every buyer's system wants its own file. Ariba's CIF 3.0 file opens with a header your team rarely touches, and two lines in it matter on every update: LOADMODE F replaces the whole catalog, while I changes only the lines in the file, and UNUOM set to TRUE means United Nations unit codes where FALSE means ANSI ones. SAP's supplier guide requires a Supplier ID, a Supplier Part ID unique to each item, a Manufacturer Part ID, a description, a UNSPSC code, a unit price and a unit of measure, with prices written with a dot for decimals and no currency symbol or thousands comma. Coupa's CSV template wants its column headers left exactly as they are, and limits pricing type to a fixed price.

The unit decides whether the price is right. Coupa will only save an item whose unit matches one the customer has already set up, preferably in ISO codes, and carries a Pack Quantity beside it: a box of 100 has a Pack Quantity of 100. Your ERP may sell gloves by the pair and price cap screws per hundred while the plant's contract says each or box. On an SAP buyer's OCI punchout, a price unit travels next to the price and the item unit. A price copied across without converting it is a catalog that loads cleanly and is wrong on every line it touches.

Part numbers, codes and lead times. Coupa's Supplier Part Num may differ from the manufacturer's number, and its Supplier Aux Part Num can carry something like a quote number onto every PO the plant sends. Its UNSPSC field accepts a segment or family code when no item-level code fits, even one segment for a whole catalog if the customer agrees. Lead time is a single number in both systems; SAP's guide defines it as working days from receipt of the PO to shipping. Over OCI, the product group can carry an ECLASS or a UNSPSC code, with another field naming which, and most OCI fields stop at 255 characters, so a long bearing or hose description needs the long-text field.

Two checks before a plant sees it, and items that never die. On Ariba Network, a catalog first gets a broad check for zero prices, UNSPSC codes and units. Then the customer audits it with rules of its own, which may be stricter, and can send it back. In Coupa an item can't be deleted at all: an item you stop selling has to be marked inactive, or it stays buyable at the old price. So the draft lists what each update adds, changes and retires, not only the new lines.

Punchout carts have to agree with the contract. In Coupa, the buyer clicks your logo, shops on your site, and the cart comes back as a PunchOutOrderMessage that becomes a requisition; the purchase order follows later as a separate OrderRequest. With a level 2 punchout, which SAP Ariba and Jaggaer both offer, your items are also searchable inside the buyer's system while prices and stock stay on your site. Your reviewer, usually the e-commerce or catalog coordinator, checks that the contract, the static file and the price list behind the punchout all say the same price per unit.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, the job drafts files for new contracts and price changes for about 30 days.

Your coordinator checks every file and uploads it the way they do now, and each buyer's acceptance or rejection goes onto the same side-by-side sheet.

That live month is priced as a fixed figure before you sign. A next job is its own decision.