Large companies and government organizations typically use e-procurement systems for purchasing from external suppliers. These systems allow them to easily interface purchasing to other internal systems such as accounting and inventory and they provide benefits like the management of purchasing budgets. PunchOut is the name given to the technical protocol that allows the connection of a product catalog (e.g. a KonaKart store) to an e-procurement system, enabling the system to order from the store.
Currently, KonaKart supports version 4 of the Open Catalog Interface (OCI) standard which is supported by SAP. It generates OCI compliant XML or an HTML message from an array of products that have been added to the cart by the corporate customer and transmits this XML or HTML back to the customer's ERP system.
The process can be described as follows:
PunchOut Process
The buyer selects the supplier (KonaKart store) on the procurement application (e.g. SAP).
A browser opens for the buyer pointing to the KonaKart application.
The PunchOut request is received by the KonaKart application which identifies the B2B buyer, validates his credentials and redirects him to a welcome page. At this point the buyer begins to add products to the cart.
When the buyer checks out in the KonaKart application, he is directed back to his procurement application instead of going through the normal KonaKart check out process. An OCI XML or HTML message is sent to the buyer's system, containing information about the list of products he is ordering.
The buyer's procurement system receives the checkout products and a standard procurement order is created.