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Agnostic Procurement
Use Case

Contract Compliance and Milestone Management

An AI agent that proactively monitors active supplier contracts to ensure compliance with key terms (e.g., pricing, volume commitments, service levels) and tracks important milestones (e.g., renewal dates, price adjustment windows, reporting deadlines). It alerts procurement professionals to deviations, upcoming obligations, and potential risks.

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Process Details

Inputs

Executed supplier contracts. Purchase order data. Supplier invoice data

Outputs

Discrepancy reports (PO vs. Contract, Invoice vs. Contract from procurement perspective). Automated alerts for contract milestones and potential non-compliance.

Systems

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Systems (SAP Ariba, Coupa) ERP Systems (SAP S/4HANA, Oracle NetSuite) – for PO and supplier data

The Challenge

Manual processes
create real problems.

  1. 1

    High potential for costly errors from manual data handling.

  2. 2

    Significant time and resources are spent on repetitive, low-value work.

  3. 3

    The manual process is difficult to scale without increasing headcount.

  4. 4

    Process bottlenecks lead to delays and missed deadlines.

The Solution

Describe it in English.
It runs deterministically.

  1. 1

    Contract Data Extraction

    The system automatically imports active supplier contracts from sources like SAP Ariba, Coupa, and other document repositories. It then extracts key information, including pricing tables, volume tiers, renewal dates, termination clauses, SLAs, payment terms, reporting obligations, and compliance requirements.

  2. 2

    Obligation & Milestone Identification

    Identifies and categorizes contractual obligations for both the company and the supplier, along with key dates and milestones. Populates these into a tracking calendar.

  3. 3

    Purchase Order (PO) vs. Contract Terms Verification

    Automatically checks the pricing, quantities, and payment terms on each purchase order against the negotiated supplier contract. It flags any mismatches, like off-contract pricing or incorrect payment terms, so they can be reviewed and corrected.

  4. 4

    Invoice vs. Contract/PO Verification

    Checks supplier invoices against the original purchase order and contract. Before any payment is processed, it flags errors such as incorrect pricing, missed discounts, or any charges that were not agreed upon.

  5. 5

    SLA & Performance Monitoring

    Compares actual performance against contracted SLA targets and flags underperformance.

  6. 6

    Compliance Reporting & Risk Flagging

    Creates detailed reports on contract compliance, upcoming deadlines, identified errors, and supplier performance against SLAs. It also automatically highlights high-risk contracts or those that require your immediate attention.

Primary Benefits

What you gain with
Kognitos automation.

Increase Efficiency

Dramatically reduce the time and manual effort required to complete the process.

Enhance Accuracy

Eliminate human error to ensure data integrity and reduce financial risk.

Empower Employees

Free your team from monotonous tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic work that requires their expertise.

Improve Scalability

Handle growing volumes of work without a proportional increase in operational costs.

Ensure Transparency

Maintain a complete, auditable trail of every action the AI agent takes, described in plain English.

FAQ

Common questions
answered.

The AI-powered agent can:
Recognize and Parse Tables: Identify pricing or volume rebate tables within a contract and extract the specific tiers, rates, and effective dates.
Understand Key Phrases: Identify and interpret key clauses related to renewal dates, termination notice periods (e.g., "90 days prior to the end of the term"), and specific SLA commitments (e.g., "99.9% uptime," "4-hour response time").
Categorize Obligations: Classify each extracted item as a price, a date-based milestone, a performance obligation, etc., so it can be monitored correctly.
The agent maintains a complete audit log for every check it performs. For any flagged discrepancy, you can see:
A link to the specific contract and clause that was violated.
A link to the specific transaction (PO or invoice) that was non-compliant.
The date and time the discrepancy was identified.
Who was notified.
Value leakage is the difference between a negotiated deal and the actual results. The agent prevents it in several ways:
Price Compliance: It catches when a PO is issued or an invoice is received at a price higher than what was contracted.
Rebate Management: It flags when your total spend with a supplier has passed a volume tier, prompting you to claim your negotiated rebate.
SLA Enforcement: It notifies you when a supplier's performance (e.g., delivery times, uptime) drops below the agreed-upon service level, which can trigger service credits or other remedies.
Implementation is a structured process to digitize and activate your contract portfolio, typically taking 4-6 weeks.
Integration: We set up secure connections to your contract repository (e.g., CLM, SharePoint) and your transactional systems (e.g., ERP).
Ingestion: The agent ingests your entire portfolio of existing contracts, both new and legacy.
AI Analysis & Validation: The agent extracts key terms from all contracts. Your team reviews the output for a pilot batch to validate accuracy and build confidence.
Configuration & Go-Live: We configure the alerting rules and workflows, and then activate the agent for continuous, ongoing monitoring.
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Challenges

Solution

This use case solution follows these general steps at a high level:

  1. Contract Data ExtractionThe system automatically imports active supplier contracts from sources like SAP Ariba, Coupa, and other document repositories. It then extracts key information, including pricing tables, volume tiers, renewal dates, termination clauses, SLAs, payment terms, reporting obligations, and compliance requirements.
  2. Obligation & Milestone IdentificationIdentifies and categorizes contractual obligations for both the company and the supplier, along with key dates and milestones. Populates these into a tracking calendar.
  3. Purchase Order (PO) vs. Contract Terms VerificationAutomatically checks the pricing, quantities, and payment terms on each purchase order against the negotiated supplier contract. It flags any mismatches, like off-contract pricing or incorrect payment terms, so they can be reviewed and corrected.
  4. Invoice vs. Contract/PO VerificationChecks supplier invoices against the original purchase order and contract. Before any payment is processed, it flags errors such as incorrect pricing, missed discounts, or any charges that were not agreed upon.
  5. SLA & Performance MonitoringCompares actual performance against contracted SLA targets and flags underperformance.
  6. Compliance Reporting & Risk FlaggingCreates detailed reports on contract compliance, upcoming deadlines, identified errors, and supplier performance against SLAs. It also automatically highlights high-risk contracts or those that require your immediate attention.

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