IRIS Financials Purchasing – E-Procurement release 6.0.417 (September 2026)

This release adds two new Punchout suppliers, HBS and HFS, alongside a number of fixes and improvements.

What's new in this release

New Punchout suppliers: HBS and HFS

Punchout lets you visit a supplier's own shopping site from within IRIS Financials Purchasing, build a basket, and bring it back into your purchasing system automatically.

This release adds two new Punchout suppliers to the ones already available (Amazon Business, KCS, ESPO, Findel, and YPO):

  • HBS

  • HFS (Herts FullStop)

Punchout works the same way for every supplier, with only minor differences in delivery address settings. Here's the process:

  1. From the home page, select the E-Procurement tile, then select the tile for HBS or HFS.

  2. Select Place order. This takes you to the supplier's website.

  3. Add items to your basket on the supplier's site, then check out. This sends the basket back into IRIS Financials Purchasing.

  4. On the basket page, add the recipient, document, and accounting details, then send the order for approval. This creates a purchase order in IRIS Financials Purchasing.

  5. Once the order is fully approved, IRIS Financials Purchasing sends the approved order lines back to the supplier automatically for fulfilment.

Punchout only works at the purchase order stage, not at the requisition stage.

If you only have one school location and you're not an administrator, selecting the supplier tile takes you straight to the supplier's site. If you're an administrator, or you have more than one location, you'll see a second tile first, where you can select Place order or Settings.

Set up HBS and HFS supplier locations

Add a new school location for HBS or HFS using Add new location at the top of the supplier's tile page, or update an existing one using its Settings button. The fields are the same as for other e-procurement suppliers:

  • From identity and shared secret: provided by the supplier

  • Punchout URL and purchase order request URL: provided by the supplier

  • VAT codes: set your 0%, 5%, and 20% VAT codes

  • Billing address: location name, email address, and postal address

Use Copy supplier settings to bring forward details from an existing location as a template, so you don't need to re-enter them each time.

Add individual users through the User permissions button before they can access a school location for a supplier.

Watch a demo

Watch short demos of setting up and using Punchout for each new supplier:

HBS: set up a supplier location or place an order

HFS: set up a supplier location or place an order

Sign-in screen update

You'll see a new version of the sign-in screen with this release. It works the same as before – this is part of the upcoming single sign-on development.

Access Purchasing through a web browser, or by going to Processing Modules and then Purchasing. The IRIS Financials desktop URLs no longer work for this.

Add attachments to the basket page

You can now attach documents to a basket, and they'll carry forward to the purchase order when it's created.

Select Add attachment on the basket page, then drag your file in or choose one to upload. You can attach up to 10 files, each up to 2MB, in these formats: .csv, .doc, .docx, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .pdf, .png, .xls, .xlsx.

Attached files appear on the basket page and on the resulting purchase order. The usual rules on which file types you can attach still apply.

Zero-value order lines

Release 6.0.417 allows zero-value lines on orders raised through Punchout, including baskets – but not on purchase orders you raise manually, which still can't include zero-value lines.

This change supports suppliers who sometimes add free items to an order, such as gifts or 'buy one get one free' offers. These items come through from the supplier at zero value, so this release lifts the zero-value restriction for orders raised this way.

Installation and database changes

Installation differs depending on whether you're on PS Cloud or on-premises. Two AutoUpdater packages are provided for this release, covering e-procurement and Purchasing functionality.

Apply the 417 Purchasing build first – it includes database settings the Punchout functionality depends on.

You need IRIS AutoUpdater utility build 0.11.1 or later to install this release, and this build of the utility needs .NET 8.0 to run.

This release also requires .NET 10 in your server environment.

What the update packages do

  • Back up your existing application databases

  • Apply the framework build (6.0.417), the Purchasing module (1.0.198), and the Punchout module (1.0.516)

  • Apply any outstanding standard database changes, such as updates to stored procedures

  • Create the new PUNCHOUT database

  • Create a new SQL Server login and apply the required permissions

Build 417 AutoUpdater packages install Punchout for Amazon, KCS, ESPO, Findel, YPO, HBS, and HFS.

PS Cloud

If you're on PS Cloud, IRIS installs this release for you automatically. You can also use the AutoUpdater packages for an individual PS Cloud installation:

  • IRIS Financials Purchasing / PS Online: ALL_PS Purchasing_Build 600.0.417_Patch General Release.abp

  • IRIS Financials Purchasing (Blazor): IRIS Financials Purchasing Punchout V1.0.516.abp

Enter your PS Cloud server name and ignore the 'On premises only' options – IRIS already manages user privileges and certificates for PS Cloud.

On-premises

If you maintain your system locally, use the same two AutoUpdater packages. A few things need extra care:

  • The installation creates a new database. It needs a SQL Server login with system administrator rights for the duration of the install. If the PSFDBA login isn't a sysadmin, the installation stops until it's added.

  • IRIS Purchasing now needs an HTTPS sign-in, so you'll need a valid SSL certificate (a server or server/client type) bound to the site. If you're not familiar with setting one up, ask your IT support team – certificate acquisition is a network and infrastructure matter, not something IRIS can help with directly.

  • Set the install type to 'On premises' and complete the two 'On premises only' fields:

  • Create a secure PODBA SQL password, following your local password policy.

  • Enter your IIS Punchout URL, usually in the format https://<servername>.<certificatename>/Purchasing. Use a capital 'P' in 'Purchasing' – this is significant, so don't use lower case.

  • For SQL Server instances, use <servername>\<instance name>.

New PUNCHOUT database

This release adds a new SQL Server database called PUNCHOUT, holding e-procurement settings and transaction data, and a new SQL Server login called PODBA for accessing it. It also adds new settings to the existing PSFSYSTEM..PSF_SETTINGS database, under SETTINGCLASS PURCHASING_V2_APP_URL.

Communication protocol

Amazon uses cXML to communicate with the purchasing system. cXML is a protocol businesses use to exchange business documents consistently between procurement applications, e-commerce hubs, and suppliers. You can find the detail of an individual basket transaction's payload in one of the Purchasing database tables.

Purchase order rule for e-procurement order requests

A new rule, EProcurement Order Requests, sends the approved order back to the supplier once the full approval process is complete. This rule supports multi-tier authorisation, so it only submits orders once every approval step is finished. You can find the rule's details in the Rule Maintenance application, and it reports success and failure messages to the Results page there.

Turn off the e-procurement tile

The e-procurement tile is visible to all users by default. To hide it, contact IRIS Support.

Each new deployment resets this to its default, so you'll need to contact IRIS Support again to reapply it.