Everything you need to know about Integrated Online Buying in iCompleat

Integrated Online Buying (or IOB) in iCompleat lets your team buy, pay, and approve from within iCompleat. 

The benefits:

• Click & buy from trusted suppliers
• Orders automatically matched to invoices
• Coding copied from order to invoice
• Detailed purchasing timeline in one place

You can connect to your go-to suppliers in iCompleat in two different ways:

• cXML
• Plug-In (our AI tool)

On this page, we explain what each tool does and provide links to setup guides so you can get started.

What is cXML?

cXML (short for commerce eXtensible Markup Language) is a protocol used by suppliers to automatically integrate with their webstores. 

These connections are designed, supported, and implemented by the suppliers. iCompleat simply integrates with each supplier's setup.

The purchasing journey in cXML

The purchasing journey when integrated with a cXML supplier in iCompleat looks like this:

👱  1. The purchaser logs in to iCompleat and clicks the supplier tile on the homepage.

🛒  2. They add items to their cart, like normal

📩  3. At checkout, their PO is sent to iCompleat, fully coded & ready to be approved

👏  4. The purchaser submits the PO for approval in iCompleat

🚀  5. Once fully approved, the order is automatically submitted to the supplier

Integrating cXML suppliers

To integrate iCompleat with your suppliers, you just need to get some credentials for your account from each supplier, then enter them into iCompleat when you're setting up Integrated Online Buying.

Our simple cXML setup guide takes you through the entire process, including when and how to get your cXML credentials, where to input them in iCompleat, and how to set up your purchasing team to start placing orders.

Example of credentials required to integrate a cXML supplier to iCompleat

What is Plug-In?

Our AI-powered browser extension, Compleat Plug-In, automatically scans your online shopping basket and creates a ready-to-submit cart in iCompleat. 

While the scan is running, the extension will briefly take over your browser session to securely capture the information it needs.

Once complete, you’ll be presented with a fully populated cart to review and submit to iCompleat for approval. Because the extension uses advanced AI technology, there may occasionally be small inaccuracies - but you can quickly edit or adjust any details before submitting. 

For supported websites, the extension uses a faster pre-built template instead of AI scanning, giving you an even smoother experience.

In contrast to a cXML supplier integrated, the responsibility sits with the requester of the goods or services to ensure the purchase order is issued or placed directly with the supplier - whether that’s via email, or by ordering through the supplier’s website.

They can then manually mark the order as sent in iCompleat.

The purchasing journey for a Plug-In supplier

👱  1. The purchaser logs in to iCompleat and clicks the supplier tile on the homepage.

🛒  2. They add items to their cart, like normal

📩  3. At checkout, their PO is sent to iCompleat, fully coded & ready to be approved

👏  4. The purchaser submits the PO for approval in iCompleat

🚀  5. Once fully approved, the purchaser returns to order in iCompleat & submit it to the supplier

Integrating suppliers with Plug-In

The setup process for Plug-In is quick and simple: just visit your browser extension store and add our free Integrated Online Buying (AI) extension.

Full steps here.

Once set up, any suppliers enabled for Plug-In buying will appear as tiles on your iCompleat homepage.