PunchOut software is a standard e-commerce site that has the unique capability of communicating directly with a procurement system via cXML and returning a pending purchase order to the buyer so that the buyer does not have to enter product information into the procurement system.

Understanding contemporary procurement systems and where a PunchOut website fits into the picture is essential for comprehending a PunchOut. 

When a purchase order was created using conventional procurement systems, items from the supplier catalog were either entered into the system or added to the order using the master catalog of the procurement system. Supplier catalogs can now be  directly imported into procurement systems thanks to advancements over time. The catalog information had to be entered, converted from one electronic format to another, and costs were maintained by the buying organization, often the purchasing department.

The Catalog Interchange Format (CIF) was introduced by Ariba® shortly after its establishment in 1996. Buyers no longer had to manually enter item information or convert files between formats thanks to this standardized electronic file format for supplier catalogs. Buyers and suppliers alike could import catalogs with ease thanks to the CIF standard. Spend management could receive more attention from purchasing departments than the routine management of catalogs.

For catalogs that don't change often, the Catalog Interchange Format is great. A CIF file is the best way to communicate catalogs with fewer than 1,000 items if a supplier sells a widget or provides a service that stays the same for an extended period of time.

A catalog of static information, fixed pricing, and the inability to customize are issues in this global economy with nimble suppliers, mass customization, and commodity pricing.

The ecommerce website is often used as a replacement for a static product catalog in the consumer market. 

An external supplier website cannot be accessed by a corporate purchasing agent working within a procurement system or hosted eprocurement website. There was no standard way to automatically enter the item information from the website into the procurement system, even if it were possible.

A static catalog and the inability to share information with an e-commerce website frequently prompt the purchasing department to reintroduce significant work. The Commerce eXtensible Markup Language (cXML) industry consortium introduced an electronic document interchange standard and the PunchOut concept to address this issue.

Buyers can access a PunchOut ready eCommerce platform, be automatically logged in, search the catalog, configure items, add them to the shopping cart, and return the cart as a pending purchase order to the procurement system using cXML and the PunchOut mechanism.

To put it succinctly, a PunchOut catalog website is a standard e-commerce site that has the unique capability of communicating directly with a procurement system via cXML and returning a pending purchase order to the buyer so that the buyer does not have to enter product information into the procurement system.

PunchOut catalog solution is a dynamic product, and a service catalog is a dynamic platform that allows for current information, product configuration, and real-time price and availability, whereas a CIF catalog is static.