L4M8 CIPS Procurement and Supply in Practice Free Practice Exam Questions (2026 Updated)

Terms are the right and duties agreed which are then documented in a contract. Five types of con-tract terms that a procurement professional should create with a supplier when forming an agree-ment includes;

Price term is when the buying organization wants to protect its budged and spending, it include price terms in the contract, for the buyer to buy goods or services in response to a need they some-time enshrine a bespoke specification in the contract.

Payment Term is to specify when and how the buyer will pay the supplier. The buyer may include a payment term in the contract.

Warrantee is when the buyer requires a promise from the supplier that the product or service will meet the specified need in the contract.

Time is of the essence term is included in the contract to detail when a product or service should be delivered and explains the potential losses of business if time is not observed.

When a fixed asset reaches the end of its life, it requires decommissioning before reconditioning or disposal.

Decommissioning is to observe all the safety measures and technical procedures and stop active machinery or an asset from operation (example gas plan, generator, transformer etc.

Decommissioning process include the following aspect

1) Preparation: Plan the process

2) Dismantle: Take the asset apart and remove hazardous waste

3) Processing: make safe any hazardous waste

4) Disposal: Ensure paper work is received to confirm removal and disposal

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2(a) Outline the financial data that can be used in the process of supplier selection. (10 marks)

When selecting a supplier, the buyer should assess financial data to judge whether the supplier is financially stable and capable of delivering the contract.

One key source is the balance sheet , which shows the supplier’s assets, liabilities and overall financial position at a point in time. This helps the buyer assess net worth, debt levels and short-term financial strength.

Second , the income statement or profit and loss account shows revenue, costs and profit over a period. This helps the buyer understand whether the supplier is profitable and commercially sustainable.

Third , the cash flow statement is important because it shows whether the supplier is generating enough cash to fund operations and meet obligations. A profitable business can still fail if it has weak cash flow.

Fourth , buyers can use the annual report , including directors’ comments and risk disclosures, to understand broader business performance and future outlook.

Fifth , buyers often calculate financial ratios such as:

liquidity ratios like the current ratio and quick ratio

profitability ratios such as net profit margin

gearing ratios to assess dependence on borrowing.

Finally , the buyer may review financial trends over time and use independent credit reports or external financial checks from trusted sources.

Overall, these data sources help the buyer decide whether the supplier is financially strong enough to perform the contract.

2(b) Explain THREE potential concerns for a buying organisation of selecting a supplier that has a current ratio of 0.67:1. (15 marks)

A current ratio of 0.67:1 means the supplier has only £0.67 of current assets for every £1 of current liabilities . This suggests weak short-term liquidity and creates several concerns for the buyer.

1. Difficulty meeting short-term obligations

The first concern is that the supplier may struggle to pay short-term debts such as wages, bills, subcontractors or software costs. If liabilities are higher than current assets, the supplier may face cash pressure. For the buyer, this raises concerns about whether the supplier can operate reliably throughout the contract.

2. Risk of poor performance or service disruption

A weak current ratio may mean the supplier has limited working capital to support day-to-day operations. In an IT services contract, this could affect staffing, maintenance, upgrades or continuity of service. For a local government department, any disruption could be serious because public services may depend on the supplier’s performance.

3. Greater financial fragility

The third concern is that the supplier may rely too heavily on overdrafts, loans or faster customer payments to survive. This makes the supplier more financially vulnerable. If costs rise or cash inflows slow down, the supplier may experience serious financial difficulty or even fail during the contract.

In conclusion, a current ratio of 0.67:1 is a warning sign because it suggests weak liquidity. It does not automatically mean the supplier should be rejected, but the buying organisation should carry out further financial checks before awarding the contract.

When evaluating offers, it is important to remember that the best price may not be the lowest. To ascertain that; the total cost of Acquisition TCA (the cost a buyer bears for placing orders and re-ceiving a product from a supplier) should be uncovered and compare against offers received. Things to consider that might make up the total cost of acquisition are;

1) logistics and handling costs

2) Cost of requisition

3) Rework

4) stock cost

5) Delay

6) Inspection

7) customer services

8) consumables

9) Training & support

When a contract has been awarded, either is to meet tangible needs or intangible needs, contractors or suppliers should be managed to ensure that they are meeting up with fulfilling their contractual agreement. To establish this, there are methods of managing contracts and suppliers.

Service level agreement (SLA) clauses: is placed in contract to ensures that supplier meets the expected and agreed level of service

Key performance indicator (KPI): are used to manage contracts that fulfill tangible needs, the KPIs are set performance thresholds that are used to monitor supplier’s performance.

Management by objectives (MBO): is the process of defining objective that are strategic to the organization relating them to the vision and mission and communicating them to the supplier through the contract and ensuring that this objective is met during contract performance.

Reviews: Regular supplier reviews are good practices, for it gives the buyer opportunity to give feedback on performance.

Continuous Improvement: Contracts and suppliers can be monitored through how they are chang-ing for better incrementally as they are fulfilling the schedule. There must be a set down system to timely improve on the process, people and continuously reduce waste.

Training: It is essential that training, are provided to come up on areas supplier is lacking.

Quality is fitness for purpose. It is important that quality is investigated by procurement professionals before forming relationship with potential supplies.

If quality is not investigated before selecting supplier the organization might stand the risk of facing the following disadvantages;

Reputational Damages

Cost of Rework

Cost of Downtime

Cost of Material

Cost of being stocked with the wrong supplier

Cost of being stocked in a project that may not come to an end at the forecasted time.

How buyer can choose a supplier with a good quality culture is first by defining the quality of the product or services to be carried out .Having knowledge of the product or service quality, supplies can rightly select and evaluated supplier with total quality management (TQM) in their system, ISO 9001 accreditation. TQM includes everyone in the organization with knowledge on the required quality; there would be little or no rejection/reworks. Thus is an added value to the organization.

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Topics that are covered within ethics are;

1. Environmental factors

2. The triple bottom line: profit, people and planet

3. Adopting sustainable practice.

4. considering the social impact of organization’s behaviors

During the sourcing stage of the procurement cycle, the procurement professional needs to identify and select suppliers to fulfill the business needs. Supplier selection involves evaluating suppliers against predetermine criteria to assess their suitability in working with the buying organization. Suppliers can be evaluated according to Carter’s 10Cs which are as follows: (1) Competency (2) capacity (3) consistency (4) control (5) cost (6) commitment (7) cash (8) Clean (9) culture (10) communication.

Procurement professionals can decide to evaluate and select suppliers based on the overall strategy and the business objectives. After that, it most suitable suppliers receive the documentation (Invitation to tender/ request for quotation).

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Topics that are covered within ethics are;

1. Environmental factors

2. The triple bottom line: profit, people and planet

3. Adopting sustainable practice.

4. considering the social impact of organization’s behaviors

Responsible and ethical sourcing promotes working with suppliers who want to have a positive effect on the environment or at least minimize the damage they cause. Suppliers can make effort to reduce their impact on the planet through reducing the pollution, taking steps to recycle or reuse products can improve on supplier’s impact on the environment, also supplier can consider sustainability as another environmental factor. Suppliers with strong values on ethics will have a programme to return anything taken from nature in the form of replanting or replacing.

A weighted score card is a tool with a systematic and a fair process for selecting supplier, based on predetermined criteria. This tool can help make the decision by presenting a fair display of how all suppliers did in the process. The values of these weights are based on their importance. The supplier with the highest score card is considered the most suitable to be awarded the contract.

In the table above, cost is considered more than all other criteria. Contract length is the lowest which is weighted 2

Base on the weighted score card as presented above, company B scored 78 while company A and company C scored 65 and 63 respectively.

Company A, having scored the highest (78) should be awarded the contract.

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Though strong due diligence procurement professionals can assess which suppliers or potential suppliers appear to meet the criteria associated with ethical practice.

Prior to the contract being awarded, strong due diligence can save the organization from the following cost:

1) Cost of reputation

2) Environmental damage

3) Stakeholders dissatisfaction,

4) poor quality and rework

5) Breach of contract

6) Ethical concerns

Bonded labour and forced labour are among the five types of modern slavery which is against ethical and responsible sourcing.

Bonded labour also known as debt bondage, this is an individual’s promise to provide services through exploitation as repayment, or part of them, of a debt or other obligation whereas forced labour is work that people are forced to do with the heat of punishment if it is not carried out.

Supply chain involves a network of individuals, organizations, technology activities and resources to make sure goods or services flow along the chain. If one point fails, every part further along the chain fails.

Fullpower projects (a flour manufacturer) supply chain begins with producers (raw materials, wheat farmers), suppliers, manufactures, distributors, retailers and end users (customer).

Fullpower projects supply chain falls within the primary sector (producers of wheat), the secondary sector include the manufacturing (those that converts the wheat the suppliers brings into flour) and tertiary sector (the distributor those that takes the wheat to the end users).

Influencing is the capacity to be able to change behavior or opinions, either consciously or subconsciously.

As outlined by Yukl and falbets work from 1990 influencing can relate to corruption within pro-curement in these six ways.

1)A party can be assertive (forceful, directive, using deadlines),

2) Ingratiating i.e. using charm and flattery.

3) Exchange-Trading favors,

4) Upward appeal (requesting input for senior management not only that influencing can come as

5) Coalition; team members uniting for support.

5) Rational persuasion, i.e. bringing in logic and facts for clarification.

A cross-function Team is the involvement of all departments that are in an organization to contribute knowledge, skills and innovation towards adding value to achieving the organization’s strategic goal. Example, procurement, maintenance, marketing, finance, human resources working together in procurement activity to come up with the best strategy or selecting the supplier that best suit the organization.

When working in a cross-functional team, members of the organization give support by believing in the end goal, assist during difficult time, help troubleshoot any issue, providing the required resources and sharing information

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When the procurement professional is setting key performance indicator (KPI) where which the supplier performance will be monitored and managed. The KPI is expected to be SMART. SMART is an acronym that is used to set KPI and specification.

S - specific ,

M - measurable,

A - achievable,

R - relevant, and

T - timebound.