Choosing a Top Procurement Software Solution

Top spend management tools.

Nearly every business relies on third-party products and services to run efficiently. There’s no escaping that. From issuing purchase orders to generating invoices, transactions between companies often involve multiple steps and take considerable effort to finalize.

Procurement is a point of weakness for many organizations. Being able to acquire the goods and services you need to create your own products, or run your business, is a skill that must be mastered. Inefficient procurement processes result in delayed payments, bad relationships with vendors, and potential inventory shortages.

So, what can a business do? The answer lies in implementing an efficient procurement management software to make things smoother for finance and procurement teams.

Procurement management software is one solution that helps control spending, streamline approvals, and manage interactions between vendors and receivers – as well as between your own teams.

But why should a procurement solution be your next priority as a finance manager? And what steps can you take to boost your finance teams? Keep reading to see how procurement software can influence and benefit the entire procurement process.

What is Procurement Software?

Known occasionally as purchasing management software—a procurement software solution is a cloud based solution that manages a supply chain by hosting all the steps of the purchasing process digitally. E procurement software solutions help keep the purchasing process organized and streamlined, in a unified procurement system.

Procurement teams start by deciding what to purchase based on current needs and budget. They then choose suitable vendors and find the right prices. Using procurement solutions, they generate and execute purchase orders, collect invoices, and issue payments to vendors. They also record communication between the company and the vendor.

This type of software also handles:

The procurement process helps streamline communication between all stakeholders involved. This way, a company can properly manage its purchasing cycle and maintain optimal inventory levels at all times, maximizing profit on every purchase order.

Pro tip: You can learn more about how you can optimize your purchase order approval process by clicking this link.

How Can Procurement Software Help Your Business?

While procurement tools and procurement software solutions vary in functionality, they typically come with similar feature sets. Common inclusions are:

So, why do businesses invest precious resources into procurement software when they could do these tasks manually? 

Automated procurement has significant advantages over manual methods, such as:

It’s clear that procurement software is the key to success in today’s market. But what factors should you consider when choosing the right solution?

How to Choose Your Procurement Software

Your company will come to rely on a digital procurement management process for its vital financial data, so take the time to choose the most suitable cloud based procurement solution for your team.

Ask yourself questions like:

Let’s talk about some examples of procurement software to consider. Remember that the right choice depends on your individual use case and needs, so one solution that doesn’t work well for one company still might work well for yours.

Examples of Top Procurement Software

Each of these examples varies in functionality and pricing. Take the time to compare your options to see what’s best for the finance team and procurement professionals in your business.

Approve.com

Ideal for mid-sized organizations, Approve.com is bound to boost the efficiency of your financial and procurement teams. Through vendor information management to faster approvals, you can streamline your procurement processes while gaining the visibility and control you need, with Approve.com.

Deployment is fully in the cloud, a comprehensive free demo is available, and support and documentation are plentiful – making trying it out risk-free. While some features are behind a paywall, there are several paid tiers to allow businesses of any size get the most out of their money.

Coupa

Also good for mid-sized organizations, Coupa offers a powerful package and onboarding support. Customers who use Coupa enjoy faster processes overall. The feature set is rich and includes tools that will help with spend management. However, integration can be complex.

Kissflow

Medium-sized businesses often prefer this solution for spending management. Famous with companies internationally, Kissflow simplifies complicated workflows. It’s not difficult to use and will be useful to your financial team and all employees involved.

Keep in mind however, that while Kissflow offers a lot of customization options, many features remain too rigid for all employees to enjoy absolute ease of use.

Simplify Your Procurement Process with Approve.com

Having a high standard for procurement and spending management is more important than ever before. 

As more organizations are adopting cloud platforms to handle their internal finance processes, finding a procurement software package to boost your company’s efficiency must be at the top of your priority list.