Selecting the right tools for your business’ procurement process can be daunting, especially if you have been using manual processes. By automating your procurement management system, you will save yourself and your business time and money, helping you to become more successful each day.
Procurement management tools will help those involved in the procurement process to navigate complex requirements easily. Instead of manually using spreadsheets that are prone to human error, you can ensure compliance and performance, and help your employees improve their workflows.
What Features Should Purchasing Tools Have?
When it comes for purchase department tools, there are critical features that you should look for. Remember, how much you spend on your software will depend on your particular needs and costs vary from company to company.
Approvals
When you are searching for tools, you’ll need to find one that allows the approval process to the automated. This will save your business time and money.
Compliance Tracking
You should be able to ensure policy, regulatory, and legal compliance with your purchasing software.
3-Way Matching
You can prevent maverick spend through automated three-way matching.
Insights
Your tools should be able to provide analytics across all spend categories, such as vendors, departments, and products.
The Best Tools for Purchasing Departments
Tools are meant to save you time and money, especially if you are trying to automate the entire procurement process. Get rid of your manual process and help your employees improve their workflows. Here are the best tools that your purchasing department should use today.
Bellwether
Bellwether is the best e-procurement software in its class. We offer a free version. This software allows you to manage your purchase order process without the need to spend money until your business grows or you decide that you’d like more robust features.
If you are a small business shopping around for procurement software that allows you to manage everything from one dashboard, try the free version. However, if you are a larger corporation, Bellwether offers more robust versions that will help all of the departments involved in the procurement process function more efficiently.
Bellwether offers vendor management that allows you to track your vendors closely and make sure both parties are complying with the contract. This tool works great for consolidating vendors so that you can save time and money when it comes to your entire purchase order system.
Precoro
This tool incorporates budget tracking, purchase order approval routing, and supplier boarding. It will help automate the entire procurement methods across departments so that your business can improve at every level. You can also view analytics and have notifications when you are close to or overspending your budget. If you’re used to using something like Excel for managing your procurement process, Precoro is a great tool with a simple interface that allows you to do so much without being confusing.
Standard users pay less than seven dollars a month with options for the full enterprise plan. However, if you are a smaller business which is used to manual processes, try the standard package, and see how far it can take you.
Coupa
Coupa is a complete tool for managing the entire procurement process. Features include approval workflows, inventory management, and budget management. Users can make approvals from email and the mobile app. Invoices are visible within the approval and payment process so that there’s no mistaking how much a payment to your business is.
Coupa is great for larger companies who have tons of invoices and purchase orders coming in. Coupa’s pricing is tailored depending on your particular needs, so you will have to contact them for pricing information. However, you can still read customer reviews to find out how businesses in your industry are using Coupa.
Workplace Requisition and Procurement
This tool is excellent for small businesses and large corporations with up to 4,000 users. It’s one of the more robust tools on our list that handles:
- Job costing
- Budgeting
- Reporting
- Self-service portal for vendors
This feature-rich tool enables end-users to create purchase requisitions and process them while other end users can accept or reject them.
Aestiva Purchase Order
With this software, you can create, approve, and manage a variety of A/P requests, including purchase orders and requisitions. The cloud-based software includes security settings, email notifications, SOX compliance. Management and reporting features allow you to manage your purchase order process more effectively.
Fraxion Spend Management
This procurement suite focuses on accountable requisition and PO processes for efficient expense and invoice management. It uses your data to help you make better business decisions, and you can see your budget live with risk analytics.
E Buyer Assist
From requisition to the placement of order to the vendor, this tool has tons of features like online approvals, public RFPs, sealed vendor bidding, and invoice matching. The interface is incredibly simple so that almost anyone already working with your business can begin using it.
SourceSuite
SourceSuite has an automated bid feature and supplier management tools. It allows buyers to streamline the procurement process from any location electronically. It also features pre-qualification, electronic bidding, and approval workflow.
Procurement Port
This hosted purchasing software enables procurement automation. They pride themselves on being easy to implement so that a training session doesn’t disrupt the regular day to day operations. Complete with e-invoicing, contract compliance, and cash flow management, this tool is great for businesses who want to take a look at their budget and make savings decisions.
Turbine
Turbine is an affordable online purchase order management tool that allows employees to create purchase orders online or using their smartphone. Managers can then review and approve requests the same way and send POs to suppliers by email or PDF. While it isn’t the most robust software in our list, it will help automate these specific functions.
SpendMap
SpendMap has been around for about 25 years, helping tons of businesses streamline their purchasing workflows. It helps cut down on paperwork, control, spending, and drive savings. They have different solutions depending on your business, so make sure to talk to one of their representatives to find the best one for your business.
Unleashed Software
We know that the most significant benefit that businesses believe their manual processes have is cost. They think they are saving money by not using procurement systems. However, there are free platforms out there like Unleashed that are designed to get rid of your error-full procurement system. With Unleashed, you can track stock in real-time across locations, get visibly on all inventory management processes and transactions across warehouses, and make data-driven decisions based on dynamic inventory information.
