10 Best Purchase Order Systems For Small Businesses (In 2024)

Dreaming big often starts small, especially in business.

Embarking on a venture rooted in passion is both thrilling and daunting. Yet, as the journey unfolds, managing expenses becomes key. That’s where a robust purchase order system steps in, streamlining and optimizing your costs. Dive into this guide to discover the top purchase order systems tailored for budding businesses like yours. Let’s set the foundation for your success!

What’s a Purchase Order System?

A Purchase Order (PO) system is software that automates end-to-end purchase order process management. A purchase order is a commercial paper that places an order for goods and services with a vendor on behalf of the company.

10 Best Purchase Order Systems for Small Business:

1. KissFlow Procurement Cloud

Kissflow Procurement Cloud helps eradicate guesswork. It enables the user to make swift and informative purchasing decisions. The system helps businesses to transition from manual procurement management tools to a fully digital solution. It aids in implementing a solution for the first time and replaces disparate point solutions. Real-budget tracking, rule-based workflows, expense management, and analytics are some of its essential features.

2. PairSoft

You can host this procurement management software either on-premise or cloud. Its features include vendor contracts and purchase order management. A product of Paramount WorkPlace, PairSoft also has audit and status monitoring capabilities. With this solution, businesses can create customized catalogs of selected items, as well as set rules for generating and approving purchase orders. Its OCR feature helps read data from bills and convert them to digital files. The software also enables users to create expense reports from credit card transactions.

3. Promena e-sourcing

The cloud-based platform enables auction management, sourcing, and procurement processes. Promena e-Sourcing is compatible with strategic solutions such as RFI, RFQ, RFP, and e-auction services. The solution also lets users push purchasing activities to the cloud. It has e-tender and e-auction modules, which help create a transparent purchasing environment for users and potential clients. The e-procurement module maintains all the procurement processes in a centralized location.

4. Cflow

Cflow provides no-code and intuitive workflow and business process automation. The software is built on robust BPM Cloud methodologies, making your procurement system scalable as your small enterprise grows. You can easily establish automation rules even when you are not a techie as it is very user-friendly. You can customize the dashboard, along with the system’s output such as analytics and reports. Cflow can integrate seamlessly with G Suite, Office 365, and hundreds of other apps using Zapier. Your data is also safe as you have full control of data encryption, which is stored in highly secured AWS cloud data centers.

5. Spendwise

Cloud-based Spendwise assists businesses with tracking, managing, and controlling spending. Clients can make purchase orders, submit them for endorsement, support or reject them, and email them straight to vendors. Users can monitor sending and receiving buy orders, match seller invoices to POs and receipts, and oversee different bills and costs.

6. Precoro

Precoro is a cloud-based purchasing software that streamlines procurement processes for small businesses. Users gain total security with SSO and dependable 2-factor authentication. It ensures transparency of the procurement process via automated reporting. Its features include setting automatic approval routing, creating POs, and receiving purchase orders. The solution helps track your company’s expenses at a glance, as well as manage suppliers’ info. Users can visualize their spending status across POs with Precoro’s real-time dashboard. It has a user-friendly interface and is simple to implement.

7. purchase

iPurchase is a web-based purchasing management and workflow solution software. This non-inventory solution fully integrates with users’ ERP solutions. Businesses can use iPurchase to connect approved suppliers to their ERP system directly. Users get order acknowledgments and delivery receipts too. This product enables you to maintain an internal index of your suppliers’ catalogs, making it easier to order items or parts that run out of your inventory.

8. O2b Technologies

This software helps simplify the purchasing process for small businesses. It streamlines and automates the creation, control, and tracking of POs and purchase requests. It centers around agile PO creations, which clients can execute with a couple of clicks. Besides PO management, the software can be integrated with other helpful business applications. It empowers the user to manage other business processes such as accounting, inventory, customer relations, and more in just one system.

9. Tradogram

This business spending management solution helps firms to smoothen their purchasing process. Managers can control their expenses and gain a broader perspective on their spending activities. Right from submission of requisitions for approvals, to sourcing, canvassing, and tracking POs, Tradogram is a master! It unifies all purchase-related activities in one cloud-based solution that is simple to use.

10. Xero

If you want to fast-track POs and requests, Xero is the one for you. Its product management solution is top-notch even though it’s more popular as a bookkeeping and accounting software. You can customize PO forms from a wide selection of templates and fonts. It has a simple yet modern user interface whereby users can track PO easily. Xero can also swiftly convert POs into invoices. It is affordable and user-friendly.

Why are Purchase Order Systems Important?

1. Get it right the first time

A Purchase Order serves as a legal contract between your supplier and you. Unlike verbal orders where there are chances of a miss, a PO contains accurate details. A purchase order has a product description, quantity, price, order date, discount rates, and other information. This fosters a lesser margin of error and helps to deal with payments better.

2. Spend less time on the procurement process

When you have a dedicated system for procurement processes, you save time on many tasks. For instance, it lessens manual data entries as some information can be pre-encoded, thus making it easier for you to find relevant information quickly in filling out the form.

3. Cost control gets better

As you use the PO system for budget control, you gain complete control over your procurement spending. You can make better decisions identify potential budget overspending and track your entire spending activities.

4. Better inventory management

The first step in acquiring an inventory is to make a purchase. And having an easy-to-use PO system aids in inventory management. Purchase orders allow you to keep a record of what products you expect to arrive at your company. You can then compare them to the invoices to ensure accuracy. This will help you understand the status of your incoming inventory. Before I tell you about the best purchase order system for small businesses, let us understand how to choose the best one.

Features that Purchase Order Systems for Small Businesses Should Have:

1. User-friendly

Using the purchase order software should be convenient. It must be inexpensive, easy to implement, and simple to use even for those who are not tech-savvy.

2. Self-operating workflows

To make the purchase order process smooth, you should be able to create customized workflows. The software should help send approvals automatically to relevant people or departments. Then, it should generate a trigger for each succeeding step.

3. Customized forms

To run the purchase order process seamlessly, creating customized workflows is essential. The software should ensure the automatic sending of approvals to the concerned people. A trigger to take the next steps would be a plus point.

4. Real-time reporting

The software must offer visually appealing reports and insights. It should give the PO process a sophisticated level of transparency. Meaning, that it could spot delays and inefficient processes that need to be improved.

5. Automated cross-checking

Verification and matching data in purchase requisitions/invoices/orders should be automatic. This will help avoid errors.

6. Role-based access

Based on what the user’s role within the organization is, you should be able to restrict access to certain parts of the purchase order workflow.

7. Enhanced security

The software must provide strong security. This is to prevent unauthorized access or modification of critical financial data.

Wrap Up

We hope that the information we provided here gives you a clear overview of the available purchase order systems for small businesses (or even big ones!) in the market. Picking the right one is crucial for your business as it will help automate not only your buying process but other aspects of your operation as well.