Today there are 495 different procurement software. We spent 120 hours comparing the wide range of procurement management software to find the ten best you can use to improve your entire procurement process.
We compared procurement features for small to mid-market customers. So you will not see SAP Ariba or Coupa software that are designed for larger organizations.
1. ProcureDesk— Best for small to medium-sized companies
2. Procurify— Best For medium-sized companies with large indirect Spend
3. Kissflow— Best for companies that have complex procurement workflow.
4. Precoro— This procurement express tool is best for small companies with global operations
5. Spendwise— Best for small companies that are looking for an inexpensive solution
6. Certify — Best For companies that want an expense management solution
7. Tradogram—Best for very small operations that want a free procurement tool
8. Order – Best for companies that need a marketplace solution
9. Procurement Express – Best For small companies
10. Digital purchase order – This purchase order software is best for companies that want to get rid of manual purchase orders
Our Verdict — Best for small to medium-sized companies
Price: Starts at $380/month
ProcureDesk helps CFOs and procurement teams automate the procurement function, control spending, and get real-time visibility into Spend.
With effective cost control, finance leaders can control maverick spending and bring more Spend under management.
ProcureDesk supports seamless integration with many accounting systems like QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and Netsuite.
The Best Part:
- ProcureDesk provides extensive coverage of punchout vendors that greatly simplifies purchasing operations.
- It offers a single platform for procurement and Accounts payable to manage procurement, supplier relationship, and 3-way match process.
The Worst Part:
- It is not an inexpensive solution compared to many other solutions covered here.
Get it if you want a cloud-based solution with the best catalog experience.
I recommend that you start with the purchasing automation module.
Best For
ProcureDesk is best for small to medium-sized companies who are looking for purchasing software to automate their entire purchasing process.
Are your employees tired of paper forms for requisitions?
With a simple requisition process, employees can submit purchase requests quickly, reducing the overall cycle time.
With smart defaults, the system understands recurring data entries like your department ship and other details.
All you have to do is enter details about what you want to purchase and submit them for approval.
Here is what a simple requisition form looks like:
You can also route an approved requisition to a procurement department buyer, who can convert the request into a purchase order.
Even though the process is much easier with ProcureDesk, you still need to enter requisition line-level data, which could be cumbersome for recurring items.
That is where catalogs help.
With vendor catalogs, your can improve the user experience for your purchasing process.
ProcureDesk supports two types of catalogs.
With a punch-out catalog, You can link ProcureDesk to other vendor websites like Amazon and Staples to name a few.
Your employees can search the entire catalog and bring the item details back to ProcureDesk for further approvals.
Here is an example of an Amazon punchout, where the user gets routed back to ProcureDesk for further approval.
And this is how the data looks in the user requisition queue.
All the data gets copied from the Amazon website to the user cart.
You can also build your catalogs. That is very beneficial for small vendors who don’t have a website but offer limited products. It helps not only user experience but also savings tracking for negotiated contracts.
Here is an example of an internal catalog.
Budget tracking is a critical feature for any procurement tool.
Budgets give you complete control over your company’s Spending.
Once the budget is set up, the system automatically ensures that the purchase requisitions stay within the budget.
With the built-in budget controls, you can block the purchase if enough budget is unavailable.
You can also inform the budget owner when the budget hits a predefined consumption level.
With flexible budget controls, you control spending and enable better Spend management.
The next step is to route the purchase requisition for approval.
With a custom workflow engine, you can set up a workflow that suits your approval process needs.
With the workflow process, you can route requests for approval across procurement, finance, or IT for further compliance checks.
The setup process is very straightforward. The system automatically creates the workflow for the requester, so they don’t have to think about who needs to approve the requisition.
Here is an example of an approval workflow:
Sometimes you don’t have a preferred pricing contract with a vendor.
So before you purchase the item, you need to get a quote from the supplier.
If you use emails to get quotes, that could be quite cumbersome. With the back and forth of emails, the process is very chaotic.
With the supplier quote module, you can create quotes and send requests to different vendors simultaneously.
After the supplier responds to your request for a quote, you can easily compare the response side by side and then pick the best vendor for your needs.
Here is an example of how that looks:
You can not only have an effective procurement process, but this process also helps you with better vendor management.
The purchase order management feature automates the purchase order creation process.
Now, not all purchase requisitions need an order issued.
The request could be for internal use, or the employee will place the order directly on the vendor’s site.
Whatever is the case, ProcureDesk can help you automatically convert the requisition into purchase orders where a purchase order is required.
In cases where a purchase order is not required, the system can just let the requisition remain in the approved status.
You can set up rules based on suppliers to automatically convert a requisition into a purchase order based on each supplier’s preference.
Here is an example of how a purchase order document looks:
With the current supply chain issue, you want to know when your order will be shipped.
That question is tricky if the vendor doesn’t acknowledge the purchase order. That is why you need strong supplier collaboration.
That is why we have built an order acknowledgment feature that allows you to request an order acknowledgment from the vendor.
You can, of course, request an acknowledgment by email, but that could not be easy to track, especially when you have a large purchase volume.
We have simplified the order acknowledgment process by providing an easy way for suppliers to submit order acknowledgment.
All the supplier has to do is click a link from the order email and confirm the acceptance of the potential delivery dates.
Here is an example of how easily the suppliers can submit order acknowledgments.
You can track your orders effectively and use this data for supplier relationship management.
Once the vendor ships the product, they generally provide the tracking information so that you can track the delivery of the product.
With ProcureDesk, suppliers can electronically post that information.
ProcureDesk can then track the package and inform you when the package is delivered or in transit.
We track hundreds of carriers so that you don’t have to manually go to each carrier’s site and search for the tracking information.
Here is an example of how tracking information works in ProcureDesk.
One of the challenges for the AP team is that they don’t know if an invoice is approved to pay.
Generally, the culprit is a missing receipt, and because of this three-way matching process doesn’t work.
With the receipt module, you can easily track what is getting delivered.
When the invoice gets loaded in the ProcureDesk accounts payable module, the system automatically sends a reminder to the order contact to create the receipt.
We provide three easy ways to create a receipt:
You can do full receipts or partial receipts based on the actual delivery.
Here is an example of a full receipt:
Do you purchase many materials that you use for different projects?
Or you might be a Biotech that needs to maintain lab supplies so that you don’t run out of lab supplies.
Whatever is the case, an inventory tracking module can help.
Here is how the inventory management module can help.
Track inventory:
You can get an accurate inventory of what you have on hand for different inventory items with inventory management modules. You can track lead times and measure supplier performance.
The system also updates the on-hand quantity as soon you create a receipt in the system for the purchased products.
Here is a snapshot of inventory valuation reports that shows you how much inventory you have at any time:
Track usage:
You can also track the inventory usage so that you know how much inventory is left.
You can use the inventory requisition process so that employees can use the requisition process to request inventory items.
Or you can simply create a release request to release the inventory. It makes it easier to track who is requesting and using the website.
Here is an example of how a release tracks the usage information:
With a Spend Dashboard, you have complete visibility at your fingertips.
The spend dashboard answers the following questions for you:
Here is an example of a Spend dashboard:
With Spend analysis reports, you can gain granular visibility into your Spend.
You can then use that visibility to allocate costs better or negotiate better pricing with a vendor. That enables the finance team to make better business decisions.
Here is an example of a Spend analysis report:
This report gives you a detailed view of what you have purchased in a given timeframe at a line level. You would know the unit quantities and unit price.
Use this information to control Spend or negotiate a better price with your vendors.
ProcureDesk offers three pricing plans:
Schedule a demo and see how ProcureDesk can help you streamline the procurement process.
Our Verdict — Best For medium-sized companies with large indirect Spend
Price: Please get in touch with the vendor for pricing.
Procurify is a cloud-based procurement software that offers a complete spend management platform.
It helps companies by simplifying purchasing controls and enabling better Spend management. With its custom approvals and real-time budget controls, companies gain complete visibility.
The Best Part:
- It offers a complete spend management solution, including payments using virtual cards.
The Worst Part:
- Procurify has limited support for the punchout catalog.
- It is missing basic sourcing capabilities like a supplier quote process. This is a key feature for automating the procurement process.
Procurify is best for medium-sized companies in any industry that is looking to automate the manual process and optimize
With purchase requisition, the users can easily request what they want to purchase.
With automation, you don’t need to worry about manually creating purchase requisition forms and routing them for approvals.
Procurify supports custom workflows that enable better purchasing workflow.
With custom workflow management, you can set up different approval levels. You can also set up approvals by departments, locations, or the chart of accounts,
The approval engine also sends notifications on your mobile app—no more missing approval notifications.
You can see the budget consumption in real time with budget controls.
Users can assign a purchase order to the budget, and the approvers can see the budget consumption in real time.
Procurify allows you to set up budgets by location, departments, projects, etc.
You can also check how much of the budget is already committed.
Procurify provides support for vendor catalogs, including internal and punchout catalogs.
You can create unlimited internal catalogs.
However, the system limits the punchouts only to Amazon at this time. You might want to check with the vendor on all punch-out vendors they support.
After a requisition is approved, a Buyer can convert it into a purchase order.
The system allows you to create a purchase order from the requisition.
You also can consolidate multiple requisitions from users into a single purchase order.
The purchase orders can also be dispatched to the vendor automatically.
We did not see any information regarding this feature on Procurify’s website.
So we assume there is no way to confirm the delivery of the product by creating a receipt in the system.
Procurify Reports include:
You can also export report data into different formats if you want to import transactions into your ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) system.
Procurify doesn’t mention pricing on its website. But they do offer a complete procure-to-pay automation solution.
Here are the multiple packages on their website. You can call the vendor to get a price quote.
Our Verdict — Best for companies that have complex procurement workflow.
Price: Starts at $1990/month
Kissflow Procurement cloud platform helps companies streamline their procurement process.
Kissflow is, first and foremost, a workflow tool. The procurement cloud is one of the many modules the company offers its customers.
The Best Part:
- Kissflow offers a flexible workflow engine so that you can design complex workflows.
The Worst Part:
- Kissflow offers business process automation tools, so it is missing many features that you find in best-of-breed procurement management solutions.
Kissflow is best for medium to large companies who want to automate an existing efficient procurement process.
With the purchase request module, companies can automate their manual purchasing processing.
Kissflow supports internal catalogs that make it easier for employees to create requisitions. There is no support for punchout catalogs at this time.
With an intuitive dashboard, you can easily track the lifecycle of all purchase requests and where they are pending.
You can also define budgets that allow you to check real-time budget usage easily. By checking the budgets in real-time, you can control spending and inform employees if no budget is left.
Kissflow is primarily a workflow tool; the procurement cloud has robust capabilities around workflow.
You can define a workflow in advance. The system figures out the workflow in real time and automatically routes the requisition for approval. Kissflow provides actionable insights during the approval process.
After the requisition gets generated, it is automatically converted into a purchase order.
With the auto-initiate feature, you can also set the purchase requisition to create the purchase order after the requisition is approved automatically.
You can also add custom fields to the purchase order to suit your needs.
The Spend dashboard provides instant visibility into your cash flow. You can track spending by location, department, and budget vs. actual.
The dashboard also has the ability for custom reports which allows you to customize the reports based on your needs.
Kissflow procurement cloud pricing starts from $1990/month and varies by volume and transactions.
Our Verdict — Best for small companies with global operations
Price: Starts at $35/month
Precoro is an online procurement software that saves you time and money. With Precoro, you can eliminate manual work, coordinate purchasing processes, and reduce expenses.
The Best Part:
- Simple user interface that is easy to configure and implement.
The Worst Part:
- Limited support for sourcing capabilities like supplier quotes.
- Precoro has limited punchout catalog capabilities.
Precoro is best for small companies that want multi-currency and multi-language support.
Precoro purchase request module allows you to create purchase order requests easily.
You can build an internal catalog for purchase. Employees can easily create a purchase request without manually entering all the data in the system.
Once the employee submits the request, it gets routed for approval.
Precoro allows you to create custom approval routing based on the departments, locations, and custom fields.
We assume that you can create multi-level approvals for routing the purchasing request.
There is support for mobile approval to approve requisitions on the go.
You can automatically create a purchase order from the purchase requisitions.
Once the purchase order gets generated, it gets routed to the vendor.
The system allows you to add comments and attach supporting documents.
You can also create a purchase order directly without a purchase requisition. Precoro also offers invoice-matching capabilities.
You can set up budgets by locations, departments, and custom fields. The approvers can track purchases in real time and see the budget consumption with budget management before approving the purchase.
With budget reporting, you can track budget consumption across all areas.
With the inventory management module, you can track on-hand stock and create receipts for goods.
There is a purchase request flow for inventory. You can use this feature to release the inventory based on the user’s request.
Precoro offers standard reports and a visual graphic so that it is easy to understand the data.
You can also create custom reports to easily filter the data to narrow down the output of reports.
Precoro offers a single pricing plan:
Our Verdict — Best for small companies that are looking for an inexpensive solution
Price: Starts at $9/month
Spendwise offers a cloud technology solution for spend management.
The Best Part:
- Spendwise provides an easy-to-use interface that covers the basic functionality of the procurement process.
The Worst Part:
- Spendwise has limited catalog capabilities and is missing key features like strategic sourcing.
Spendwise is best for small companies that want a digital purchase order process.
You can easily create and send purchase orders to the vendors with the purchase order functionality.
With the receiving functionality, employees can confirm the receipt of the purchase orders. This way, the AP team always knows when an invoice is ready to be paid.
The budget feature allows companies to track spending against a budget.
Spendwise offers over 25 canned reports to get you started with reporting.
Spendwise offers 3 different plans:
1. Pricing starts at $9/user/month for the basic package and goes up to $19/user/month.
2. The base package includes 10 transactions and 5 users. There are no approval workflows in the base package.
3. You need to upgrade to a $19/user/month plan if you want unlimited transactions.
Our Verdict — Best For companies that want an expense management solution with procurement capabilities.
Price: Please connect with the vendor for pricing.
Certify offers a spend management solution that includes expense management and AP automation. The AP automation module includes the requisition and purchase order functionality.
The Best Part:
- Certify has strong expense management capabilities.
The Worst Part:
- Missing core procurement features like strong catalog capabilities, supplier quotes, etc.
Certify is best for companies that have large credit card spending.
With online requisitions, you can get rid of paper forms and automate your requisition process.
Employees can also see what requisitions are still pending and are already approved.
Once the purchase requisitions are approved, a Buyer can convert them into a purchase order.
Certify supports punchout catalogs that allow employees to create requisitions from different vendor websites. For example – if a user wants to purchase IT supplies from CDW, they can easily do that from the requisition screen.
We are not sure how many vendors Certify supports. Still, you might want to call the vendor to understand their capabilities around vendor punch-outs.
Once the requisition is submitted, it is routed for approval.
The approval workflow engine allows you to route the request for approvals based on the named users or predefined workflow conditions.
Certify allows you to create purchase orders from a requisition, or you can directly create a purchase order from scratch.
The purchase order module also supports internal catalogs or punchouts to create a purchase order easily.
The purchase order can be emailed, sent electronically, or faxed to the vendor.
The vendor doesn’t list the price on their website. You have to book a demo to get the pricing.
Our Verdict —Best for very small operations that want a free procurement tool
Price: Starts at $0/month
Tradogram is a cloud-based purchase order software that helps Purchasing decision-makers gain better spend visibility and cut costs.
The Best Part:
- Tradogram offers a free procurement tool. Tradogram is the only vendor in this category with a freemium model.
The Worst Part:
- Many of the advanced features are in the premium plan.
Tradogram is best for small companies who want a free procurement tool.
With the requisition module, companies can automate their manual purchasing process.
You can create requisitions from internal catalogs or purchase one-off items by entering the data manually.
The system also allows you to connect to different vendor websites. Employees can easily choose what they want to purchase.
Once the requisitions are approved, you can convert that into a purchase order.
With the custom workflows, users can set up approvals based on the company’s needs.
For example, you can set up an approval workflow based on the item purchased or the location.
If you are a small company, you can use the workflows to send the request to the named users within the company.
One of the unique features of approvals is specifying exemptions for approvals. This allows the system to bypass the approvals when certain conditions are met.
The budget management module can track the spending against budgets across all departments.
You can set up a budget by project, by location, or set up different levels of budgets across the organization.
The budget module also allows you setup up budgets by GL accounts and track spending at that level.
Tradogram provides you with a single place to create and track purchase orders.
Employees can create purchase orders from scratch or an existing requisition.
You can add items from an existing database or online stores and attach specifications and files to the purchase order.
You can set up items to maintain stocking levels with the inventory management module.
You can set up reorder points so that the system can inform you when the product needs to be re-ordered.
You can also connect the inventory module to the requisition module so that employees can create purchase requisitions for inventory items. Once the requisition is approved, it can be fulfilled directly from the inventory.
Tradogram is a freemium pricing model. That means you can use the system for free if only one person creates the purchase orders.
Our Verdict —Best for companies that need a marketplace solution
Price: The vendor doesn’t offer pricing on its website.
Order offers a complete procure to pay solution for companies. Companies can use Order to place a purchase order and pay vendors.
The unique value proposition is that they consolidate the billing for you. You only have one bill to pay instead of paying individual vendors.
The Best Part:
- The marketplace allows you to build a custom catalog from the support vendors.
The Worst Part:
- The pricing is managed by the vendor and the pricing keeps on fluctuating.
Order is best for companies that have a large indirect spent across multiple vendors.
Since Order is a managed platform, they allow their customers to create a curated catalog of items they want to purchase.
You can pick and choose across different vendors and create a unique catalog that meets your needs.
This could be a good solution if you are a small company that mostly purchases products from e-commerce sites.
You would probably need to spend time setting up and curating the catalog.
Order negotiate the pricing for you. You get the best price on your products.
This way, you are ensured that you get the best pricing for the products you purchase.
The negotiated pricing is limited to the selected vendors that are part of the Order network.
With budget approvals, you can route the purchase request for approval to the respective team members.
You can route the request for approval based on the locations or GL codes. The custom workflow makes getting the right approval for different purchases easier.
With an inbuilt reporting functionality, you can track all your spending.
The reporting provides line-level visibility into your purchasing,
A buying team can easily download the data for Spend analysis and make informed decisions if you have a buying team.
The pricing is not available on the vendor’s website. You have to schedule a demo to get the pricing.
Our Verdict — Best For small companies
Price: Starts at $340/month
ProcurementExpress.com is a cloud-based procurement software that helps businesses streamline their purchasing process. It offers features such as purchase requisition creation, approval routing, tracking of purchase orders, supplier quotes comparison, and inventory tracking.
The Best Part:
- It is an easy to use system that offers a quick setup process.
The Worst Part:
- The basic plan doesn’ have any implementation support.
Procurement Express is best for small companies that need purchase requisition automation.
With the purchase orders module, employees can easily create purchase order requests. The system allows for custom fields. You can add whatever fields you need to keep track of your spending.
With the approval workflow, you can set up the routing and let the system route the purchase order requests for approvals.
You can set up named users for certain approval thresholds or identify a threshold at each level.
The system then notifies the next person in the approval chain based on their approval limit.
With the budget feature, you can create unlimited budgets and keep track of your spending across the company.
Procurement Express lets you create budgets at the department level and project level. You can set up granular budgets for tracking the spending.
With the reporting module, you can get instant visibility into your Spend. You can see the standard reports, filter the reports and then export the data. The reporting module allows you to get what you need quickly.
Procurement express offers four pricing packages:
Our Verdict — Best for companies that want to get rid of manual purchase orders
Price: Starts at $19/month
Digital Purchase Order Software helps companies manage their procurement workflow, including purchasing and invoicing functions.
The Best Part:
- A simple, inexpensive tool to automate the purchase order process.
The Worst Part:
- Digital purchase order only offers the PO functionality. It is missing core features like requisition and punchout catalogs.
Digital purchase order is best for small companies that don’t need requisition and catalogs.
With the purchasing order feature, Digital purchase order allows employees to create purchase orders easily.
The application is good for small purchase orders. You can enter the description of the item you want to purchase. There is no support for catalogs.
You can set up approvals so that the request gets routed for approval to different stakeholders.
The workflow needs to be predefined and adjusted as your approval threshold changes.
You can track the delivery of the purchase orders. It is not clear whether the system allows you to create receipts or just track the shipment status of the delivery.
There is an inbuilt reporting feature that allows you to see all the spending in one single place.
You can see PO reports by
Digital purchase order offers 4 pricing packages:
Procurement software automates the purchasing process and improves the efficiency of the purchasing team.
Procurement software generally helps the finance and procurement team increase productivity and get better cash flow visibility.
Any good procurement software has the following features:
Procurement software can be a cloud-based procurement solution or implemented it on-premise.
Some Procurement software does have invoice processing capabilities.
For example, we offer integrated procurement and accounts payable.
But for this comparison, we have only focused on purchasing automation capabilities.
To recap, here are the best [product category] software to try this year: