When choosing between ProcureDesk and Quartzy, the question isn’t just which one streamlines purchasing, it’s which one grows with your business. Quartzy is a budget-friendly option for small labs that only order from the Quartzy warehouse and approved vendor network. Within that setup, you can browse the catalog, submit requests, and track orders with ease.
But as your lab expands, Quartzy’s limitations become more apparent. It doesn’t support purchasing from other vendors, lacks CRO contract management, and offers no enterprise-level spend control. This forces users to add separate tools for those functions. This muddies up processes and increases costs.
ProcureDesk is designed to do more. While it comes at a higher price, it consolidates your entire procurement process into one platform, integrating approvals, purchase order automation, multi-vendor support, and accounts payable features into a single workflow.
For growing organizations purchasing a variety of equipment and materials, it’s a better long-term solution.
Let’s compare ProcureDesk vs Quartzy in detail:
ProcureDesk Overview
ProcureDesk is a spend management software built for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with 50–250 employees. If your company processes 50+ purchase orders or invoices per month, ProcureDesk streamlines your entire procurement process.
It serves labs, biotech firms, life sciences companies, and academic research teams.
The software allows you to set custom approval workflows, create purchase orders, match invoices, and streamline your spending process with real-time visibility.
ProcureDesk Key Features
Here’s how ProcureDesk features help SMBs simplify their procurement:
Custom Multi-Level Approvals for Faster Procurement
If your team uses separate tools for lab supplies, outsourced research, and one-off vendor requests, it’s hard to track spending and keep approvals on time.
ProcureDesk lets you set custom workflows with automated multi-level approvals, so reviews happen faster by department, project, or funding source. It brings all your lab, CRO, and vendor purchasing into one dashboard, giving you a single place to route approvals, track budgets, and control spend.
For example, a biotech company used ProcureDesk to create approval workflows based on order value and department. The software helped them route high-value requests automatically to the right approvers, reducing their processing time with complete audit logs.
Here’s how ProcureDesk helps labs and research teams streamline purchasing approvals:
- Third-party integrations: Connect your accounting software to import historical purchase data and sync vendors, cost centers, and approval settings.
- Customize procurement workflows: Use built-in templates or modify workflows based on your lab’s structure, such as project type, department, or grant funding source.
- Add conditional routing rules: Route requests to the right reviewers automatically based on amount, department, budget, or cost codes.
- Set self-approval limits: Let small, low-risk purchases proceed without additional approvals to reduce bottlenecks.
- Configure invoice approvals: Apply separate workflows for invoice approvals based on type, amount, or department to keep financial controls in place.
- Control access by role: Assign permissions to different team members so they only see and approve what’s relevant to their role.
Automated Purchase Order Management to Speed Up Requests
Manually creating purchase orders (POs) and tracking them across emails, spreadsheets, or disconnected systems slows down procurement. It also leads to missed orders, duplicate spend, and late payments.
ProcureDesk streamlines purchase order creation and management to speed up your manual processes.
When a team member submits a purchase request (e.g., for lab equipment or CRO services), that request goes through your company’s pre-set approval workflow. Once approved, ProcureDesk automatically turns that request into a formal purchase order with vendor info, pricing, and item details pre-filled from the original request.
It is then automatically sent to suppliers via email or ProcureDesk’s vendor-facing portal. The system also checks available budgets before submission to prevent overspending.
ProcureDesk automatically adds all your purchase orders to your dashboard so you can track each order in real-time, with clear visibility into status, delivery, and vendor acknowledgments.
This level of visibility helps you manage your spending, hold your team accountable if needed, and audit with confidence.
Vendor Catalog Integration to Control Product Quality
Without an integrated vendor list, lab teams order from multiple websites, leading to inconsistent quality, duplicate supplies, and poor control over approved vendors.
Alt text & Caption: ProcureDesk’s punchout catalogs
ProcureDesk supports 200+ vendor punchout catalogs, including Amazon, Thermo Fisher, Fisher Scientific, and VWR. This lets your researchers or office team shop within approved supplier websites and submit purchase order requests directly on ProcureDesk.
For example, if a lab technician needs to order pipette tips from Fisher Scientific, they can open the Fisher catalog directly within ProcureDesk, add items to the cart, and the system will pull the order details into a purchase request. The request follows the lab’s pre-set approval workflow. Once approved, ProcureDesk sends the PO to Fisher automatically.
ProcureDesk also lets you add custom catalogs from your vendors via an Excel spreadsheet or a punchout link. The system transforms it into a searchable product list within your purchasing portal. Lab staff can browse the catalog directly, just like any online store.
This process makes it easy to include trusted or niche suppliers alongside major punchout catalogs, so your teams remain compliant and maintain quality with full visibility.
Centralized Vendor Tracking for Performance Evaluation
When managing multiple lab suppliers, it’s hard to track underperforming vendors, enforce preferred supplier policies, or manage delivery timelines from a spreadsheet.
ProcureDesk offers vendor management with a centralized dashboard where every order, delivery, and issue is logged automatically. When your team places an order, the system records vendor details, delivery timelines, and fulfillment status.
Vendors can directly update status and confirm deliveries from the vendor portal, so you don’t have to send reminders manually.
If a shipment arrives late or the wrong item is delivered, your team can tag the issue directly within the purchase order record. Over time, this builds a complete performance history for each vendor, helping you spot trends and compare reliability across suppliers.
Your team can also:
- Track supplier performance: Monitor delivery times, order accuracy, and responsiveness to hold vendors accountable.
- Store compliance documents: Keep W-9s, contracts, and certifications in one place with automated renewal alerts.
- Prevent duplicate vendors: Use built-in checks to reduce redundant entries.
- Tag preferred suppliers: Guide employees toward approved vendors during purchase requests to improve consistency.
- Support audits with activity logs: Every vendor interaction is recorded and time-stamped to simplify compliance reviews.
For example, if a vendor misses multiple delivery windows, your team can flag those incidents in ProcureDesk, allowing you to decide whether to pause or renegotiate future orders, without searching through emails or paper trails.
This visibility makes it easier to enforce quality standards, meet your grant compliance, and stay audit-ready for grants or internal reviews.
Inventory Management to Avoid Overspending or Stockouts
When lab teams track inventory manually, they risk ordering duplicate items or running out of critical supplies mid-experiment.
ProcureDesk offers inventory management software to help you track your stock levels across multiple locations.
It connects directly to your purchasing process. When your team receives a PO and confirms the invoice, ProcureDesk automatically updates stock levels. Your teams can access inventory data directly on the dashboard to see what’s in stock, where it’s stored, and when it expires.
This allows your lab, office, and finance teams to:
- Avoid stockouts and overordering: View current inventory levels, storage locations, and expiry dates across all lab sites in one place.
- Improve traceability and compliance: Log batch and lot numbers to track which supplies were used in each experiment.
- Gain control over supply usage: Monitor how items are received and consumed to plan purchases and reduce waste.
ProcureDesk also lets you set minimum quantity thresholds for each item. When stock falls below that level, the software automatically sends alerts or generates a purchase request.
Spend Analytics to Control Expenses
Without centralized expense tracking, lab and research teams often overspend grant budgets or miss patterns in repeat purchases.
ProcureDesk offers real-time spend analytics on your procurement activity. You can monitor spending by department, grant, or project across weekly, monthly, and annual views from one dashboard.
The platform automatically logs all purchase orders and invoices, so your reports reflect actual spend, not outdated estimates. This helps you set better spending limits to stay on budget across all teams.
Here’s how ProcureDesk helps you achieve expense control proactively:
- Track department-level budgets: View how much each team or grant has spent, with alerts for overages.
- Identify repeat purchases: Spot high-frequency orders and re-negotiate vendor terms for better pricing.
- Visualize trends: Use built-in charts to track top suppliers, buyers, and item categories.
- Support audits: Access full approval trails and invoice history for financial reporting and grant compliance.
- Improve forecasting: Get alerts for unpaid invoices or pending POs to plan cash flow more accurately.
For example, if your lab reorders the same $800 reagent three times in a month, ProcureDesk flags it as a top recurring item. This insight helps your team explore bulk ordering options or vendor negotiations to reduce unit costs, freeing up budget for other critical supplies.
Automated Invoicing with 3-Way PO Matching to Speed Up Payments
Most procurement, finance, and lab ops use manual processes to manage purchase orders and invoices, which leads to late payments, inaccurate data, or duplicate entries.
ProcureDesk is invoice automation software that streamlines invoice and payment processing for labs.
When a vendor submits an invoice via email or through the supplier portal, ProcureDesk uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to extract key details. These include the invoice number, date, vendor name, quantities, and line-item prices. This removes manual data entry and reduces processing time.
The software then performs a 3-way match between the invoice, purchase order, and receipt. If everything aligns, it automatically routes the invoice to the right approver based on department, cost center, or threshold limits.
Your team and vendors can easily track invoice status in real-time and send one-click approvals via the ProcureDesk mobile app, without slowing down your process.
For example, if a researcher orders lab equipment and the lab manager confirms receipt, ProcureDesk automatically matches that invoice to the approved PO and delivery record. If accurate, it routes it to finance for final approval.
ProcureDesk improves invoice workflows for labs and research teams while giving you full control over your payables process with searchable records for compliance and reviews.
Real-Time Dashboard for Complete Visibility
Manual spreadsheets can’t give you a real-time view of supply requests, approvals, or invoice statuses. This slows down decisions, increases the risk of overspending, and complicates grant reporting.
ProcureDesk provides a configurable procurement dashboard that includes purchase requests, receipts, and invoices, so your team can monitor spending, check order status, and view pending tasks in real-time.
The dashboard updates continuously and can download summary reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
ProcureDesk also lets you set role-based access to your procurement process. Lab managers can view order status and supply usage. Finance teams can track unpaid invoices and cash flow. Executives can monitor departmental budgets and spend trends across research programs.
This helps you move faster, reduce errors, and follow compliance to control spending on internal purchases or grant-funded projects.
Mobile App Support for Easy Access
ProcureDesk’s mobile app helps your lab, finance, and operations teams manage procurement workflows without being tied to a desktop.
Your team members can create purchase requests, check order status, and match invoices to POs from their phones.
Once a request is submitted, approvers can review and approve it in real-time. The app sends push alerts to relevant approvers based on your pre-set custom workflows.
The ProcureDesk app also lets your team members snap photos of receipts or delivery confirmations using their phone camera, which are instantly synced with the matching record in the ProcureDesk dashboard. This helps you maintain accurate records without the need to upload documents manually later.
Whether it’s approving a contract or confirming delivery of critical lab equipment, your team can complete every action on the go.
Integrations for Faster Onboarding
ProcureDesk connects directly with your accounting, ERP, and communication systems, so your finance, lab ops, and procurement teams stay aligned without manual data entry.
When a purchase request or invoice is approved on ProcureDesk, the system automatically syncs that data with your accounting software. This prevents double entry, speeds up reconciliation, and gives finance real-time visibility into your lab and project spend.
ProcureDesk lets you integrate platforms like:
The software also supports batch imports to help you sync vendor, purchase order, and invoice data at once, ideal for grant tracking, financial audits, or monthly closes.
Book a free demo to see how ProcureDesk integrates into your lab’s financial workflows.
ProcureDesk Pros
- User-friendly interface with simple onboarding
- Real-time tracking tools
- Multi-level custom approval workflows
- Automates approvals
- Streamlines purchase order creation and management
- Integrates punchout and custom catalogs
- Automates invoice creation
- Supports vendor management and portals
- Offers inventory sync and management
- Provides spending analytics
- Built-in OCR and automatic 3-way matching
- Provides role-based dashboard access
- Mobile app support
- Integrates with ERP, accounting systems, and communication channels
ProcureDesk Cons
- Advanced features have a learning curve, but the support team is there to help
- No offline mode, but you can use the ProcureDesk mobile app for real-time approvals and requests on-site
ProcureDesk Pricing
ProcureDesk offers three pricing plans, depending on your company size, budget, and feature needs:
| Plan | Price (Monthly) | Key Features | Included Users |
| Purchasing Automation | $598/month | Onboarding SupportCustom Approval Workflows | 10 |
| Purchasing and AP Automation | $948/month | All Purchasing Automation featuresInvoice Approval Workflows3-Way Invoice Matching OCR for Invoices | Custom |
| Enterprise | Custom Quote | All Purchasing Automation features Dedicated Account Manager Vendor Portal Single Sign-On (SSO) | Custom |
ProcureDesk Reviews
Here’s what users like about ProcureDesk:
- Customizable workflows for departments or teams
- Strong integration with accounting software
- Automated invoice-to-PO matching
- Approvals are fast and hassle-free
- Responsive and helpful customer support
- Easy punchout catalog setup
- Reduces manual follow-ups
- Centralizes procurement and AP tasks
- Good reporting for decision-making
Here’s what users don’t like about ProcureDesk:
- Learning curve for new users
- No offline features on the mobile app
Review #1: “ProcureDesk helps us ensure all items of orders have been fulfilled by using the receipts function. This helps us to properly track and inventory what has been delivered versus what we are still waiting on to be shipped and/or delivered.” – Nicole N.
Review #2: “Previously, raising purchase orders was the finance department’s responsibility, but with ProcureDesk this task seamlessly shifted to the non-finance team. They now handle it easily thanks to the user-friendly interface and seamless integration.” – Ijaz A.
Customer Rating
Quartzy Overview
Quartzy is a cloud-based platform for managing inventory and lab operations. It is designed specifically for biotech and pharmaceutical companies as well as academic institutions.
It centralizes inventory tracking, supply requests, and ordering within a single system, allowing lab teams to replace spreadsheets and fragmented email threads.
Quartzy Key Features
Here are the key features of Quartzy:
Lab Inventory Management
Quartzy helps you track every detail of your lab supplies, including quantity, location, expiration dates, and custom attributes like physical state or clonality.
Teams can also import existing inventory and use barcode scanning for fast updates and easy stock management.
Request and Approval Workflow
Lab members can submit supply requests directly from inventory or the Quartzy Shop. The software lets admins set custom approval workflows with thresholds, so routine purchases move fast while higher-cost items route to supervisors.
Integrated Lab Marketplace (Quartzy Shop)
The Quartzy Shop is an online marketplace that connects you to over 1,800 trusted lab suppliers with more than 10 million products. It allows side-by-side price comparisons, helping labs make informed, budget-conscious purchasing decisions without leaving the platform.
App and Tool Integrations
Quartzy supports integrations with tools like QuickBooks, NetSuite, Google Sheets, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. This lets your team sync procurement and inventory data across finance and collaboration tools without double entry.
Mobile Access for Inventory and Requests
With Quartzy’s mobile app, users can scan barcodes, check stock levels, and submit or approve requests on the go. This supports real-time inventory management, especially for labs managing supplies across multiple locations.
Quartzy Pros
- Free to use for basic lab procurement
- Easy inventory tracking with barcode scanning
- Built-in access to 10M+ lab supplies in Quartzy Shop
- Simple request and approval workflows
- Side-by-side price comparison across vendors
- Integrates with QuickBooks, NetSuite, Slack, and more
- Mobile app available for on-the-go inventory updates
- Good fit for small academic and research labs
Quartzy Cons
- Only built for lab supplies
- Lacks an invoice matching feature
- Doesn’t support advanced shipping notice
Quartzy Pricing
Quartzy has three pricing plans, starting from $249 per month for 5 users.
Quartzy Reviews
Here’s what users like about Quartzy:
- Simple request creation and tracking
- Real-time order and shipping updates
- Clear order history and spend tracking
- Integrates with major lab suppliers
- Email confirmations and itemized receipts
Here’s what users don’t like about Quartzy:
- Less intuitive for non-tech users
- Long shipping times from vendors
- Shop search lacks good filters
- A simple approval system lacks control
- Hard to track the packing slips from vendors
- Custom views and dashboards are missing
Review #1: “Quartzy is a one-stop shop for lab consumables, reagents, and even small tools. The Quartzy shop makes purchasing easy and fast.” – User.
Review #2: “The platform is clunky and unintuitive. Our less technical employees required a lot of training to be able to perform basic functions.” – Alyssa W.
Customer Rating
ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy: Procurement Management Solution Feature Comparison
Here’s a direct ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy feature-by-feature comparison:
ProcureDesk Handles All Purchase Requisitions, Quartzy Only Supports Lab Supply Requests
ProcureDesk supports full-cycle requisitions for any type of purchase, from lab supplies and CRO services to office needs, all managed in one system. You can submit requisitions, trigger custom approvals, generate POs, and track deliveries seamlessly.
In contrast, Quartzy limits requisitions to lab-related items within its catalog or manual entries and doesn’t support end-to-end purchasing workflows.
If you submit a requisition for a non-lab item, Quartzy won’t generate a PO or handle the order. You’ll need a separate system to complete the purchase, which adds manual steps and limits scalability.
ProcureDesk Offers End-to-End PO Management, Quartzy Only Support Lab-Specific PO Workflows
ProcureDesk offers end-to-end purchase order management, from creation to vendor acknowledgment, for all purchase types. It offers deep automation, real-time tracking, and ERP sync.
ProcureDesk also supports cXML punchouts for direct PO transmission to integrated suppliers. The software lets you email POs directly or download and share POs manually with other vendors, giving you more flexibility.
Quartzy is designed for lab-specific purchase order workflows. It can automatically generate and route POs for supported lab catalog items, but requires separate tools or exports for non-lab purchases.
ProcureDesk Embeds Vendor Punchouts, Quartzy Provides a Built-In Shop
ProcureDesk supports punchout catalogs for external vendors, including Fisher Scientific and Thermo Fisher. Your team can open these supplier websites within ProcureDesk, add items to a cart, and send them back to your purchasing system as part of your workflow.
Quartzy doesn’t support punchout catalogs for external vendors. You can’t use it to access supplier-hosted catalogs. But it offers a curated catalog of over 10 million lab products from multiple brands.
If you’re using a purchasing system like ProcureDesk, you can still connect Quartzy Shop to it using Quartzy’s punchout integration. That lets you buy from Quartzy Shop within your procurement system, but you’re still limited to items listed in Quartzy’s catalog.
ProcureDesk Offers ASN, Quartzy Doesn’t
ASN (Advance Shipping Notice) allows vendors to notify buyers once a product has been shipped.
ProcureDesk allows vendors to submit tracking information automatically. The platform monitors shipments in real-time and alerts your team once the product is delivered for a reliable shipping workflow.
Quartzy doesn’t offer a way to capture or track ASN data in real-time. Shipping updates must be shared manually, which limits visibility into order status.
ProcureDesk Supports Detailed Receipts, Quartzy Covers the Basics
Scientists use receipts to confirm whether products have been delivered and update the inventory count in real-time.
ProcureDesk allows teams to create full or partial receipts and receive items through the web or mobile app. Your team can enter details like quantity, expiration date, and serial number.
The system automatically updates inventory once your team confirms the receipt, streamlining your entire invoicing process.
Quartzy also supports item receiving through its web and mobile app. Users can mark items as received, scan barcodes, and upload packing slips.
But Quartzy doesn’t support lot tracking or serial numbers like ProcureDesk. It only updates inventory counts when items are received.
ProcureDesk Supports Invoice Matching, Quartzy Doesn’t
After a vendor ships a product, your accounts payable (AP) team must match the invoice with the purchase order, so the company pays only for what was delivered.
Receipts help confirm delivery. But manually matching invoices, POs, and receipts slows down cost control and reimbursement workflows. The invoice matching feature streamlines checking for pricing or quantity differences and flags any issues automatically.
ProcureDesk includes a built-in invoice matching engine. It automatically compares purchase orders and invoices, and uses receipts to verify delivery. If a product hasn’t been received, the system alerts the order contact to confirm receipt before payment.
This invoice automation reduces errors and improves accountability, making ProcureDesk a better choice for purchasing and AP workflows.
Quartzy doesn’t offer invoice matching or AP controls. It lacks the automation needed to manage payment verification, making it less suitable for invoice processing.
ProcureDesk Offers Seamless Integrations, Quartzy Is Basic
ProcureDesk offers deep, finance-focused integrations with full ERP suite connectors, vendor punchouts, legacy system support, and automation channels.
Quartzy is suitable for lab-specific workflows, like R&D tool sync, internal Shop punchouts, communications, and lightweight ERP links through QuickBooks and NetSuite.
ProcureDesk is a more flexible procurement software because of the number of systems it supports. It also streamlines your workflow in minutes with built-in automation for faster purchasing and approvals.
Both Support a Mobile App
ProcureDesk offers the following automatic routes on the app:
- Create purchase order requests from the app and other re-ordering rules
- Approve or reject a purchase request
- Create a receipt for your purchase order process.
Quartzy’s mobile app offers the following key features:
- Print barcode labels from the software
- Create a receipt for an existing order.
ProcureDesk covers more of the end-to-end purchasing workflow on mobile, while Quartzy supports limited post-purchase actions.
Schedule a free demo to learn how ProcureDesk helps lab managers and researchers track requests, POs, deliveries, and invoices in one system.
ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy: Feature Comparison Table
| Feature | ProcureDesk | Quartzy |
| Purchase Requests | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Supports lab, CRO, office, and general purchasing | ⭐⭐⭐Only supports lab supply requests |
| Purchase Order Management | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐End-to-end PO automation and vendor communication | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Lab-focused PO workflows only |
| Vendor Punchout Support | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐200+ external vendor punchouts (e.g., Fisher, Thermo) and custom catalogs | ⭐⭐⭐Access to 100+ vendors from Quartzy Shop |
| Advance Shipping Notice (ASN) | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Real-time ASN tracking and delivery updates | ⭐Not supported |
| Receipts and Inventory Sync | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Full/partial receipts, lot and serial tracking, inventory auto-sync | ⭐⭐Basic receipts; no lot or serial tracking |
| Invoice Matching | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Automated 3-way matching with OCR | ⭐Not supported |
| Integrations | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage, Xero, Slack, and more | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Light sync with QuickBooks, NetSuite, Slack |
| Mobile App | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Create requests, approve, receive items, and upload receipts | ⭐⭐⭐Supports barcode scanning and basic receiving only |
| Spend Analytics | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Real-time dashboards and department-level spend tracking | ⭐Not included |
| Vendor Management | ⭐⭐⭐⭐Tracks vendor performance, stores documents, and tags preferred suppliers | ⭐Not supported |
ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy: Pricing Comparison
| Feature | ProcureDesk | Quartzy |
| Starting Price | $498/month (billed annually) for 10 users | $249/month for 5 users |
| Free Plan Available | No | Yes (basic usage with Quartzy Shop access) |
| Additional Users | Custom plans available | $39–$59 per extra user, depending on plan |
| Best For | Labs with finance/AP automation needs | Labs with simple procurement and inventory needs |
| Enterprise Option | Yes (custom pricing with SSO, vendor portals, etc.) | Yes (custom pricing for academic/large orgs) |
ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy: Which Software is Better for You?
Choosing between ProcureDesk vs. Quartzy depends on your lab’s procurement complexity, team size, and financial control needs.
Quartzy is suitable for academic labs and small biotech teams that mainly manage lab inventory and want a built-in marketplace with basic approval flows. It’s ideal if you need simple tracking for lab supplies without involving finance or AP automation.
ProcureDesk is best for growing teams that process 50+ purchase orders or 100+ invoices a month. It offers built-in procurement features like custom approvals, punchout catalogs, invoice processing, vendor management, and seamless integrations.
This allows your finance, labs, and ops teams to monitor spending, improve productivity, and track the real-time purchasing process from a single dashboard.
Book a demo to learn how ProcureDesk gives you real-time budget visibility and inventory tracking.
