Today there are 8356 different purchase requisition software. We spent 40 hours comparing the top 20 to find the five best you can use to increase control spending and automate the purchasing process.

Download our purchase requisition checklist and follow along to find the best purchasing software for your company.

What is the Purchase Requisition Software?

1. ProcureDesk – Best for small to medium-sized business
2. Procurement Flow– Best for global companies
3. Kissflow Best for procurement process automation
4. Planergy Best for small to medium size companies 
5. Fraxion – Best for property management and construction companies

1.ProcureDesk

Our Verdict — Best for small to medium-sized companies

Price: Starts at $380/month

ProcureDesk helps companies streamline purchasing process through electronic purchase requisitions and electronic purchase orders.

Most purchase requisition software automates the approval process, but employees still have to fill out electronic forms. ProcureDesk does purchase approval automation very well. However, we strongly focus on reducing the data entry effort for the employees and making it easy to use.

Our goal is to offer an online shopping experience for your employees so that adopting the new purchasing software is not a challenge for you.

The Best Part:

ProcureDesk provides strong support for punchout and online catalogs, making the electronic requisition process easier for employees. Purchasing departments love their strong customer service and a purchase requisition app; it is the fastest way to drive adoption.

The Worst Part:

ProcureDesk doesn’t have any payment solution for virtual cards. It does integrate with other providers like Brex to fill that gap.

Get it if you are looking for easy-to-use purchase requisition software backed by strong customer support.

I recommend you get the purchasing automation plan.

 

Best For

ProcureDesk is best suited for growing companies that need an easy-to-use purchasing request process supported by catalogs.

Top Features

Purchase Requisitions

Purchase requisition automates the manual purchase requisition process for your employees.

No more paper forms and chasing managers for approvals.

Here is how employees can create purchase requisitions:

With a central purchase requisition dashboard, employees can easily see the status of their requisitions.

An employee can easily see requests pending approval and whether an order has been issued to the supplier.

Here is what a simple requisition dashboard looks like:

 

The users can easily create new requisitions. To make it simple for your employees, ProcureDesk uses user defaults to fill in the required information automatically.

This saves time and avoids any data entry errors.

For example – what is the user’s department, the default location, cost center, etc.

Here is how the information is automatically captured for your employees.

Instead of typing in the description of what items you need to purchase, you can select what you need.

ProcureDesk offers two ways for users to select the items they want to purchase.

E-commerce sites

Suppose you want to purchase a ream of paper from Amazon.

So you go to the Amazon.com website, look for the item you want to purchase and then come back and type that in the requisition form.

Pretty painful and time-consuming!

Instead of doing all that, ProcureDesk allows you to browse the vendor’s website and then select what you need to purchase with the click of a button.

The data from your Amazon.com cart is copied automatically to your requisition.

No data entry is required.

We have used Amazon.com as an example, but ProcureDesk supports integration with 100+ vendors.

Here is an example of the cart integration with Amazon.

 

Notice the “Send these items for approval” button that allows you to copy the data from the Amazon.com cart into ProcureDesk.

It’s that simple!

Catalogs

Not everything you purchase comes from an e-commerce site. Sometimes you have local/small vendors who only offer a limited number of items.

Creating a supplier catalog for those items can easily solve this problem.

A catalog can be easily created one at a time (as you purchase products) or upfront by uploading a spreadsheet.

Here is an example of an internal catalog:

If you have tried purchase requisitions in the past and didn’t get much adoption, Vendor catalog is the solution you are looking for. With Vendor catalogs, you can drastically increase the adoption of the purchase requisition process. Schedule a demo with one of our product specialists, and we will show how easy it is to set up catalogs.

Flexible Approval Workflow

Once an employee creates a purchase request, it needs approval.

ProcureDesk allows you to set up workflows so that the system routes the purchase request to the respective stakeholder for approval.

Your goal should be to set up the workflow such that the employee doesn’t have to worry about figuring out who should be approving a purchase requisition.

You can create a workflow based on different factors. For example, you can set up a workflow based on the following:

1. Purchase requisition amount
2. Purchase requisition type
3. Department of the user
4. GL account assigned by the employee to the purchase request.

If you are a small organization, you probably just need a 2 level workflow.

For example, anything less than $500 should be approved by a manager. More than $500 should be approved by the manager and the CFO (Chief Financial Officer).

Here is how to create a simple workflow:

 

Once you have set up the workflow, the system automatically figures out the approvers and requests approval for you.

ProcureDesk allows managers to approve purchase order requests in multiple ways.

First, they can approve from their email.

Here is an example of what the approval process email looks like:

 

You can approve using the application.

And for the managers that are always on the go, we have a mobile app that allows you to approve the requisition from your phone.

The app sends you a notification when something needs your approval.

This helps with the speedy approval of the requisitions and lowers the cycle time.

Supplier Quotes

Supplier quotes allow buyers and other employees in your Company to get quotes from suppliers quickly.

We recommend implementing a three-bid and a buy process for the most common commodities.

In other words, you set up a process so that you require 3 bids from different vendors before you make the purchase.

This allows you to compare the pricing and terms and pick the best possible value for your Company.

ProcureDesk makes it easier to get quotes from vendors.

Here is how that works:

Create a quick quote by adding the item/s that you want to purchase.

Select the vendors and then send the quote to the vendor.

This is what a supplier quote looks like:

 

The supplier receives the quote request and then responds accordingly.

They can quote one item or multiple items based on product availability.

If the vendors cannot upload their responses, you can upload the response on their behalf.

Once the response is submitted, you can compare the responses side by side.

Here is an example of side by side comparison of vendor responses.

 

Then, you need to select the best vendor and convert that quote into a purchase order or purchase request.

Purchase Orders

After a requisition is approved, you need to inform the vendor.

There are multiple ways to do that.

For example – An e-commerce vendor that only accepts orders from the website would need orders submitted through their website.

Alternatively, you can send the purchase order document electronically to the vendor, email it or even fax it.

With the Purchase order module, you can automatically convert the requests into purchase orders.

For example, suppose the vendor only accepts purchase orders through the website. In that case, we will inform the requester that they need to place the order on the vendor’s website after approval.

If you have a buyer who can place the orders, we inform the buyer that a requisition is pending action.

However, we can just generate the purchase order and send it to the vendor without any manual intervention in most cases.

For example, here is a sample of the system-generated purchase order and automatically sent to the vendor.

Suppose you want the system to take care of the automated dispatch. In that case, all you have to do is configure the system accordingly.

Purchase Order Tracking

Issuing a purchase order is the first step toward acquiring a product or service.

The next step is for the vendor to acknowledge the order and let you know how soon they can ship the product.

The vendor will also send you the shipping information. You can then track the delivery status.

And when you receive the product, you need to make sure your team knows about this.

They know the product has been received, and the vendor can be paid for the product or service.

Yes, there are a lot of steps. But don’t worry; ProcureDesk automates most of these items for you.

Once the purchase order is issued, we automatically ask the vendor to acknowledge the order.

Once the vendor acknowledges the order, they can update the tracking information when it ships.

You can then track the purchase order within ProcureDesk.

The system will also send you tracking information and updates on the status.

And once you receive the product, all you have to do is click a button and confirm that you received the product.

Here is how you create a receipt.

Pricing

ProcureDesk pricing starts at $380/month.

 

1. The purchase order module starts at $380 and covers 10 users.
2. The base plan covers all the core features for purchasing automation, including requisition, purchase orders, receipts, and order tracking.
3. Annual subscriptions provide a 20% discount on all plans. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.
4. Ask for their white glove service package to support you with the implementation process.

 

2. Procurement Flow

Our Verdict — Best for global companies

Price: Starts at $113/month

Procurement Flow is a procurement automation and collaboration platform for procurement teams.

It helps buyers collaborate with stakeholders and digitize the manual purchase requisition process.

The Best Part:

Procurement Flow provides an easy way to organize and ingest purchase requisitions. The purchase request can be sent via email or through the request portal.

The Worst Part:

There is no support for catalogs and punchout catalogs

Best For

Procurement Flow best suits companies with global operations and centralized purchasing teams.

Top Features

Procurement Flow has a unique Kanban board design for the buyers.

The employees can create requisitions by sending an email or going to the system to create a new requisition.

The requisition is created by entering the description of what you are trying to purchase.

While writing this article, we didn’t see any ability to use catalogs or punch out catalogs for creating the requisition.

That could lead to friction for end-users, who now need to remember all the data they need to enter before creating a purchase requisition.

Once the requisition is submitted, the request is waiting on a buyer.

A buyer can then assign the purchase request and process it accordingly.

Flexible Approval Workflow

The system supports approval workflows for purchase requisitions.

You have to manually add the approvers while creating the requisition. However, you can define the sequence of the approvals.

So, for example, if you send a request to 2 people, you can define who should get the request first and then the second request.

This could be great if you are just getting started and have no idea about your approval matrix.

However, this could be an issue for growing companies because employees now have one more thing to remember.

Supplier Quotes

Procurement Flow is designed for procurement buyers.

If you are a buyer, you would love the Kanban board for the requisition queue.

You can convert an approved requisition into an RFI or RFP and then get quotes from the vendors.

It seems that the request and quotes are separate, and there is no way to automatically convert the quote data back into a purchase order.

Purchase Orders

You can convert a purchase request into a purchase order.

You also can group multiple purchase requests into a single purchase order.

By merging the purchase request, you can save on shipping costs and get better pricing if the vendor provides tier-based pricing.

Purchase Order Tracking

Procurement Flow allows you to keep track of purchase orders.

You can mark the order status so that the buyers know the exact status of the purchase order.

There is no way for the end user to create a receipt in the system. However, when you mark a purchase order as received, you can add notes about who received it.

For example, suppose a warehouse receiving clerk receives the product. In that case, they can notify the buyer, who can then update the purchase order status to be received.

Pricing

1. 1. The pricing is based on the buyers responsible for purchasing the items.
   2. There is no cost for requesters and suppliers.

3. Kissflow

Our Verdict — Best for entire procurement process automation.

Price: Starts at $1990/month

KissFlow’s design philosophy is to keep it smart and simple. Kissflow helps companies to simplify their workflows in the organization.

The Company offers many products around workflow management, projects, low code, etc.

For this discussion, we are comparing their Procurement cloud solution. The procurement cloud solution is designed specifically for procurement processes.

The Best Part:

Kissflow automates the entire procurement process, from sourcing to purchase requisitions. It is easy to set up new workflows to suit your procurement process.

The Worst Part:

Limited support for catalogs. You can create your catalogs/item list, but there is no support for punchout catalogs.

Best For

Kissflow is best for companies that are looking to automate their manual process using an automated workflow tool and without enhancing the employee experience using punchout catalogs.

Top Features

With purchase requisitions, employees can quickly create requisitions.

The requisition tool provides a central dashboard for employees to see the status of their requests.

For example, how many purchase requests are approved, pending approval, etc.

Employees can create purchase requests using a product catalog. A product catalog is a combination of frequently purchased items.

A product catalog is generally managed by a buyer with the procurement department.

 

With the built-in budget controls, you can control costs in real time.

If the request goes over budget, you can stop the purchase request.

Flexible Approval Workflow

Kissflow supports flexible workflows that allow your organization to set up a procurement process flow per your requirements.

For example, you can set up a manager review, followed by a department head approval, and so on.

You can define the amount threshold for each step so the system can automatically trigger the next step.

This reduces the burden on employees to always remember the correct routing hierarchy.

Supplier Quotes

You can easily create a purchase requisition into an RFQ (Request for Quote).

This allows buyers to get the best price for the Company by requesting supplier quotes and comparing the responses.

Purchase Orders

The purchase orders can be created from scratch or directly from a purchase requisition.

The tool provides real-time Spend insights to see the past history of the vendor during the approval process.

Purchase Order Tracking

You can update the order status in the system. Still, when writing this article, we didn’t see any capability to create a receipt for a purchase order.

Pricing

Kissflow procurement cloud pricing starts from $1990/month and varies by volume and transactions.

1. Kissflow offers a free trial for the software
2. The pricing is based on features, transaction volume, and the number of users.
3. The base package includes a purchase requisition module, supplier management, and AP automation.

4. Planergy

Our Verdict — Best for small to medium-sized companies.

Price: Please get in touch with the sales team for pricing.

Planergy is a spend management platform that helps companies manage their spending and control costs.

As per their website, they support all industries, so Planergy seems to be a general-purpose procurement solution that can be used by any company.

The Best Part:

Planergy’s workflow engine allows companies to configure the custom workflow. They also have strong support for custom fields.

The Worst Part:

Per the customer reviews on Capterra, the search functionality is limited, and there is no inventory module.

Best For

Planergy is best suited for companies looking for a basic purchasing module without an inventory function.

Top Features

Purchase Requisitions

Employees can create purchase requisition requests and send them for approval with the purchase requisition module.

There are 2 different entry points for users.

You can create a simple purchase order request, or you can create a request from a punchout catalog.

When entering the request, the user can choose the ship-to location, add comments for the vendor and buyers,

The requester can also select the correct chart of accounts, cost and codes, and other budget-related information.

When creating a punchout order, the requester selects the New punchout order option and then navigates to the vendor’s web store.

The punchout order makes it easier to create purchase requests because the user doesn’t need to type in the description of the item that is being purchased.

Vendor punchouts save time for the requester and provide a better purchasing experience.

Flexible Approval Workflow

With Planergy, the requester doesn’t need to remember the approval chain.

The system automatically routes the purchase request for approval based on the amount.

The list of approval is automatically generated by the system.

You can also set up self-approvals in the system so that an employee can approve their own purchase requests.

By providing a self-approval option, you reduce the approval cycle time and increase the accountability of the team members.

Supplier Quotes

When writing this article, there is no mention of supplier quotes on the vendor’s website. So we assume that the supplier quote functionality doesn’t exist.

Purchase Orders

Once the requisition is approved by the appropriate manager, Planergy allows you to send the purchase order to the vendor.

A buyer can convert a purchase requisition into a purchase order.

The purchase order can be emailed to the vendor. The system uses the vendor’s default address to email the purchase order.

Once the purchase order is created, you can cancel the PO, change the PO or duplicate the purchase order.

Purchase Order Tracking

Planergy provides standard capabilities for order tracking that includes the following:

1. Create a partial or full receipt for a product or service. You can create receipts for services also.
2. If the items are fully received, you can close the order so that no further action can be taken on the purchase order.

Pricing

Pricing information is not available on Planergy’s website

5. Fraxion

Our Verdict — Best for property management and construction companies

Price: Please get in touch with the vendor for pricing.

Fraxion is designed to help companies control spending and automate the manual purchase process. Fraxion allows an organization to save time by automating the manual approval process.

The Best Part:

Easy to use, straightforward purchase requisition system.

The Worst Part:

Fraxion lacks the ability to customize the workflow and especially set different workflows for each module.

Best For

Best suited for property management or companies that have job-based costing.

Top Features

Purchase Requisitions

With purchase requisitions, employees can easily create new purchase requests.

Employees can create purchase requisitions using the web or the mobile app.

The mobile app makes it easy for employees to order items on the go, especially when your employees are out in the field.

Fraxion supports punchout catalogs so that employees can create purchase requests with ease. If it is not clear how many vendors are supported by Fraxion, they certainly support Amazon.com.

You can also create purchase requests from internal catalogs. These are catalogs maintained by the buyers or anyone else in your organization.

Employees don’t need to copy and paste data from different websites into their shopping cart with catalogs.

Flexible Approval Workflow

Fraxion offers a flexible approval workflow so that you can automate the purchase approvals.

The purchase approvals can be easily configured based on the purchase amount, department, or location.

Once an admin configures the approval, the system automatically routes the purchase requisitions based on the approval workflow.

The vendor also supports approvals using a mobile app so that employees can approve on the go.

Supplier Quotes

At the time of the writing, we didn’t see any capability of getting supplier quotes.

Purchase Orders

The purchase order module allows buyers to convert purchase requisitions into purchase orders and dispatch the purchase order to the supplier.

The system allows for merging multiple requisitions into a single purchase order. This allows buyers to combine requisitions to get the best value for their Company.

You can also set up the system to convert the requisition to a purchase order automatically.

Purchase Order Tracking

At the time of the writing, we didn’t see any capability of tracking purchase orders.

Pricing

1. There is an on-premise and cloud version available.
2. You have to request pricing from the sales team.

What Is Purchase Requisition Software?

A purchase requisition software automates the manual purchase requisition process. It provides employees with an easy process to create and submit purchase requisition processes.

It simplifies the purchase approval process and allows finance teams to control costs through a proactive review of the Spend.

With purchase requisition software, you have complete visibility into your Spend, allowing you to allocate your capital better. Purchase requisition software can also be referred to as purchase order software.

Key Features Of Purchase Requisition Software

A purchase requisition software automates the manual purchasing process. Here are the key features that you will find in advanced purchase requisition software.

Easy Requisition Creation

The purpose of a purchase requisition management system should not be just to automate the paper form into an electronic form.

If that is your objective, then a Google form will also do.

However, suppose your objective is to make the purchasing process easier for employees. In that case, you need to invest in a purchase requisition system that simplifies the requisition process.

How does the system do that?

1. Minimize the data entry for employees.
2. Support for punchout and internal catalogs so that employees can easily create requisitions.
3. Easy to track the status of the purchase request.

Flexible Approval Workflows

Purchase approval workflows could be complex to manage. You could have different approval limits based on the employee’s job title. You might have different routing mechanisms for different GL codes and so on.

1. The purchase requisition software should automate the purchase approval and make it easier for employees.
2. You should be able to set up a customizable workflow.
3. The system should automatically route the request based on that approval workflow.
4. You should be able to define the workflow based on the purchase location, departments, GL codes, approval thresholds, and so on.
5. If you have mobile approvals, it is much easier for managers to approve.

Supplier Quotes

Supplier quotes allow your buying team the ability to get supplier quotes quickly and find the best possible price for your Company.

This leads to better cost savings, and it is also good compliance hygiene.

You can convert an electronic purchase requisition into a quote so that you don’t have to type in the data again.

The suppliers should be able to respond easily to the supplier quotes. Once the supplier has responded, you should compare the responses side by side and select the vendor that offers the best value.

Generate Purchase Orders

A purchase requisition is just the authorization to spend the money.

But a vendor generally needs a purchase order before shipping the product unless the vendor has a website where you can place the order.

In most e-commerce sites, you can just place an order on the website.

For other vendors, you need the ability to convert a requisition into a purchase order and dispatch the purchase order to the vendor.

You don’t want to spend time creating purchase orders, so the purchase requisition system should automatically convert a purchase request into a purchase order.

The system should be able to dispatch the PO to the vendor automatically.

Purchase Order Tracking

Once you issue a purchase order to the vendor, you want the ability to track the purchase order status.

It includes the ability to track the order acknowledgment from the vendor, shipping information, and creating a receipt so that the Accounts Payable team knows that they can pay the vendor invoice.

The Bottom Line

To recap, here are the best purchase requisition  software to try this year:

1. ProcureDesk – Best for small to medium-sized business
2. Procurement Flow- Best for global companies
3. Kissflow Best for procurement process automation
4. Planergy Best for small to medium size companies
5. Fraxion – Best for property management and construction companies

 

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