20 Best Purchase Order Software in 2024

Purchase orders are essential to any business as it’s the first step in all business transactions and procurement. In the past, purchase orders were manually created, filled out, and updated, but today, purchase order software is the standard tool for such processes both for businesses large and small.

The procurement process starts with identifying the requirements of your company. In other words, what do you need for a specific project, activity, or plan? This is followed by supplier or vendor evaluation and selection. Many factors go into this selection process, and one has to weigh all options carefully before making a decision. The purchase order is then created, checked, and sent to the supplier/vendor.

This article will present the best purchase order software applications on the market today, discussing their core features and functionalities. By the end of this article, you should be able to shortlist the top procurement solutions for your needs.

Past workflows for purchase orders required manual entry of data, looking up and contacting suppliers and vendors by phone or postal mail, writing down product specifications, unit prices, and other numerical values, mailing the purchase orders, and waiting for a long time to hear back from suppliers/vendors. All of these steps are prone to errors and delays.

With the arrival of email capability, the PO workflow improved dramatically, but small to large companies found out pretty soon that a lot of manual effort was still involved in keeping track of all transactions company-wide, which became more serious when the company had many branches and subsidiaries.

These issues have allowed PO system companies to design and offer solutions that are customizable to the size of a company and the scope of its activities. Largely automated processes and handling of multiple vendors and products/services have become more manageable and less error-prone by reducing or eliminating manual data input and handling.

According to recent data, the global procurement software market size was valued at $5.5 billion in 2020. It is projected to be worth about $ 9.5 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6% from 2021 to 2028 (Verified Market Research, 2021). A similar trend has been published by Statista.com, indicating a huge growth in overall procurement software applications market revenues worldwide from 2015 to 2025.

These projected growth rates only indicate the continuous demand for a reliable and workflow-oriented PO management software solution. These and other data sources confirm the importance of choosing the best PO system software for your company’s needs.

20 Best Purchase Order Software

1. Kissflow Procurement Cloud

Kissflow Procurement Cloud is an all-in-one solution for your purchase order needs. It is cloud-based, enabling access to all data and transactions from anywhere. For all purchases, you can view and edit all purchase invoices, purchase orders, and purchase requests locally or in the cloud.

Kissflow Procurement Cloud can perform three-way matching, which is the process of cross-referencing and verifying expenses using three different documents. Utilizing the invoice, the purchase order, and the receipt to double-check values ensures accuracy and prevents any numerical errors in your company’s accounts. And you can control all these using customizable forms. It also allows for a totally paperless procurement process.

Analytics and reports can show valuable information about purchases, product and service seasonality, vendor performance and profiles, and company requirements over time and over locations. These enable you to analyze purchase data visualizations, trends, and situational needs in various branches and subsidiaries automatically, enabling you to plan and implement procurement more effectively.

Approval workflows are quite easy and efficient with this PO software system, allowing you to save time in consulting with all stakeholders, which are your management line and the supplier company’s management side. This is very handy if you make a lot of purchases from many different suppliers and vendors.

Managing all your various vendors and suppliers can be a very tedious undertaking as they are usually from different industries and various locations with their respective time zones. Therefore, enabling capabilities to manage them is essential. Kissflow Procurement Cloud allows you to perform supplier management, vendor onboarding, and vendor performance monitoring, all very useful for future strategic planning.

Best of all, you need not be in the dark about all the procurement activities going on—you can configure smart alerts and notifications to help you to be aware of all procurement-related developments at all times.

Kissflow Procurement Cloud has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan tailored to your company’s requirements.

2. GEP NEXXE

GEP NEXXE  is arguably one of the best PO software applications on the market today, which lets you integrate many processes and steps in your procurement workflow. It allows for collaborative work, including forecast collaboration for your future supply chain needs and product service availability projections, purchase order collaboration, especially among the company’s branches and various vendors/suppliers, and so on.

GEP NEXXE has a powerful digital control tower to monitor all purchase order activities, including all supply chain management activities. It is powered by AI (artificial intelligence) that can deliver actionable insights by analyzing your company purchase order transactions in real time, along with other aspects of your business. The AI software it uses relies on a very large data lake and is self-learning and self-correcting, ensuring increased accuracy as it learns more about your business and activities. With this information, the AI utilizes machine learning that allows it to perform predictive analytics and generate alerts and recommendations on courses of action once deviations or potential supply chain problems crop up.

With its integrated solutions, GEP NEXXE performs inventory and warehouse management automatically and can be scheduled to do everyday tasks automatically, too. It allows for logistics visibility where you can track all purchase orders and shipping, all the way from the supplier to intermediate shipping points along their route to your company. Supply chain management (SCM) planning and execution allow for efficient planning of manpower and resources. These are always visible to your management and account employees through dashboards and customizable reports. Supply chain visibility and execution are essential components of this platform. Supply chain collaboration can also be done among your various company branches and suppliers.

Quality management software enables quick and accurate decision-making on vendors and supply chain availability, schedules, shipping information, and enterprise-wide planning. This software platform does it all for all your company’s purchase needs.

GEP NEXXE has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

3. AvidXchange

AvidXchange is a cloud-based, complete invoicing, purchase order and payment management platform that is suitable for all businesses, especially small to medium-sized enterprises.

A big plus for this platform is the supplier portal where suppliers can find purchase orders and offer their products and invoices to your company directly—you don’t need to rely on separate platforms for contacts, POs, and payments. Its invoice accelerator allows you to pay vendors more quickly and automatically via their preferred payment methods and gateways.

Accounts payable and accounts receivable can be automatically generated, allowing you to spend manpower on more important tasks. Its bank reconciliation feature allows for a seamless integration with major banks and financial institutions to facilitate all types of payment methods, financial transactions, and monetary conversions with any vendor anywhere in the world—all working in the background with no need for any intervention on your side.

These functionalities also include the invoice application, which allows you to handle invoices and invoice payments directly from suppliers and vendors, and to generate your own invoices for your customers.

For accurate verification of accounts and numerical values, the software allows you to use either two or all purchase orders, invoices, and receipts for two-way or three-way authentication, and these can be done automatically in its modules. This reduces and even eliminates unapproved purchases, fraudulent transactions, coding and other manual errors, and unnecessary delays in your purchase orders. Eliminating multiple purchasers (usually due to manual entry errors) is done automatically by the software by matching invoices to purchase orders. Your company can also learn more about your purchasing patterns and plan accordingly for future purchases.

Other standard accounting practices such as cash management and generation of general ledgers can be done by the software. Spend management controls can help limit resource spending and maintain accurate budgets. Billing services are also included.

AvidXchange has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

4. GEP SMART

GEP SMART is a complete cloud-based system that manages more than purchase orders. Its full environment is suitable for large enterprises and small companies but is still scalable for companies that are planning for more growth and expansion. It is legacy systems-compatible while maintaining compatibility and integration with most modern software systems, allowing your company to be both flexible and robust. It is truly source and taxonomy agnostic.

GEP SMART

Try out GEP SMART with their free trial

Collaborative RFP (request for proposals) authoring allows you to get the best suppliers and vendors to offer you standardized requests for proposals, which you can directly compare and assess with automatic calculations of costs, expenses, dynamic discounting, savings opportunity finder, and potential profit. Contract authoring with the suppliers is a breeze with built-in contract intelligence capabilities, as well as a contract repository of sample contracts and all of your company’s previous contracts.

Also, supplier information management allows you to keep a record of all your suppliers and vendors in one place. Deeper than this is the ability to analyze their performance via supplier performance management tools, and the gathering and curation of supplier intelligence. Compliance tracking and reporting also help your company maintain high-quality standards. Source-to-pay integration makes it easier to pay your suppliers on time and in the correct currency. These will definitely help you choose the best suppliers or prepare backup suppliers in case of supply chain problems.

Comprehensive workflows, including purchase orders and tracking, easy registration and updates, easy requisition and purchasing, invoice management, and master data management make the software platform a complete tool for your po needs.

Auto alerts and event reminders that you can customize, set, and automate are convenient ways to remind you of scheduled appointments, purchases, product arrival, service completion times, etc., keeping you on schedule and preventing delays and miscommunication.

All these features are tied together by its Artificial intelligence (AI) integration. Good data cleansing and validation are the main success factors in AI learning and predictive analytics accuracy. These can be facilitated by the software’s powerful tools, enabling real-time analytics and suggestions regarding your entire purchase order history, as well as all your business activities. Quick-reference dashboards make it easy and intuitive to see what is going on in all aspects of your purchases.

GEP SMART has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

5. Bellwether

Bellwether is a modular cloud-based software platform for handling not just purchase orders but all aspects of your business’ workflow. Its modular nature allows users to pick and mix and match what they need. Its integration abilities with legacy and modern systems allow your company to switch databases and data sources seamlessly, with no complicated coding as everything is done transparently. Bellwether is capable of handling multiple types of invoices and contracts.

As the platform is cloud-based, online requisitions and approval process automation are its forte. One can create requisitions in free-form mode or by automatically downloading and loading information from online catalogs. Although its strength is in online operations, it supports both paper-based and paperless requisitioning. For more traditional suppliers and vendors, purchase orders can be quickly printed and sent via email or fax.

Easy transmittal of approved invoice information and single-click digital push-out of POs to vendors make the ordering process quick and convenient. Approvals can be done from any device or gadget, including conditional approval/rejection routing.

Automatic routing of requisitions, easy conversion and editing, merging or dividing requisitions into requests for quotations or POs, and monitoring of the status of requisitions can easily be done online and through printed status reports. For data validation and invoice matching, three-way matching of vendor invoices and two-way matching of shipment quantities and details ensure accurate and error-free transactions. Two-way synchronization with QuickBooks, a very popular accounting package, allows for efficient data exchange and resource monitoring.

The software’s inventory management capabilities enable you to monitor items with physical and scanner stock checks. It also allows you to set reorder points and low-inventory alerts so you can easily track and manage stock items. Monitoring of partial shipments is also possible within this platform. A very practical feature is the easy attachment of packing slips using photos taken by a smartphone or scanned images. This can help in correct identification and helps your company avoid looking for lost items or documents. It is also user-friendly as you can track the status of all orders, color-coded with basic “stoplight” colors for easy visualization.

Management reports for business analysis can also be generated to allow for a deep analysis of what is going on in your business. Historical data on all POs enables your company to analyze historical purchases and plan accordingly for future purchases. Smart vendor and material file search within the system and external data sources are also possible and easy to do.

The BPM Free plan is free (with limited capabilities), while the BPM Basic plan comes for $11/user/month, and the ePMX Enterprise plan costs $18/user/month.

6. Paramount WorkPlace

Paramount WorkPlace, now part of PairSoft, is a solutions platform for requisitions, procurement, vendor management, and expense management. It is suited to large companies with massive enterprise requirements, yet is can also be used by smaller companies through its mobile app interface.

The platform is quite capable of enterprise purchase order management and ensures secure and accurate financial transactions. Its budgeting engine and centralized invoice matching make sure you don’t have any fraudulent or duplicate orders in your system. Coupled with detailed audit reporting and check request approvals, you are sure to have only valid transactions at any given time.

It also has some good usability features such as drag-and-drop invoice attachments and punchout capabilities to facilitate transactions smoothly. Customizable questionnaires allow you to create questionnaires for just about any purpose related to your business.

As for project management, you can perform project and job cost checking in real time as your POs roll out and your suppliers ship you their products and/or offer you their services. The software’s dynamic rule and engine approval workflow allows changes in processes depending on certain rules that you program into the system, giving you a lot of flexibility while ensuring secure transactions.

Inventory and materials management is essential to most industries, especially manufacturing, retail, and heavy industries. Purchase orders are just a small part of this software platform’s capabilities. It allows for flexible general ledger distributions and guided buying catalogs, ensuring smooth management of your resources, including human labor through labor cost tracking. Requisition status monitoring can also be done internally within the platform.

One of its strongest suits is its mobile capabilities that allow mobile catalog shopping and approvals, for your employees on the go or on site in remote locations where cell phone signals are stronger.

Plus, its multi-company and inter-company purchase consolidation involving multiple currencies and multi-language documentation or locations, including its tax engine, allow your POs to be seamlessly and transparently delivered to your vendors and suppliers, especially international ones.

You can get the best proposals from the best vendors and suppliers by controlling your own request for quotation (RFQ) management, with a secure RFQ portal controlled by the software. Along with these, you would have excellent control over your vendors and suppliers via vendor approval and vendor contract management all within the system. A supplier/vendor invoice portal makes it easier to deal with them and to communicate your requirements and purchase orders.

Paramount WorkPlace has a free trial to help you pick from a range of Paramount pricing plans.

7. Procurify

Procurify is a powerful cloud-based procurement, supplier management, and supply chain management solution designed for those who have ease of use as their number one criterion. It is more than just a simple purchase order package, which is only part of its design and capabilities.

E-procurement or electronic purchase orders and order requisitions are quite easy to do using this software. It has automated approval routing, which is when specific purchase transactions are approved before they are processed. Approval thresholds can be set in advance, This allows you much flexibility in the approvals process of procurement.

Budget management and cost management are also integrated into the system, giving you much control over where the money is being spent and how much, This includes expense filing and product inventory management.

Custom modules and custom user roles can be set for whatever processes you need and whatever projects your company is planning on doing. Location-based projects are also easy to set up in this system.

Mobile approvals and mobile purchase order creation are also unique features of this software. Your employees can work remotely and make POs using only their mobile phones.

Real-time analytics reporting allows you to see what is happening in your business and enables you to make quick decisions adjusted to project parameters and market conditions. Along with this, real-time budget tracking is also very helpful to see how much money you are spending on your POs.

Vendor management can also be done with this software, making the entire process very efficient and centralized in one place.

Procurify has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

8. Precoro

Precoro is a robust procure-to-pay system that features automated purchasing, simple sourcing, and spend analytics, and is suitable for small to medium-sized enterprises.

Precoro can perform three-way matching, where it cross-references the invoice, the purchase order, and the receipt to double-check values and to ensure accuracy in your company’s accounts. Coupled with accounting software systems integration, the software is quite robust and versatile.

Automated custom approval routing, where specific purchase transactions are approved before they are processed, can be performed by this software.

For increased business profitability in the long term, blanket POs can be done in this software platform if you so require them. This is when long-term contracts are set with specific suppliers, which helps your business to efficiently order the same products or services from a single vendor at regular intervals.

On the inventory management side, receipt management is easy to do with this software. It has integrated inventory control, invoice management, and order management, linking our purchase orders to the rest of your company’s financial and inventory workflows. In addition, purchase requisitions are also included in its process integration.

For the vendor and supplier side, there are several tools you can use to control and manage them. These are the supplier’s management module, a dedicated suppliers portal, and the vendor management module. Custom reporting and delivery tracking make it easier to track all shipments and transactions. Request for proposals from your suppliers and vendors are handled internally in this portal, making it a one-stop shop for you.

Real-time budget tracking is very useful to see how your business is running and where cash flow and receivables are going. Coupled with spending analytics, you can be on top of all your financial transactions with your suppliers and vendors.

Precoro has two pricing tiers—small (up to 20 users) at $35/user/month, and large (more than 21 users), which is available by quote.

9. SAP SRM

SAP SRM is abbreviated from SAP Supplier Relationship Management. It is a software platform specifically designed for the procurement process and is, thus, highly designed for this function.

In managing your suppliers, you would need contracts and catalogs, and SAP SRM offers you centralized control of catalog management and centralized contract management. Operational and centralized sourcing is a very efficient way of searching for the right suppliers and sources of products or materials and services. The system allows you to do just that and plan-driven procurement, saving time and money. The system also enables you to perform procure-to-pay life cycle optimization, increasing your efficiency even more.

Operational reporting of all processes is available at every step of the procurement process, making your workflow clear and understandable. Workforce mobility is supported by its mobile app, allowing your employees to work remotely using their mobile devices.

Highly-specific types of procurement such as self-service procurement and services procurement for large, complex services can easily be handled by this system.

SAP SRM has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

10. Tradogram

Tradogram is a cloud-based e-procurement platform for spend management, purchasing, and all types of procurement processes. With its purchase-to-pay software model, Tradogram automatically handles all aspects of procurement from the initial purchase of goods up to payment to the vendor.

On the inventory side, complete and automated inventory control allows you the freedom to do other more important tasks. Invoice reconciliation handles checking for incorrect or fraudulent records of transactions, minimizing errors. Tracking all your costs and financial transactions is made easy by its spend analysis and budget tracking features.

Contract management and order management are all performed smoothly for all your suppliers and vendors. These include RFQs/RFPs (request for quotations/ request for proposals) that you issue to all of them when you have particular requirements for your projects. Strategic sourcing can easily be done with the right databases of suppliers and vendors at your fingertips.

Process automation includes approval routing so you can work earlier, delivery tracking for keeping everything on schedule, order requisitions, and sales and order management.

Project management is also integrated with this platform software. Custom reporting can be done with many customization options, which is true for the entire platform.

The software has a free trial and a variety of Tradogram pricing packages.

11. Oracle Procurement Cloud

Oracle Procurement Cloud is a complete cloud-based system that allows you to have a powerful procurement system that is accessible through the web.

Standard functions include the generation and implementation of procurement contracts with suppliers and vendors in one centralized location. Purchasing and self-service procurement are easy to do using this software, enabling you to have more time for other tasks.

On the supplier and vendor side, you can efficiently choose the best suppliers and products through sourcing. The supplier portal allows suppliers to fill in all relevant data about their companies and products or services. To save time on choosing the right supplier, Oracle Procurement Cloud has a supplier qualification management module that does just that.

Oracle Procurement Cloud has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

12. SellerCloud

SellerCloud is an ecommerce solution dedicated to helping online retailers, which contains procurement software functionalities.

It allows multichannel operations, taking advantage of various channels to grow your business.

Among its functionalities are purchasing, inventory management, managing purchase orders, and accounting. These are pretty standard and represent a comprehensive set of solutions for your PO needs.

Handling and tracking shipping details are quite straightforward for this software. Single entry catalogs make finding supplies and products quite straightforward.

It can also generate useful reports that are fully customizable.

Its Webservice APIs allow you to write your own code or incorporate existing platforms and apps into the platform’s cloud hosting, integrating seamlessly with your system.

SellerCloud has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that can be tailored to your company’s requirements.

13. IBM Emptoris

IBM Emptoris is a suite of products that includes analytics software for procurement. It incorporates supply chain operations management, contract management, and spend management.

On the contract management side, the suite allows you to manage contracts with suppliers at all stages, including contract creation, execution, and discovery. Contract management also includes contract renegotiation and renewals.

In addition, IBM Emptoris has robust performance monitoring and analysis tools, enhancing your workflows with automation and accurate recommendations.

IBM Emptoris has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

14. PayEm

PayEm is a platform that is used to handle financial processes, from request to reconciliation. This platform includes procurement functionalities.

Accounts payable or AP automation is fully implemented in Payem and saves you time through automation. Auto-categorization is a very handy feature to help in planning great procurement category strategies.

Bank integration allows you to seamlessly accept various payment methods, with automatic currency conversion functions. Fund transfers and payment scheduling are smooth and transparent since the software does things well in the back end. Invoice and request capture allows for accurate and quicker automation. Real-time reporting is a great feature that allows you to make quick decisions.

Budget management is an integral function of the software. You can create custom approval flow automation schemes for your various needs and projects, and to be always on top of things with digital receipt management and expense reporting. Spend management allows you to control your spending budget to keep things always in line. Physical and digital corporate cards can also be enabled using this software.

ERP synchronization and integration is a key feature that allows you to make your other software platforms and all your workflows work with the system. Furthermore, it has a native mobile app that allows your employees to remotely work.

PayEm has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

15. Coupa

Coupa is a cloud-based spend management solution that gives users control of all their business expenditures with a variety of features, including a procurement system functionality.

The procurement system consists of several functions, including control of budgeting and expenses. This allows you to stay under budget and minimize unnecessary expenditures, increasing the company’s bottom line.

Control of your product inventory allows for efficient planning and reordering. Invoicing features are pretty standard and are a necessary part of the procurement process.

Multi-ERP integration allows your company to use other systems along with this platform to integrate all your workflows.

You can design your own storefront for all aspects of your company business, not just procurement.

Procurement functions are also pretty standard features, including sourcing capabilities. Supplier information management under one system is quite convenient and allows you to efficiently manage all stages of supplier relationships, including contract life cycle management.

Analytics can give you valuable information about all stages of the procurement process.

Coupa has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan adapted to your company’s requirements.

16. eBuy

eBuy is an online ordering platform specifically catering to companies interested in purchasing common office, lab, and computer supplies. It was developed by the University of California–Berkeley Campus. eBuy offers access to Berkeley Lab’s online catalog of products and suppliers, most of which are small businesses or small business suppliers.

It is suitable for small business programs, providing a supplier corner, and materials for training and resources.

As probably the simplest platform on this list, eBuy allows users to make online purchases through sustainable procurement. It also can perform property management functions. It has a regulatory resource center for inventory control and management.

eBuy has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

17. EazyStock

EazyStock is a cloud-based inventory management and optimization platform that also has procurement and purchase order capabilities. Inventory optimization can be done by monitoring product stocks and reordering when needed, all automatically done by the software, including replenishment execution.

It has features useful for demand forecasting, and adjusting for seasonality effects. This is a very useful tool for planning out strategies and future directions for your company.

ERP integration allows you to combine your existing software systems with EazyStock for seamless workflow integration. Multi-Location planning is easy to do using this platform.

Supplier management is also a breeze, allowing for a more efficient workflow when doing your purchase orders.

Reports and KPIs are quite informative and are generated automatically, allowing you to get an immediate situation analysis for quick decision-making.

EazyStock has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

18. Manugics

Manugics is a cloud-based e-procurement software. Being essentially a pure e-procurement platform, it has three features worth noting. First is the supplier management feature, which allows for efficient supplier and product searches for your company’s needs.

It also has an excellent spend management function to help you keep your costs down and to stay within budget. Also, internal data validation is done to ensure error-free transactions.

Its reports and analytics features help you view real-time procurement data, including supplier and shipping details so you can track your products through the shipping route.

Manugics has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that can be tailored to your company’s requirements.

19. Intoweb

Intoweb is a procurement management system that can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise. It is also one of the few purely procurement-based software on this list. Intoweb automates many processes in online procurement and purchase orders, saving you time and money, and increasing employee efficiency.

It also helps you to do better planning and forecasting to help your company in its procurement activities and schedules, and in stabilizing inventory by predicting inventory levels and replenishing accordingly.

If you are working on a tight budget, Intoweb helps you to plan out all procurement activities and costing, making sure you stay under budget and that your employees work efficiently.

Supplier comparison and management can be performed with the software, allowing you to find the most cost-effective supplier and products that meet your needs.

Intoweb has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan that the vendor would be happy to talk to you about.

20. Wroffy

Wroffy is an IT products and services procurement platform, differing from the others on this list in terms of its focus (entirely on IT products).

Wroffy provides you with a dedicated account manager to help guide you through all the steps of the procurement process and its IT services.

Included in the products and supplies it provides are hardware (printers, scanners, routers, PCs, etc.).

For its IT solutions and services, it provides systems integration, cloud applications, e-mail platforms, networking, etc.) and some specific software license options.

Wroffy has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

• Dedicated Account Manager
• Hardware (Printers, Scanners, Routers, PCs, etc.)
• IT Solutions and Services (System Integrations, Cloud Applications, Email, Networking, etc,)
• Software License Options

Wroffy has a free trial that you can avail of. It also has a quote-based plan depending on your needs.

Choosing the Best Purchase Order Software

As companies navigate the modern world of increased competition, reliance on manual purchase order processing will be eventually supplanted by software. The products on this list of the best purchase order software are just a few of the increasing number of software platforms that can handle purchase orders efficiently.

Take note, too, that PO management software is mostly incorporated into total solutions and platforms, so narrowing down your choice of PO software will also largely depend on its support software and hardware infrastructure.

For small and medium companies, enterprise systems are no longer sourced purely from the same software vendor—they tend to keep legacy systems as part of their workflows for years, and the ease and ability of a PO software system to be integrated as part of a software environment are also quite important. Most APIs handle this quite well, and you might need to factor in additional programming and coding to get disparate systems to communicate and work together seamlessly.

Once you have a purchase order software system in place, you can reap the benefits of better cost control and spend management.

By Louie Andre

B2B & SaaS market analyst and senior writer for FinancesOnline. He is most interested in project management solutions, believing all businesses are a work in progress. From pitch deck to exit strategy, he is no stranger to project business hiccups and essentials. He has been involved in a few internet startups including a digital route planner for a triple A affiliate. His advice to vendors and users alike? "Think of benefits, not features."