When shopping and comparing purchase order systems, small businesses should consider the following:

• The available vendor and punchout catalogs. Does the PO system integrate with the vendors and sites you typically shop with? 

• Available features. Determine what you need from a software system by thinking about the processes or workflows you want it to support. Many PO systems offer AP automation and invoice management because procurement and accounts payable teams often work hand in hand. If you want the full system (to support the purchase order process through invoicing and payment), you will want to watch for these features. 

• Usability. How user-friendly is the system? You don’t want some super complicated software that takes forever to set up and even longer to learn and train others. Ease of use is necessary for fast, smooth adoption. 

• Scalability. Can you add new catalogs as you go? What about users? What are the fees as you grow? 

• Pricing. On a similar note as scalability, check out the available packages and pricing options. Some brands offer several packages you must upgrade between when you want to add catalogs or users or access a particular feature. Others have more straightforward pricing, so you’re not doing mental gymnastics comparing plans and constantly switching. 

So, we put together this guide with six popular PO systems for small businesses that check the boxes above and: 

• Support procurement processes, PO management, and procure-to-pay workflows.

• Are easy to use and scalable.

• Offer simple, affordable pricing.  

We start by reviewing our P2P system, ProcureDesk, and then we cover five alternative options. At the end, we answer a few FAQs about the PO process.

Best Purchase Order System for Small Businesses

1. ProcureDesk
2. Spendwise
3. Tradogram
4. Tipalti Procurement
5. Precoro
6. Kissflow

1. ProcureDesk

User-Friendly PO Management & AP Automation System That Grows with You

ProcureDesk is an all-in-one system for managing procurement, purchasing, and AP processes. Our P2P platform is highly customizable and scalable, so we can configure it around your requirements as you grow.

Here’s a quick summary of how it works: 

• Procurement teams create a controlled shopping environment so other users in the organization can shop with approved vendors within the preset budgets and guidelines. 

• Our system reviews purchase requests, automatically approves, denies, or routes them for review, then converts PRs to purchase orders and dispatches POs to vendors. 

• Procurement teams and purchasers can see active POs, communicate with vendors about orders, and track purchases through fulfillment and shipping. 

• Purchasers can share receipts, confirm they’ve received items, and note the order condition.

• AP teams can centralize invoicing, automate the matching and reconciliation process, and sync invoices with accounting systems for payment. 

We offer free white glove onboarding for fast set-up and adoption; we’ll help you connect with vendors and create custom catalogs, set budgets and approval trees, and learn the ins and outs of the PO tracking and reporting tools. 

Then, our team can assist you anytime you need to make changes to the platform (e.g., adding vendors or users, changing settings or integrations). 

We offer two packages — Procurement Automation and the full P2P solution — so you can choose the plan that makes sense for you. (We also provide add-on modules and custom enterprise plans to support you as you grow.)

The Purchasing Process

ProcureDesk simplifies the purchasing process for both procurement teams and those in the organization requesting items. It gives others greater freedom to shop with vendors at their leisure and frees up procurement teams’ time as they only have to review orders that require their attention. 

Here’s how this works: 

Procurement teams can create a “shopping hub” where others in the organization can see all approved vendors and websites where they can shop. Users select who they want to shop with, and the product catalog or vendor site opens directly in ProcureDesk for them to browse items and build their shopping carts (so there’s little to no learning curve for purchasers).  

Our platform connects with over 150 vendor catalogs and offers convenient punchout catalogs with popular sites like Amazon, Staples, Office Depot, Thermo Fisher, and more. 

During set-up, procurement teams add budgets and purchasing guidelines to control spending and limit what users can order with company money. You can control budgets in various ways (by vendor, product category, department, individual, project, etc.), so we’ll show you how to set and change these during onboarding. 

The next step is to create purchase request forms (we have over 20 product order templates to get you started). Procurement teams can design these for different user groups or types of purchases to gather more details about the order request. Why do you need the items? What will they be used for? 

These forms automatically populate when users submit shopping carts so they know what information they need to provide for orders to be approved. 

Then, our system steps in to support the purchase approval process. It reviews each purchase request and: 

• Automatically approves orders within budgets and guidelines. 

• Denies orders that exceed budgets or don’t adhere to guidelines. 

• Routes orders that require review to procurement team member(s). 

Then, we send notifications to the right procurement team members when new orders are ready for review. To prevent bottlenecks, we offer omnichannel approval tools so users can approve PRs from the ProcureDesk dashboard, mobile apps, email, or even Slack.

Our system also sends notifications to purchasers to let them know if orders are approved or denied; they can then track purchases through shipping in the same way procurement managers can, so they don’t have to message or email for updates. (More on this in the next section.)

After purchases are approved, our system automatically converts purchase requests to purchase orders and sends POs to vendors. Then, procurement managers can see all POs and their status from the main dashboard. 

Take a look at the quick clip of the PR to PO flow below: 

PO Management & Tracking 

From the dashboard mentioned above, procurement managers can track POs — all the way until they receive purchases — and monitor real-time spending. They can also check the details of automatically approved orders to stay “in the know” about all company spending. 

Vendors can hop into ProcureDesk to provide status updates on POs. 

Specifically, they can: 

• Acknowledge POs so you know they’re received.

• Comment with procurement managers about order fulfillment — perhaps items are back-ordered, or other delays hold up order processing and shipping. 

• Provide expected ship dates and tracking numbers. 

Purchasers can view their existing orders, PO status, and remaining budgets from their main dashboards. And remember, they can also see vendor updates to know when to expect orders. 

Receipt Management 

ProcureDesk also includes a receipt management feature that benefits purchasers, procurement, and accounts payable. 

• Procurement teams can verify purchases are received and/or rectify order issues with vendors. 

• AP teams can access order receipts to reconcile invoices for payment. 

This feature is super user-friendly for purchasers, and our system will even remind users to upload receipts (via notification and email) so they don’t forget. 

The process only involves three steps: 

• Upload a photo or digital copy of the receipt. 

• Confirm the item quantity is correct.

• Note the order condition (i.e., if any items are missing or damaged) 

And voila! Now you see how ProcureDesk supports the purchasing process.

Reporting & Spend Management

ProcureDesk also includes a variety of spend analysis reports so you can see: 

• Total spending (across different timeframes).

• Which suppliers you spend the most with.

• Which items are purchased most often.

• Which departments or individuals require most budget. 

• Times of year spending increases or decreases.

This helps you understand more about spending patterns and budgetary requirements so you can: 

• Pinpoint the best vendors to establish contracts with. 

• Negotiate better rates on commonly purchased items and enjoy longer payment terms.  

• See where to renegotiate existing contracts for better cost savings. 

• Reallocate budgets to ensure all departments have the funds to cover their essential spending. 

Note: Establishing vendor relationships — and constantly re-evaluating those relationships for better cost savings — is crucial for small businesses to grow effectively. They can procure items they typically buy and use at lower rates and keep costs low as purchasing requirements increase. (More on this below.) 

ProcureDesk’s AP Automation Suite

As mentioned before, many procurement software solutions also offer AP automation because procurement and accounts payable teams work together to manage POs and invoices. 

ProcureDesk offers a complete P2P package — with our AP automation suite — to help teams manage and track POs through payment. 

Here’s a quick look at how it works: 

• Accounts payable teams can centralize invoicing with ProcureDesk. Our system offers e-invoicing, allows teams to establish vendor portals, integrates with email accounts, and supports paper uploads. 

• Our system uses optical character recognition (OCR) to extract important invoice information — like headers and line items. It can also detect and merge duplicate invoices at this stage. 

• Then, three-way match technology sources the corresponding PO and receipt to reconcile the invoice. 

• Our system flags invoices with discrepancies — for example, if the receipt notes order issues or the system detects an invoice without a matching PO — and routes them to a member of the AP team for troubleshooting. (So they don’t have to spend time matching every invoice but rather focus on the ones that require attention.)

• Our system automatically pushes matched and approved invoices to your ERP or accounting system for final payment. The invoice status updates once invoices are paid to avoid repeat work. 

Our system integrates with QuickBooks, Sage, NetSuite, Xero, Bill.com, and more. 

Pricing & Getting Started

We offer two packages and custom enterprise plans: 

• Our Purchasing Automation plan ($518/per month) includes tools to support the purchasing process, PO and receipt management, and spend analysis reports.  

• Our full P2P solution ($850/per month) includes all procurement and AP automation tools. 

Note: By opting for an annual subscription, you can save 20%. 

Both packages include ten user seats (you can add more as you need), free white-glove onboarding, and dedicated support. 

In addition to our packages, we offer a handful of add-on modules to customize ProcureDesk as you grow. These include: 

• Expense Reports — to sync with credit card accounts, generate expense reports, and manage reimbursements. 

• Vendor Contracts — to manage all vendor contracts in a single repository. Our system will send notifications about contract renewals so you can renew, renegotiate rates, or opt-out. 

• Inventory Management — to keep track of your inventory and avoid duplicate purchases. 

2. Spendwise

Spendwise offers a nice entry-level PO system and spend management tool for small businesses. The platform provides various tools for procurement teams and a few AP automation features to support invoicing workflows. 

This tool is popular for small teams because it’s easy to use and offers affordable pricing. The system automates key procurement workflows and makes purchasing easy for end users. It provides proactive spend controls, real-time budget tracking, and a reporting dashboard to review spending habits. 

However, Spendwise may not be the most scalable; it lacks tools to manage supplier relationships and a full AP automation suite, and users report the platform features, like reporting, are limited. Therefore, it’s best suited for small teams — with less than 50 users — that only want the essentials for PO management. 

Features 

• Purchase order management
• Basic supplier management
• Budgets & approvals 
• Spend management 
• Bills & expenses (to manage, match, and pay supplier invoices)
• Receiving (to receive on goods & services after delivery) 
• User permissions 

Pricing 

Spendwise offers a Basic plan, Pro package, and custom enterprise plans — but most users will want to select the Pro package because it supports unlimited transactions and grants access to features like punchout catalogs and accounting integrations. 

Spendwise does not display exact pricing on its site — you have to request a quote for more details — but the site says plans start at $9/user/month.  

3. Tradogram

Tradogram is another popular tool for small teams. It attracts small businesses with a free package to test the platform and an affordable paid plan to upgrade afterward. The platform offers a robust feature set to support both procurement and AP processes; it includes punchout catalogs with popular sites, vendor management, budget controls, automated invoice matching, and more. 

Tradogram’s platform is also very scalable. The paid plan includes all of Tradogram’s core features, supports unlimited catalogs and transactions, and lets you add 19 users — you only need to upgrade to a custom package when you want to add seats or customize the platform further.

The only note is that Tradogram’s platform is a little tricky to set up and learn. They offer one-on-one implementation options, but those come at an extra fee unless you opt for an enterprise plan. Reviewers note that the platform features are somewhat limited, the UI is clunky, and they experience occasional bugs or glitches with the software.     

Features 

• Custom catalogs
• Punchout catalogs
• Unlimited number of suppliers & catalogs
• Purchase requisition management 
• Purchase order management
• Budgeting & spend management 
• Approval routing
• Vendor management 
• Project management 
• Inventory management
• Expense management 
• AP automation tools 
• Invoice tracking
• Two- and three-way invoice matching
• Accounting integrations 
• Reporting dashboard

Pricing 

Tradogram offers a free plan, which is appealing to small businesses, but this plan limits users to five transactions per month, so we suggest opting for the Premium plan. 

Tradogram’s Premium plan is $168/month and supports up to 19 users. It includes purchase requisition management, PO management, approval automation, accounting features, reporting, and Tradogram’s other advanced tools. 

You can opt for a custom enterprise plan if you need more than 20 user seats. These plans include one-on-one implementation, a dedicated account manager, custom reporting, and other customization options.   

4. Tipalti Procurement

Tipalti is a commonly known brand that offers procurement and AP automation software. (It’s more known for its accounts payable solutions but now offers procurement automation, too.) 

Tipalti is popular because: 

• They offer a variety of finance automation solutions for small businesses — so you can find everything you need to manage purchase workflows and PO processes, monitor spending, automate invoicing, send mass payments, and report on business expenses. 

• All their software solutions are modern, intuitive, and easy to learn.

• Their solutions are available at affordable prices. 

Tipalti Procurement lets you create custom purchase request forms and approval workflows, automate PO creation and dispatching, and manage supplier contracts. It also includes spend reports and integrations with other accounting systems. 

This module is only available in their Elite plan — which includes Tipalti’s AP automation software — so small businesses can use Tipalti as a complete P2P solution.  

Features 

• Purchase request management 
• Automated approval workflows
• Purchase order management
• Supplier management
• Contract management 
• Reporting dashboard for spend analysis 
• Integrations with accounting software & other business applications

Pricing 

Tipalti does not publicly share pricing for its Elite plan; however, it historically offers more inexpensive rates. If you’re interested in Tipalti, you’ll have to contact the team for a quote. 

5. Precoro

Moving further down our list, we get into options for smaller but growing businesses. Precoro is typically recommended for growing teams because: 

• It has an expansive P2P toolset to create a controlled shopping hub, automate purchase order approvals, manage invoicing, and enable collaboration between procurement, purchasers, AP, and vendors. 

• It offers multi-location and multi-currency features to support teams operating in different regions. 

• It integrates with various business applications, such as messaging tools like Slack, spreadsheet systems like Excel, and accounting software like QuickBooks.

• It’s user-friendly and easy to set up and learn. They offer dedicated onboarding to help you get started. 

• Pricing is fixed by user, so you can access all of Precoro’s features and only pay when you need to add seats. 

Users note Precoro’s ease of use and time-saving features, and many praise its powerful reporting functionality. 

The notable downsides are that Precoro is slightly more expensive — compared to other PO systems for small businesses — and the software isn’t super scalable, as it limits the number of catalogs you can add. Users also report trouble managing partial invoices and difficulty searching for documents in the system. 

Features 

• Vendor integrations 
• Punchout catalogs (up to 2)
• Purchase requisition management
• Approval workflows
• Purchase order management
• Spend management 
• Supplier management
• Inventory management
• Reporting dashboard
• AP automation tools
• PO, invoice & receipt management
• Three-way invoice matching
• Accounting integrations

Pricing 

Precoro offers three plans: 

• The Core plan starts at $249/month and includes advanced procurement tools, vendor and contract management, budget-tracking, accounting integrations, and reporting. 

• The Automation plan includes Precoro’s full procure-to-pay feature set and starts at $999/month. 

• They also offer individually tailored plans for scaling and enterprise teams.  

6. Kissflow

The last option on our list, Kissflow Procurement Cloud, is unique in that it’s a low-code, highly adaptable purchase order management system. Small businesses with complex PO processes or approval workflows that need a customizable solution may like Kissflow. 

Kissflow’s Procurement Cloud is part of Kissflow’s wider software ecosystem. Kissflow, broadly, is a workflow automation software provider with modules to support various business processes (IT, HR, developers, etc.). 

Kissflow may not be every small business’s first choice due to the complexity of set-up and pricing, but it can be worth the investment if you: 

• Need workflow automation for other areas of business and want an all-in-one solution.

• Want to create a customized procurement management system with unique dashboards, reports, functionality, and integrations.

• Want a highly scalable solution you can adapt to your processes and requirements. 

The Procurement Cloud includes features to set approved vendors, budgets, and purchasing guidelines; automate approval flows; monitor real-time spending and analyze budgets; manage vendors; and keep track of inventory. It also includes AP automation tools to manage invoicing workflows. 

Features 

• e-Procurement (including assisted buying)
• Hosted & punchout catalogs
• Purchase requisition management
• Purchase order management
• Budget tracking 
• Contract & vendor management
• Strategic sourcing
• Inventory management
• AP automation (including three-way matching)
• QuickBooks accounting integration 
• Webhooks & API
• Mobile apps
• Reporting 

Pricing 

Kissflow’s Basic package supports internal users and simple use cases. It starts at $1500/month, but pricing depends on user seats and transaction volume. 

Kissflow also offers an Enterprise package that supports internal and external users and complex use cases. They offer custom pricing for this package. 

FAQs

The sections below answer common questions about the purchase order process and PO systems. 

What are the seven steps to creating a PO system for small businesses?

1. Understand your needs: Know what you want to track and automate.
   
   
2. Choose software: Find a tool that fits your budget and workflow.
   
   
3. Design purchase forms: Customize what info you capture.
   
   
4. Map the process: Define steps from request to payment.
   
   
5. Set roles and permissions: Control who can do what.
   
   
6. Implement & test: Train users and iron out any kinks.
   
   
7. Track & improve: Monitor performance and refine your system.

How do you create a purchase order number system?

Creating a purchase order number system is simple. You set up the sequence in your purchase order system, and the system generates that for you. For example, all purchase orders should start at 1000, and so on.

How do you optimize your procurement workflow?

Here are four tips to optimize your procurement workflow:

• Centralize: Gather all your purchasing data in one place for better visibility and control over spending.

• Standardize: Define clear processes and guidelines to ensure consistency and efficiency across your team.

• Automate: Free time and reduce errors by automating repetitive tasks like approvals and data entry.

• Analyze: Track your spending and identify areas for improvement with regular data analysis.

Focusing on these areas can streamline your procurement workflow, save time and money, and make smarter purchasing decisions.

What are the benefits of a PO system for small businesses?

A purchase order system automates the manual purchasing process for your procurement team.

When companies implement purchase order management software, they eliminate the paperwork for purchasing a product or service.

A PO system automates the entire process from requisitions, approval, PO creation, and order tracking.

A purchase order software offers the following benefits for a small business:

• It provides a single place to track all purchase orders. You can track what is being purchased, your order history, and your historical pricing for an item.

• It saves time and improves productivity. By skipping the manual purchase process and using purchase order software, you can set approval rules and automation workflows that route the PO to the right people for authorization. This limits the manual back and forth in the entire purchasing process.

• It improves budget controls. Because of the advanced features of a PO system, it becomes easier for your team to track your spending against budgets. You can also receive alerts when you’re nearing your limit. With the correct management of purchase orders, your business stays on top of finances and avoids overspending.

• It helps the finance team with better cash flow planning, as they can set proactive spend controls and know what expenses to budget for.

• It simplifies vendor communication. A PO system makes it easier to share POs, other binding contracts, and other contract purchases with vendors electronically, making it more convenient to track communication in one place!

What are the four types of purchase orders?

There are four most common types of purchase orders used in a business:

• Standard Purchase Orders (SPO): Purchase orders are the most common type of PO. They are used for one-time purchases of specific goods and services that your business needs. When using them, you must include all the necessary details, such as item descriptions, quantities, prices, delivery dates, email addresses, payment terms, etc.

• Planned Purchase Orders (PPO): Planned purchase orders are similar to SPOs but have an unknown delivery date. PPOs are used for items expected to be needed in the future, but the exact timing is uncertain and not necessarily a preferred time.

• Blanket Purchase Orders (BPO): BPOs, also known as standing orders, are agreements with your vendors for future purchases within your preferred time frame.

• Contract Purchase Orders (CPO): A contract purchase order establishes the terms and conditions of an ongoing relationship with a vendor rather than for a specific purchase. This type of purchase order may not include details about individual items or prices but will outline the overall agreement between a buyer and a seller.

Why should I use purchase orders?

You probably won’t need a purchase order process in the beginning. You can always use a credit card for purchases, place orders directly on a vendor’s website, and enjoy the 1.5% cashback!

However, as your business scales and more employees start requesting items, you’ll need to provide them with credit cards or place the orders yourself. 

Unfortunately, spend cards aren’t the best at controlling employee purchases, and placing each order yourself is a time-consuming, cumbersome process. Plus, as you start opening lines of credit with vendors, almost all will request purchase order forms.

You can use an accounting system like Quickbooks to create and send POs, but this manual data entry can still be a hassle. Almost every business owner reaches a point where the cost of investing in PO software outweighs the cost of manually managing the entire purchase order process. You’ll need purchasing software to scale your business and increase your bottom line.