Procure-to-pay cycles involve many different steps and processes. To ensure that said processes run efficiently, your business needs to use the right procure-to-pay software solution.
With an efficient SaaS solution, businesses can save time and effort on procurement, while ensuring that their procurement systems are adding value to their core business competencies.
With numerous procurement software providers out there, finding the right solution for your business can be tricky.
Follow this guide to help you understand what procurement software comprises and compare some of the top software solutions available in the market.
A procure-to-pay software digitizes and manages all the processes involved in the procure-to-pay cycle.
Procure-to-pay software solutions cover all aspects from purchasing to supplier management, making each step of the process transparent and easy to manage.
With the right procure-to-pay software implemented, organizations can streamline their procurement operations through a single centralized procurement tool.
This saves time, money, and resources, while maximizing procurement efficiency.
This software automates time-consuming data entry tasks, reduces the risk of human error, and offers greater visibility throughout the procurement cycle.
Here are four of the most important software solutions to consider when choosing your procure-to-pay platform.
These solutions apply to different processes within the procure-to-pay cycle.
Software for purchase requisitions helps organizations monitor and manage the status of purchase requests during the procure-to-pay process.
The software allows to raise and process internal purchase requests, get the necessary approvals, and forward these requests to the procurement department.
This software uses various features to capture purchase requests, have these requests approved, and stay on top of created purchase requests.
With the right software solution, generating and handling purchase requests becomes a faster and simpler process.
Purchase order software solutions help businesses to easily manage and stay on top of the status of purchase orders during the procure-to–pay cycle.
This software is capable of processing purchase requisitions and using this information to create purchase orders. It obtains approvals from relevant users configured in the system, and sends these purchase orders directly to suppliers.
With the right procure-to-pay platforms, you can automatically issue and generate purchase orders from any purchase requests that have been approved.
The software will also keep organizations up to date with the status of purchase orders. It also carefully documents the cost and purchasing terms and keeps track of delivery of goods and fulfillment of placed orders.
A big part of any procure-to-pay cycle is supplier management. With the right procure- to-pay software, the way that organizations work with suppliers can be completely optimized.
Supplier management software can help procurement teams efficiently onboard new suppliers, maintain strategic relations with them, and manage all suppliers through a single, centralized platform.
This software can carefully store confidential supplier information while providing greater insights into supplier data and their performance.
With access to up-to-date supplier data, organizations can easily make strategic decisions concerning sourcing and managing of suppliers.
Supplier management solutions monitor every aspect of supplier performance. This includes whether the supplier is keeping up with their contractual obligations, what quality of products they’re supplying etc.
With an automated supplier management software, you can set up workflows to monitor and maintain contractual compliance. If any issues arise, they will be identified relatively easily.
Procure-to-pay software with invoice management abilities cover every stage of the invoicing process. This includes processing supplier invoices, approving them, and securely storing all invoices.
The software can also automatically match invoices against respective purchase orders and order receipts. This makes it a lot easier to stay on top of the invoicing cycle.
With an advanced procure-to-pay software, you can also systematically manage shipping costs and taxes applicable to purchase orders and invoices.
This helps organizations achieve greater accuracy in processing supplier payments while saving time in manual invoice checking.
There are many different processes involved in the procure-to-pay cycle. While you can choose individual solutions for each sub-process, the best procure-to-pay software takes an all-in-one approach.
This means that your entire procurement process can be digitized with one tool. This results in more efficient and strategic procurement that saves your business time, money, and resources.
With a fully integrated procure-to-pay solution, businesses can manage the complete procurement process from a single platform and be kept abreast with all purchasing activities through a centralized dashboard.
A cloud-based tool like Proqura makes sourcing, purchasing, and gaining real-time procurement insights a breeze for business executives.
Here are a few features that your procure-to-pay management software should offer:
The software solution should be intuitive and easy-to-use, offering clear insights on your procurement activities.
The best software solutions have a reporting and analytics feature to help you make more informed strategic decisions.
Use the procurement software to automate separate processes based on the specific needs of your organization.
The software should be able to automatically 3- way match invoices with purchase orders and received goods to save time and improve data accuracy.
A well-developed procure-to-pay solution simplifies requisitioning and ordering while keeping your spend under check.
For improved competitive bidding that saves your business time and money, a procurement software should be able to generate automated comparison tables to make it easy for the buyer to compare the different prices and terms offered by suppliers.
Here is a breakdown of four of the best procure-to-pay software solutions:
Proqura is an intuitive cloud-based procurement solution that covers your entire procure-to-pay cycle.
This software digitizes the complete procurement process and helps save time by automating repetitive tasks and subsequently, lowering operational costs.
With Proqura, your business can gain full visibility of your procurement spend and have access to powerful supplier management, reporting, and catalog management modules among others.
Proqura is an ideal solution to help businesses of all scales and sizes optimize their procurement operations. It simplifies sourcing and purchasing to eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks and improve the efficiency of the procure-to-pay cycle.
Coupa is another procure-to-pay solution that manages transactions for businesses across the supply chain, procurement, and finance functions. It’s a simple and effective tool to manage procurement spend.
Businesses can use Coupa to automate manual procurement processes and keep electronic records of all purchases.
This software covers requisitions, approvals, purchasing, budgets, and invoices.
Gep Smart is a cloud-based tool that covers the end-to-end procure-to-pay process. You can use Gep Smart to create a detailed spend analysis and assess room for opportunities and growth.
The tool is useful for project management and planning, sourcing, contract management, handling suppliers, invoicing, purchasing, and more.
This software covers mainly everything you need to automate your procurement cycle, save time, and make smarter business decisions.
Fraxion is another procure-to-pay suite that covers a wide range of procurement processes.
The software helps you with purchase requisitioning and approvals, expense management, spend analysis, and accounts payable automation.
Businesses that use Fraxion will still have to put in a fair amount of work to issue purchase orders and manage suppliers. However, this solution makes it easier to track and optimize business spend, get relevant approvals, and carry out time-consuming accounts payable tasks.
Implementing effective procure-to-pay solutions will help you to standardize your procurement operations.
Since procurement plays a critical role in any business, choosing the right software for your company will make a huge impact in boosting productivity, saving time and money, and creating opportunities for increased efficiency.
Proqura offers you an intelligent solution that simplifies sourcing and purchasing to eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks and increase the overall efficiency of the procure-to-pay cycle.
Contact us for more information or speak to one of our product specialists to help you get started.
