The Best 8 Free and Open Source Procurement Software

All businesses need resources to run their operations and achieve their strategic vision. But procuring them in an efficient and easy manner is one of the main concerns for any business. Procurement is the business activity that identifies and sources those external resources via a systematic and competitive process. In simple words, procurement is a process of acquiring goods and services for your business in an optimal way. Procurement is not a recently developed concept. The word procurement itself comes from the Latin pro+curare. Pro means ‘on behalf of’ and curare means to 'take care of.' It had roots in the ancient period when development activities started in the world. The earliest instances of procurement can be found in Egyptian history, dating back to 3000 B.C.

In modern times, the role of procurement is going through a transformation from a clerical level to a more strategic and management one. Today, procurement covers all the systematic phases by which companies procure goods and services for their business needs.  With billions of dollars spent on infrastructure projects undertaken by the governments and the corporate giants around the world, procurement has undeniably become a very important business function to ensure consistency in the business functioning. As the procurement process is a complicated one, the modern approach is to take advantage of the software tools available in the market to simplify it. Businesses can use procurement software to enhance the speed of their procurement process and transform this complex and chaotic process into a simplified and organized one. The procurement software ensures that the purchase of goods and services are of the right quality, quantity, price, place, and time.

What is Procurement?

In the 18th century, the industrial revolution led to the rise of a particular labor section known as the ‘material men’ who had skills to procure material from the suppliers. Further, the role and the status of people involved in procurement got elevated during the World War periods, as there was a constant need to procure military equipment, and people with skills to negotiate the procurement process globally were sought after by the government authorities.  

The UNGM (United Nations Global Marketplace) defines procurement as “The acquisition through purchase or lease of real property, goods or other products (including intellectual property), works or services." It generally involves purchasing through a competitive bidding process. There are two types of procurement- Direct procurement and Indirect procurement. Direct procurement involves buying the raw material needed for operational purposes. It is generally bought in bulk quantities. Indirect Procurement involves buying repair parts, operating supplies, services, etc. for tactical and strategic purposes. It is generally bought in low quantities. 

What is the procurement life cycle?

The procurement life cycle is a series of phases that are involved in purchasing goods and services for a business. The cycle starts with the identification of resources needed for all business units and ends with monitoring the performances of the supplied goods and services. In all phases, complete records are maintained of the contracts, bidding process, invoices and supplier credentials to ensure transparency and smooth execution of the procurement process. The below chart denotes the steps involved in the procurement life-cycle: 

What is Procurement Software?

Procurement software is an application suite that enables businesses to ease, optimize, automate, and manage their procurement cycle and purchasing functions. The main function of this software is to expedite the procurement process and ensure the regular supply of goods and services at the lowest prices. By creating a centralized system for purchase, requisition, auction and bidding, contract management, spend and budget management, supplier management, and invoicing, the procurement software ensures that the procurement department can see and access everything from a single dashboard. It eases the whole procurement process and creates a long term value for the business. 

What are the benefits of using Procurement Software?

• Reduced Administrative costs

Procurement software will reduce the need for paperwork and also lead to savings on physical storage costs. 

• Increased speed of Procurement 

Procurement software can automate a lot of manual work. It increases the speed of transactions and shortens the business cycle.  

• Increased Productivity

With automation, businesses achieve speed. It reduces redundant work and increases efficiency. The productivity of people involved in the procurement processes increases significantly. 

• Streamlined process

Procurement software standardizes the process by introducing approval forms, authorizations, and integration of databases. Adherence to all steps becomes mandatory, and therefore, any process can't be skipped without authorization. This makes the whole procurement activity standardized and streamlined.

• Ease of procurement

Procurement software comes with global standards. It has compatibility with multiple languages, logistics, and currencies. This makes procuring easy from countries around the globe.  

• Reduces fraudulent activities

Procurement software assists in controlling fraud and increasing transparency. With a centralized repository and contract compliance features, procurement software enhances the organization's capacity to monitor irregularities in the procurement process.  

• Enhanced Control

A procurement software offers enhanced access control features to make the processes more transparent, boost operational efficiency and eliminate the disruptions in order to maintain the consistency in product ordering.

• Integration With Existing Tools

A procurement software that can integrate with existing business tools and technologies is useful in centralizing the data. Additionally, smooth functioning and reduced unwanted back and forth movements can be ensured through these integrations, meaning better productivity and efficiency.

Procurement Frauds and their types:

Procurement frauds are the most common types of frauds that the risk management teams of the enterprises have to deal with regularly. As procurement involves a large sum of money, it attracts a lot of people with fraudulent motives. A procurement fraud occurs when some people with vested interests manipulate the procurement process to obtain an undue advantage in gaining contracts or services. Though the corrupt and the unscrupulous officials and bidders often come up with new and incredible ways to commit fraudulent activities, yet some of the most common procurement frauds that can be red-flagged in any procurement process are: 

How to safeguard your company from procurement frauds using procurement software? 

A comprehensive and tamper-proof system is required to mitigate the high occurrence of procurement frauds in organizations. A software platform that ensures a secure bidding process and post-bidding assistance for monitoring and controlling the bids should be in place to safeguard organizations from procurement frauds. Procurement software implements well-defined processes and centralizes activities, which leaves no room for fraud. The artificial intelligence-based software can be a reliable option to easily detect and red-flag fraudulent activities by analyzing the common fraud patterns. It provides the managers and admins the ability to detect inflated invoices, forged purchase orders, and fake supplier information. The analysis, such as supplier performance, spend analysis, purchase pattern analysis, etc. make it easy to detect any major deflection from the regular activities.  

What are the features of Procurement Software?

• Contract Management

A procurement software has the ability to manage all supplier information, contact details of the contractor, payment dates and terms, and contract documents.

• Purchase requisition

Buyers can raise purchase requests, send them for approval to their supervisors, and send email notifications for the pending approval. The managers and supervisors can check and approve the request if the spending amount falls within his financial power or forward the request to a higher authority. 

• Purchase Orders

A procurement software can create purchase orders for the approved requests. It has multiple templates to generate purchase orders, and customization is available. Purchase orders can be downloaded in PDF format. 

• Inventory  alignment

The procurement software can integrate with the inventory database or the inventory software to record the on-hand inventory. Based on the shortfall level in the inventory, it can automate the purchase requests. 

• Supplier management  

This feature allows the suppliers to list their products, update prices from time to time, and define payment terms. The suppliers have access to the supplier section of the software. It also allows suppliers to download invoices and send email notifications to the procurement department regarding any updates. 

• Invoicing

This feature provides automated invoice generation and matching of invoices. Invoicing is done on predetermined rules, and therefore any forged invoicing is not possible. 

• Reporting

This feature lets the procurement department generate reports of purchased goods and services, invoices, savings, commissions paid, supplier performance, and supplier wise expense. 

• Administrative setup

This feature lets the user define and assign roles to all the users. This feature lets the user control access to the software, define approval roles and limits, payment terms and logistics rules, etc. 

• Multi-device compatibility

It is required in ensuring that procurement teams can perform their functions from any device without any issues. It helps users request, approve, and receive procurement orders at any time, from anywhere.

• Audit trails

With audit trails, procurement teams can easily determine discrepancies, unauthorized access, fraudulent activities, etc., along with timestamps and date. It promotes transparency and accountability, ensuring proactive spend management.

• Spend Analysis

Spend analysis features are necessary in procurement software to examine total spending, budget opportunities, areas for potential cost reduction, etc. Modern procurement software also offers AI-based spend analysis that can accurately find trends and patterns in procurement spending so as to optimally allocate and manage the organizational spending over time.

• Budget management

These features are required to properly plan, monitor, control, and manage overall budget to avoid overspending. It helps set budget limits for departments, track budget in real time, alert finance teams in case of overspending, and adjust the budget based on changing business needs.

The list of 8 best free and open-source Procurement Software:

1. Openprocurement 
2. Procuman
3. Vendr
4. Kissflow
5. Sutisoft
6. Promena
7. Tradogram
8. OneMoreSource

Comparison Chart of 8 Best Free and Open Source Procurement Software

1. Open Procurement

OpenProcurement is an open source procurement software that provides specially designed toolkit features for managing procurement business processes. Both public authorities and private entities can use this software for the procurement of goods and services. OpenProcurement was developed with programming languages such as Python, Pyramid, Bootstrap, Angular.js, CouchDB, Flask, and PouchDB.  Users can utilize this solution to make procurements more accessible and transparent.

(Source- Open Procurement)

    Features:

• System of proposals evaluation
• Protection against unauthorized use
• A central database to store all data about the conduction of procurement.
• Flexible and customizable
• Web platforms interoperate with the central database
• Auction module for participation in the auction.
• Can integrate with Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.
• No restrictions concerning database size or the number of conducted procurements
• Easily create, edit, and cancel tenders
• Submission of bid proposals
• Based on Open Contracting Data Standards
• Condition-based tendering for filing complaints
• Auction scheduler and runner

2. Procuman

Procuman is a leading open source procurement software with a fully-customizable interface. It can be used for your procurement needs and also to manage the supplier relationship. This open source procurement software comes with a free version and premium versions support a 30-day free trial period. It is powered by Amazon web services and provides 24/7 monitoring and email-support for customers.

(Source- Procuman)

Features:

• Suppliers can submit Product Catalogs, Prequalification, and Questionnaires etc.
• List all open e-tenders and allows online quote submissions
• Supplier and Contract Management    
• Email requests to selected suppliers 
• Comparison and analysis of bids to select the winner
• Purchase Requisitions  
• Purchase Orders  
• Automatically create purchase orders from Purchase Requisitions. 
• Email orders to the suppliers directly  
• Record Supplier invoices in Received Invoices-module invoices 
• Spend management with cost center budgeting  
• Ready set of reports with reports module 
• Manage inventory in different warehouses and locations. 
• Enterprise-class Document Management 
• Define access rights for user groups and roles
• Compare goods receipts against ordered amounts
• Customizable with custom workflows

3. Vendr

Vendr is a free procurement software to easily automate, centralize, and simplify the procurement processes and lifecycle. Global business giants like Canva, HubSpot, webflow, Brex, and 1000’s of other companies  trust this software to save their costs and eliminate unnecessary time in negotiations. Vendr is an easy-to-use, and one of the best procurement tools that offers premium features like advanced spend reporting, audit logs for SOC 2 compliance, SaaS pricing benchmarks, personalized contract analysis, and integration with SSO, ERP, and CLM platforms, bringing better visibility and transparency in the procurement process. 

(Source - Vendr)

Features:

• Customizable intake and conditional logic for approvals
• Parallel approvals to improve procurement cycles
• Auto-renewal warnings via Slack, email, and in-app alerts
• Fair price and terms negotiation capabilities
• Procurement templates
• Role and notification control
• Unlimited access to Vendr verified suppliers
• Negotiation support to leverage expert negotiators
• Renewal management
• Supplier management

4. Kissflow

Kissflow procurement software lets users gain full visibility of their purchase orders and requests and with cloud storage of all documents. It assists procurement officials in the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle. It simplifies the procurement function, and proactively defines and manages the purchase operations. Users can access all POs, contracts, purchase requisitions, and confidential supplier payment information at one centralized place. 

(Source- Kissflow)

    Features:

• Get instant access to product catalogs when creating purchase requisitions
• Convert the purchase requisitions to a new RFQ (request for proposal)
• An uncluttered and simplified visual interface
• Automated routing of requests through the chain of hierarchy
• Auto-initiated POs purchase orders
• Retrieve any purchase order from a cloud database
• Automated alerts to keep you up-to-date on PO status
• Track and approve purchase orders from anywhere, anytime, on any device
• Customizable form fields
• Retrieve and verify supplier data with quick vendor screening
• Track accurate progress of all your purchase invoices in real-time
• Process and pay invoices from global vendors with Multi-currency support
• Charts, filters, and pivots for convenient analysis
• Integration with other tools–accounting systems, ERP, etc.
• Low-code abilities to tailor each stage of procurement
• Unparalleled control and visibility
• Easy custom approval workflows
• A centralized contract repository
• Advanced spend analytics for data-informed decision making

5. Sutisoft

SutiProcure is an online procurement software that is used for automating and accelerating procurement cycles with complete visibility of the requisitions, purchase orders, sourcing, invoicing, inventory management, and payments. This online purchasing software gives the procurement department an edge to efficiently manage their day-to-day purchasing operations.  With faster approval of requisitions, businesses can enhance collaboration with suppliers to eliminate time delays. 

(Source- Sutisoft)

    Features:

• Automated invoice matching
• Intuitive interface for a user-friendly experience
• Rules-based payment approvals, and payment processing
• Filter and search with multiple parameters like price, supplier, and contract dates
• Drag & drop functionality and rule-based workflow
• Automated N-way matching of PO and invoices
• Centralized purchasing system
• Hierarchy-based access permission
• Faster approval process and automated notifications
• Purchase orders can be exported into .pdf file format
• Suppliers can update price lists for their items
• Collaborative supplier portal
• Customizable templates to create purchase orders 
• Create purchase orders using approved requisitions
• Suppliers can define payment terms, invoice prefixes, tax codes, etc.
• Mobile app to quickly manage requisition requests, acknowledge orders, and POs.
• Responsive catalog and shopping cart for easy purchasing
• Efficiently create, manage, and track contracts throughout the contract lifecycle
• AI-powered budget control with real-time expense tracking
• Inventory level monitoring to send alerts about demand forecasting

6. Promena

Promena is a procurement software solution that offers an integrated Catalog, Purchase Order Management, Purchase Requisition, budget controls, and approval workflows that supports the procurement department in the buying products. It improves compliance & reduces purchasing errors. It optimizes and controls your spending and provides you with enhanced transactional visibility.  

(Source- Promena)

    Features:

• Buyers can easily create the purchase requests
• Buy from product lists, catalogs or non-catalog items
• An intuitive platform that requires no training
• Catalog Management
• Open different catalogs for different business units.
• Purchase Order Management
• Purchase requisition management
• Digitize your purchase order process for different categories
• Supplier’s management
• Spend optimization and control
• Generate invoices and reports
• Dynamic workflow and approval mechanism
• Multilingual with 13 language support

7. Tradogram

Tradogram is a cloud-based procurement software for purchase order management, spend control, and improving purchasing administration. It is a completely configurable software that promotes seamless purchase to pay operations and assists procurement officers to oversee purchasing activities. Integration with Quickbooks, NetSuite, Xero, Sage, etc. is available for enhanced visibility and data exchange capabilities.

(Source- Tradogram)

Features:

• Access supplier contracts, and create contracts
• Auto-generate your contracts from awarded bids
• Monitor supplier performance with graphs and charts on each contract
• Centralized system for requisitions
• Automatically assign internal orders
• Users can add items from the database
• Automatically convert requisitions into purchase orders
• Requisition orders can be routed to managers for approval
• Track order requirements from a single dashboard
• Search database with filters for department, supplier, project, date, category, status, and more.
• Create and send RFQ (Request for Quote) and RFP (Request for Proposal)
• Enhanced PO matching
• Comes with a delivery management system with built-in inventory distribution
• Bidding events optimizer
• Perform comprehensive supplier comparisons
• Auto-generated notifications and emails

8. OneMoreSource

OneMoreSource is a leading e-sourcing and procurement platform for small and medium businesses. It is an efficient and cost-effective e-procurement solution with an extensive focus on tender initiation, submission and assessment. OneMoreSource is a helpful tool for companies to understand the market supply and purchasing opportunities while offering high data accuracy, supplier relationships, visibility and control. The company also guarantees that the tool can reduce the tender management time by 50% while automating the procurement management process. OneMoreSource comes in three pricing packages: free, custom and standard with no hidden and additional charges.

(Source- OneMoreSource)

Features:

• Offers e-tendering engine for guiding in the procurement procedure
• Intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard interface
• Free subscription for suppliers
• 24*7 support assistance
• Easily access contact details, operations description and project history of suppliers
• Supports multiple user accounts
• Procurement analytics
• Create and view active and RFQ procedures
• Bill of quantity, including items, delivery terms, delivery schedule, warranty, etc.
• Detailed history of past procedures
• Easily compare different proposals 
• Quickly create tenders with detailed quotations and relevant information
• Turn off/on contract visibility for selected suppliers
• OneMoreSource global suppliers database to search vendors and suppliers
• Robust security measures for tenders, tender applications and personal information

The above listed 8 free and open source procurement software are great fit for your procurement needs and operations. But, if your business is big,  a more robust software with better features might match well. Here, are a few top and industry specific procurement software available in the market;

Most Popular Procurement Software

Medius Procurement

Medius Procurement is an AI-powered procurement platform to easily capture, process, and pay for procurement invoices in an effective manner. This award-winning, automated procurement solution is popularly used to manage suppliers, set up approval chains, automate complex tasks, gain advanced control, automatically compare invoices, comprehensively search and filter data, etc. AI-powered Medius Copilot is also available to easily answer the approver’s questions without creating any work overflow. This eProcurement software also features configurable dashboards, Medius AP automation, automated approval emails, third-party catalog punchouts, and many more to help businesses make better and improved decisions. Apart from these, additional features for fraud and risk management, supplier conversations, expense management, sourcing, contract management, and supplier onboarding are also provided by Medius. With minimal or zero training, this software enables its users to manage their purchase and spend easily with complete control.

Fraxion

Fraxion is an easy-to-use  procurement software vendor to achieve enhanced efficiency, accountability, visibility, and mobility in the procurement process. Trusted by over 200,000 active users, this software  offers mobile agility, and automates procure-to-pay processes with seamless integrations. This proactive spend management and procurement software is great to ensure that the procurement and purchasing process can be quickly tracked and approved while also ensuring compliance with the organizational policies. Top-notch procurement features like purchase requisitions, purchasing workflows, budget control, purchase orders, spend analytics, punch in/out, mobile management, etc., are available in this procure-to-pay software to help businesses easily automate and simplify the purchasing of required supplies. The premium pricing plans start from $399/month.

Coupa

Coupa is another great AI-powered procurement software to optimize both direct and indirect business spending and  procurement of raw materials. Features like enhanced visibility, no-code configuration, fraud detection and compliance, comprehensive ESG reporting, intake and orchestration, PO collaboration, AI-driven spend analytics, etc., are great to ensure resiliency in procurement and implementation of proactive purchasing strategies. Apart from these, Coupa also comes with a wide range of features like structured spend, automated compliances, resiliency multiplier, etc.,  to efficiently optimize cash flows, inventory control, supply chain, and spend management for 100% on-contract, structured spend, better results and cost-effectiveness.

Industry-Wise List Of Top Procurement Software

Procurement Software for the Manufacturing Industry

The manufacturing industry requires a streamlined procurement process to achieve better operational efficiency and effectively meet the production deadlines. Not only these, but a reliable procurement software also ensures  timely delivery of quality-based raw materials that is required to improve cost effectiveness, supplier relationships, and inventory management, to make the overall procurement process more strategic and centralized. Here, Goodfirms has picked up a few  on-demand procurement software for the manufacturing industry;

ProcurePort

Launched in 2000, ProcurePort procurement software is today trusted by over 25,000 users globally to effectively align the purchasing goals with the manufacturing needs, achieve efficiency, and business growth. For the manufacturing industry, features like budget approval workflows, quote comparison from multiple suppliers, purchase requisitions, reverse  eAuction, online bid analysis, supplier catalog, pricing monitoring, expiration date tracking, enhanced spend management, etc., are great to efficiently respond to the global market dynamics and eliminate pay-to-procure challenges. Automation features for invoice matching, requisition creation, supplier negotiation, cash flow management, etc., are there to help manufacturers achieve better efficiency and transparency.

Jaggaer One

With over 30+ years of experience, Jaggaer is a leading AI-powered procurement software for the manufacturing industry to strategically plan raw material procurement, gain excessive control, increase operational agility, and save sourcing costs. From continuously monitoring the performance to optimally managing inventory, supply chain logistics and production quality, Jaggaer One is a top-notch procurement  solution for the manufacturing industry enabling users to avoid disruptions in production, enhance management, streamline workflows, and leverage advanced data analytics. Features like contract extraction and analysis, automated alerts, category management, automatic reordering, budget customization, real-time insights, AI spend management, etc., can help manufacturers achieve a high level of procurement process efficiency.

Procurement Software for the Finance Industry

The finance industry deals with a huge fund inflow, making efficient cost utilization a necessity. Only a robust procurement software can help the financial firms in ensuring timely delivery of the required purchase orders and gain granular control over the procurement costs. A carefully selected procurement solution can also automate cost tracking, streamline cash flows, enhance expense management, and identify weak areas to improve business spending and procurement, ensuring faster procurement cycles. Below mentioned are a few  procurement software ideal for the finance industry;

Zycus

Since 1998, Zycus, the Gen AI-powered procurement software has been helping the finance industry effectively manage catalogs, workflow, indirect procurement, services, and budget. Not only these, but this finance-based procurement solution also offers Merlin GenAI integration to identify and monitor supply risks, extract invoicing data, leverage performance insights, and implement AI chat assistants. Apart from these, eInvoicing, spend management, AI intake management, eSourcing, supplier management, procure to pay and many more features are also offered by this cognitive procurement solution to completely streamline the purchasing process specifically for the finance industry.

Tipalti Procurement

Tipalti procurement takes the top place in the list of efficient procurement software for the finance industry that can enable users to smartly optimize the purchase workflows. This scalable solution is trusted by leading firms like Canva, Business Insider, Twitch, Spotify, GoDaddy,  ZipRecruiter, and many more, owing to its robust automation capabilities. Features like intuitive intake management, customizable intake forms, rules-based routing, effortless supplier management, automated PO management, powerful search and filter, advanced spend analytics, etc., that finance teams can leverage to enhance the transparency in funds management. This purchasing tool also comes equipped with Artificial Intelligence to make the financial procurement process more efficient, agile, smarter, and automatic. Pricing starts from $99 per month. 

Procurify

Trusted by over hundreds of businesses, Procurify is a top-notch procurement solution ideal for the finance industry in making proactive spend decisions with better real-time visibility and financial control. Finance leaders, managers, and executives from small to large financial firms can use this procure-to-pay platform to create and manage purchase requests, automate orders, streamline reimbursements, speed up reconciliation, upload receipts via mobile, enhance invoicing, and do many more things. In addition, advanced features such as prepayments, ACH payments, virtual spending cards, 3-way matching, automated bill creation, etc., are great for financial institutions in making informed data-driven decisions. Also, the software comes with mobile friendly features that allows users to manage procurement on-the-go.

Procurement Software for the Healthcare Industry

Having a value-driven procurement process in the healthcare industry is necessary in achieving a better patient outcome, and in meeting the demand. Procurement solutions for the healthcare industry offer features like supplier evaluation, automatic reordering, inventory management, audits and compliances, discount management, etc., to only order the required supplies from relevant and authorized vendors without any quality issues and risks involved. Also, healthcare-based procurement software can integrate with EHR systems, anticipate future demand, plan  expenses, streamline approval processes, etc., enabling the healthcare firms to deliver better care and treatment. Some leading healthcare-based procurement software are as follows;

Precoro

Trusted by 1000+ businesses worldwide, Precoro is a top-notch procurement software that the healthcare industry can use to set up workflow approvals, personalize procurement, build dynamic forms, etc., making medical materials procurement easy. Through a user-friendly interface, healthcare professionals can quickly request supplies and medical equipment, analyze the demand, predict the volume, manage suppliers, set up budgets, monitor expenses, and do many more things in an effective manner. Hospitals, nursing homes, health agencies, clinics, and medical facilities of all types and sizes are using this value-driven solution to order the best quality healthcare supplies, products, and equipment while staying cost-effective. Apart from a 14-day free trial, the premium plans start from $499 per month billed annually.  

Trulla

Another healthcare-based procurement solution that is becoming more and more popular among healthcare institutions is Trulla. This  platform is great for hospitals and pharmacies looking to select the right NDCs, navigate the drug procurement complexities and optimize their procurement process for operational excellence and efficiency. Not only this, but features like NDC standardization, compounding, price variance monitoring, in-depth analytics, etc., make it easy to purchase all the required medical supplies and equipment. Additional features like access and permission management, preferred supplier logic, NDC logic, smart orders, medication transfer between facilities, responsive design, system-wide inventory, etc., are also supported by this sophisticated tool.

DSSI eprocurement 

Trusted choice of over 400 healthcare firms, DSSI eProcurement is an AI-powered eProcurement platform for the healthcare industry to reduce purchasing and procurement costs while enhancing  medical care and delivery. The software’s AI capabilities drive exponential cost-savings, supply chain resiliency, and contract compliance, making procurement more strategic and fruitful. Through this healthcare procurement solution, healthcare organizations and facilities can quickly place and browse orders, approve invoices in real-time, analyze the budget, automate notifications, etc., in order to ensure best-in-class sourcing of medical products and services. Besides these features, a mobile app is also offered by the DSSI procurement to approve and manage the orders on the go.

Procurement Software for the E-commerce Industry

E-commerce has been among the fastest growing industries globally. The demand for continuous movement of goods,  high volume of transactions, inventory management, supplier management, etc., have set challenges for  the procurement processes as well. To combat such challenges, eCommerce firms of all sizes are focusing on implementing automated procurement software solutions that offer centralized ordering, enhanced inventory management, better supplier relationship management, improved cost control, and optimized risk management. Below mentioned are some of such solutions for the eCommerce industry;

GoProcure

Since 2016, GoProcure has been a reliable cloud-based procurement platform to ensure better control, compliance, agility, and efficiency in the material procurement. Both mobile and desktop users can operate this platform to configure approval workflows, filter unreliable suppliers, automate invoice management, generate real-time reports, use existing supplier catalogs, etc. In addition, it also uses machine learning to analyze and find the best supplies as per exact business requirements, ensuring enhanced cost effectiveness. 

Virto Procurement

Another leading B2B procurement platform for the eCommerce industry is Virto Procurement. Brands like Heineken, Bosch, Flokk, Royal Brass and Hose, etc., use this software to enhance their efficiency and productivity. This e-commerce based solution offers enhanced vendor control, quick approvals and purchase management, self management for vendors, enhanced cart checkout, personalized assortment, and much more to optimize costs and resource utilization. Not only this, but integration with warehouse management, logistics, ERP, and various other systems is available to get all the required procurement data and insights at a centralized place. Two pricing models, i.e., GMV-based and order-based, are provided by the vendor starting at 0.5% of GMV with 10K SKUs.

Conclusion:

Economies of scale are achieved when the whole procurement system is organized with a routine purchasing mechanism, and the procurement teams have the insights to track purchase orders effortlessly. An efficient procurement process with no scattered and unorganized documents results in a smooth workflow without the bottlenecks. This can be achieved when businesses invest in the technology to deploy a suitable procurement software to manage their core procurement functions. Procurement software also helps in enforcing compliance and minimizing unauthorized purchases. It improves transparency in enterprise spending and enables better decision-making. 

Businesses can choose from any of the procurement software discussed in this article. If you have utilized any of the free and open source procurement software mentioned above, then do share your feedback with us. 

If you wish to see the features of any other software or any other software category other than the best procurement software, then do look at our software directory.