Understanding Business Expenses

Not every expense in the company requires you to issue a check. Payments like petrol, supplies, stamps, etc., are paid via cash. For these business transactions, either the employees take cash in advance or put in a request for reimbursement. This mechanism requires you to set some cash aside and employ a person for receipt management and reporting. The cash is referred to as petty cash. 

What Is the Meaning of Petty Cash?

Petty cash refers to a small amount of money that businesses keep readily available for handling minor payments and expenses that are too small to be processed through regular accounting procedures. It is often kept on hand and is reimbursed periodically.

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What are Petty Cash Examples?

Petty cash includes small miscellaneous expenses, such as:

• Office supplies
• Gifts
• Client lunch
• Refreshments
• Postage
• Medicine and first aid
• Minor repairs
• Transportation

What Is the Process of Petty Cash Disbursement?

The first step in petty cash disbursement is to define policies and procedures. This includes specifying:

• The purpose of the fund
• The maximum cash amount 
• The types of expenses the fund can cover
• The process for replenishing the fund

The next step is to appoint a petty cash custodian. They are responsible for handling the petty cash fund. 

Then, you set up the fund by transferring the initial sum of money into a safe or locker. This amount should be sufficient to cover minor expenses for a defined period. 

When employees make small purchases, they request funds from the custodian. After the purchase, they return with a petty cash voucher, receipt, and cash balance. 

The custodian reviews the receipts and provides reimbursement. They maintain detailed records of every transaction, including the date, purpose, recipient, amount, and a brief description of the expense. This record-keeping method ensures transparency and accountability.

After that, the custodian reconciles the petty cash fund at regular intervals. They add up the safe's cash balance and the receipts' value. The total should match the original amount in the fund. 

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What are the Two Types of Petty Cash?

To manage petty cash, the custodian relies on either of the petty cash book systems:

1. Imprest Petty Cash Book

An imprest petty cash system involves maintaining a fixed amount of money in the petty cash fund at all times. 

For instance, you set up a fund of $100. When the fund gets down to $20, the custodian requests reimbursement and replenishes the fund to $100.

2. Columnar or Analytical Petty Cash Book

A columnar or analytical petty cash book is a detailed and structured method of recording petty cash transactions. It categorizes expenses into different general ledger codes for better tracking.

For instance, you create separate columns, such as "office supplies," "refreshments," "meals," etc. Whenever a transaction occurs, the custodian records it in the appropriate column and specifies its purpose.

What are the Challenges of Petty Cash?

While the process of petty cash seems linear and simple, it has many intricacies in practice. 

Imagine the custodian getting hundreds or thousands of requests and receipts every day. So, maintaining a petty cash system is easier in a smaller business with limited expenses and reporting needs. However, for larger enterprises, relying on manual vouchers and physical safes/lockers causes a lot of chaos. 

1. Vulnerability to Theft and Misuse 

Unlike an automated system, a manual petty cash system lacks controls and security measures.

For example, if the custodian is not vigilant, employees can use the cash for personal expenses. Similarly, if the custodian gets stuck between multiple requests and receipts, it leads to oversight.

Moreover, the physical nature of cash in a petty cash box makes it an easier target for theft. Since there's no immediate digital record, anybody can steal money, which goes unnoticed for a while. This lack of transparency and a digital audit trail makes it difficult to identify funds misuse.

2. Poor Receipt Management 

Receipts are the document of proof for the expense. With the traditional approach, custodians have to chase employees for receipts. This results in incomplete or unaccounted-for submissions. 

Moreover, relying on the manual petty cash process makes it harder. The custodians have to manage countless receipts daily, making reconciliation tedious. Hence, you end up with misplaced, duplicate, or even damaged receipts. 

A common example of this issue is when a custodian receives multiple receipts and with an analytical petty cash book to maintain. It takes them hours to reconcile, report, and ensure accurate categorization. 

The worst is when it's time to report, and locating these receipts takes hours.

3. Chaotic Approval Workflow  

In smaller companies, getting approval for expenses is easy. But, in large enterprises, even small expenses can prompt approvals from various departments and stakeholders. This makes the approval workflow complicated and time-consuming. This delays the fund release, disrupting the workflow and reimbursement process.   

For example, imagine an employee who wants to buy a subscription for less than $300. In a big company, it will prompt approval from the manager, IT, finance, and legal departments.  

All this back-and-forth slows things down a lot.

4. Internal Resentment

In big companies, there's tension between the finance team and other departments.  This issue occurs when employees can't access the funds and have to wait for approval. Such a delay disrupts the work or delays the reimbursement.

For instance, an employee needs to buy a subscription for work. But the delay in approval impacted the deadline and client relationship. This creates problems and stress between the finance team and other departments.

5. Branch-Level Petty Cash Management

Large enterprises use separate petty cash systems for departments at the branch level. This means that each department has its own petty cash fund to manage.

Managing small amounts of cash at individual branches is tricky. Employees misuse/steal the money as there's not much oversight. There is no visibility on how money is being spent. Maintaining funds for multiple branches becomes a headache. Also, departments find it challenging to request more funds.  

Reconciliation becomes challenging as the finance teams have to chase branches for complete information. This leaves a lot of loopholes for employees and branch custodians to misuse petty cash.

6. Tedious Reconciliation Process

Reconciliation ensures that the petty cash fund's balance matches the sum of all expenses. 

Manually, reconciliation in large enterprises takes weeks and is prone to errors. Moreover, when adding up expenses, the process is prone to manual errors, which are hard to identify and correct.

For instance, the custodian overlooks a receipt. This mismatch between the recorded expenses and the actual cash on hand can take him weeks to spot errors. 

7. Low Visibility Over Expenses

Traditional petty cash systems lack real-time data. At any given point of time, the custodian is unaware of the fund's current status. This lack of visibility delays financial decision-making. For instance, it can take weeks before the custodian realizes that the petty cash fund is running low. This can lead to temporary cash shortages for essential expenses.

The absence of a clear record makes it slower to notice problems and reconcile the cash. Moreover, transactions and expenses are recorded on paper, which leads to further errors. For example, when an employee uses petty cash to buy office supplies, there will be a delay until the expense is recorded.

Similarly, when many employees spend money simultaneously, tracking them in real-time is tough. This lack of transparency allows employees to misuse petty cash for personal expenses.

How to Manage Petty Cash Effectively With Pluto? 

To overcome the challenges described previously, you can not rely on any automation tool. Instead, you need a product that is tailored to your specific needs. While many tools can assist you in digitizing petty cash management, Pluto goes the extra mile.

With Pluto, you no longer need to maintain a physical safe or countless vouchers and receipts. Pluto records every transaction in real time and gives you visibility at each step. From receipt to reimbursement, you manage everything with complete control and clarity.

Unlimited Corporate Cards

Pluto enables you to issue unlimited corporate cards, simplifying petty cash management. It eliminates the need for physical lockers or safes, promoting smoother cash flow. The availability of unlimited cards allows you to replace shared credit cards. This enables the use of cards for even small petty cash expenses. 

Finance teams get full control and visibility over each petty cash expense in real time.

Employees can either swipe the cards for a seamless process or withdraw cash from ATMs. Every expense made with the corporate card triggers an approval workflow. It prompts employees to add receipts and managers to approve expenses. They can then add the receipts simply via WhatsApp and get reimbursed without any delays.

With all the data consolidated on a single platform, reconciliation becomes easier. This simplified process eliminates the need for a dedicated custodian to manage petty cash.

Not only do you get more control, but you save money with visibility at each step.  

Budget Control

Pluto allows you to specify limits for corporate cards issued. This ensures employees stay within budget. 

When the spending exceeds, employees can request more funds. The budget expands on the manager's approval in seconds, allowing for necessary spending.

Administrators can also issue zero balance cards. These cards with zero balances prompt an approval request for each expense. This approach ensures budget control without causing any delays or resentment.

Easy Receipt Management 

Pluto simplifies receipt management thanks to its seamless WhatsApp integration. 

Your employees can upload receipts via WhatsApp, which are recorded in real-time. The custodians no longer need to run after employees for the receipts.

However, Pluto does more than just store receipts. It extracts vital information through OCR, including vendor names, amounts, and GLs. As a result, your accounting team spends less time on manual tasks like creating logs.

Approval Workflow  

Normally, getting approval for expenses can involve a lot of back and forth. But with Pluto, you can set up custom approval processes to make the process smoother. 

When an employee uploads receipts, Pluto automatically starts the approval workflow. It notifies the custodian and managers to approve the expense, removing the friction.

The reimbursement process accelerates without any compromise on efficiency.

Further, Pluto uses OCR to detect duplicate receipts to avoid dual payments and fraud. This makes it easier to double-check expenses and approve the legitimate ones. 

Digital Expense Report  

Pluto offers digital expense reports that compile data from all the receipts. 

The report simplifies the task for your finance teams to see how each branch/department is spending. It enables them to make adjustments to policies and procedures as needed.

For instance, a company has small office supply purchases spread across various departments. Pluto's real-time visibility and report help to locate these costs. As a result, finance teams can reconsider and promote bulk purchases for cost savings. 

With Pluto, the custodian gets complete visibility into the expenses and the available funds at all times.

Close Books 10X Faster  

Pluto simplifies the process of closing books. 

Since employees can submit receipts directly through WhatsApp, custodians don’t need to chase employees for receipt submissions. This enables you to close the book 10X faster by accelerating the reconciliation process.  

Pluto records all transactions in a centralized digital platform. This streamlines audit logs and eliminates the need to maintain physical records.

With its OCR-based receipt retrieval, finding specific receipts and information becomes more effortless. This simplifies the reconciliation process, making the entire book-closing process faster. 

Replace Petty Cash With Corporate Cards

Small expenses and cash transactions can not be removed. However, finding an expense management tool can make petty cash management simpler. 

Stop relying on manual traditional processes to manage petty cash. Choose Pluto to replace your tedious petty cash books and vouchers with corporate cards. 

Sign up today to digitize your petty cash for complete visibility and control.

In the realm of business operations, effective spend management is crucial for maintaining a healthy financial bottom line. Businesses grappling with inefficient spending control face risks that can substantially impact their financial stability. 

For example, poor invoicing practices that cause a delay in payment can lead to contract management issues or, even worse, a lost client for your business. It also might cause issues with some of your preferred suppliers if they feel they’re not being paid on time. 

Making a slip-up that disrupts a subscription can mean your company lacks access to critical software or tools until the issue is fixed.

A poor expense report system means charges incurred on your business trip might result in many follow-up questions, so your accounts payable team is on the same page with purchase orders. A system without real-time visibility for spending data is not ideal for any organization and does not make it easy to reduce spend.

Intelligent spend management helps prevent these issues. A business uses spend management to comprehensively track and review organizational-wide spending and purchase orders down to the last dirham. 

In this post we will deep dive into spend management and discuss the best ways to properly manage it. 

What is spend management?

Spend management refers to the systematic process of tracking, analyzing, and controlling an organization's total expenditure. It encompasses all aspects of business spending, including invoicing, contract management, subscription services, and expense reporting. 

The goal of spend management is to enhance financial stability by providing real-time visibility into all financial transactions and purchase orders. This comprehensive approach enables businesses to identify inefficiencies, reduce unnecessary expenses, and maintain strong relationships with suppliers and clients.

The Importance Of Spend Management

Effective spend management is crucial for a company's financial health and operational efficiency. Neglecting careful expenditure tracking or allowing excessive indirect spending can lead to significant revenue loss, risking even the most well-planned business strategies. Managing costs and enhancing efficiency becomes challenging when financial processes are time-intensive and complex.

A report by McKinsey highlights the critical nature of this issue, noting that external spending on suppliers typically represents 40-80% of a company's total expenses. This statistic underscores the vital importance of meticulous spending control. Furthermore, the process of reviewing and optimizing expenditures can have a substantial impact on employee workloads, indicating the far-reaching effects of spend management.

Adopting robust spend management practices enables companies to achieve greater financial stability and avert potential crises. Implementing a system that tracks and monitors all financial transactions ensures that expenditures are fully accounted for, reducing the likelihood of wastage. In summary, efficient spend management is not just about cost control; it is a strategic approach that influences every aspect of a company's operations and contributes significantly to its long-term success.

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Advantages Of Digital Spend Management

In this day and age, using an online tool to keep track of your expenses should be a no-brainer. Let’s have a look at some of the main advantages.

1. Insight Into Everyday Expenditures 

Where is every dirham your company makes going? If you don’t know, digital spend management will dramatically strengthen financial accountability, budgeting, and expenses. In addition, reporting on where company funds are flowing makes it much simpler to see how different department heads oversee budgets. Read more on how to improve internal control over financial reporting.

2. Stronger Financial Controls 

Spend management tools like Pluto, allow you to not only monitor your spending in real-time but also set the limits on the go. In addition to that you can issue cards for departments or individuals, and even focus them on a particular type of usage, such as specific vendors only. 

3. Budget optimization 

Effective spend management is a great solution to ensure a better-looking budget. Analyzing and managing spending makes it simple to find and cancel unneeded services, negotiate lower prices with new supplier contracts, and never have to pay a late fee again. It will also significantly help your board of directors as they’ll have a simplified, streamlined budget to review and discuss at the start of the year. 

Common Spend Management Challenges 

It’s easy to pursue spend management practices that hurt your business’s bottom line if you’re not careful. Many ‘traditional’ best practices might not fit companies with remote-first work policies, engage in cutting-edge industries, or have an unorthodox structure.

If your company has a dynamic structure, spend management becomes all the more important to help you keep up with the competition and get the most value out of every dirham spent. 

Keep these potential challenges in mind as you pursue spend management practices. 

1. Relying On Old Spending Data

Be wary of relying on old budgets or financial data when managing more spend. It’s challenging for leadership to identify problem areas with cash inflows or outflows, when they only have outdated information.

2. Over reliance On Manual Mapping 

Having to go back at the end of the month to match spending to budgets manually can take an inordinate amount of hours and opens the door to errors and mistakes that can throw off a spend management policy. 

Pluto helps to automatically match spend to budgets in real-time, ensuring accounting and finance teams have accurate updates. 

3. Harnessing Too Much Technology

Modern financial software can dramatically help your company’s day-to-day operational flow. However, if these solutions do not work together, chaos can ensue which leads to data migration and processing errors. Pluto integrates with your accounting tools, cutting the data flow time significantly. 

4. Outdated Processes

The post-COVID world of remote and digital work means your employees might be scattered across the globe and in different time zones. Having to arrange shared corporate cards manually or coordinate team spending with employees in different locations can be tricky. Pluto offers unlimited virtual cards, which allow you to provide a payment channel for any employee anywhere in the world. 

How To Improve Your Spend Management Process

Optimizing your spend management process might seem tricky at first glance. Fortunately, small and large businesses often rely on the same core strategies to optimize spending. 

1. Rely On Spend Management Software: Pluto can help automatically track expenses, keep abreast of budgeting, and help manage strategic sourcing. CEOs and CFOs then have relevant, real-time data at their fingertips to see where their company is financially. 

2. Focus On A Few Payment Methods: Do you have too many company cards in your pocket? It might be time to streamline purchasing methods to help simplify your spend management strategy. For example, your business can dramatically improve expense tracking by asking employees to only use company cards for business expenses instead of asking for their personal cards to be reimbursed. 

3. Have An Organized Approval Process: You can clarify your spending process (you might want to check our post on how to create a corporate card policy)  by ensuring employees have a clear hierarchy of how and by whom purchases need to be approved. If your team is unclear, they might complicate the payment process by not filing the right reports, which means your financial team could be left in the dark about purchases. 

6 Efficient Spend Management Strategy Tips

Your company needs to optimize its spend management strategy to ensure the final results lead to reduced procurement costs, improved efficiency, and streamlined workflows. 

Spend management best practices also help improve vendor relationships and communication, procure the optimal goods and services your business needs, and even help you earn volume and early payment discounts due to more effective and simplified financial practices. 

Keep the following steps in mind for the best results regardless of your organization’s industry or size. 

1. Calculate Expenses

Do you know exactly where employees spend company funds? If not, you’ll need to build a comprehensive list of company expenses, suppliers, and entities where funds are going. 

This might quickly become a challenge if you’re in charge of a large business. If so, look to designate specific team members to review employee salaries, utilities, marketing, training, and all other day-to-day expenses to have the most detailed list. 

You can’t improve what you do not measure. You can use Pluto to get a firm grip on your expenses. Pluto allows you to monitor and control your expenses so you clearly see how much was spent in which category. 

2. Confirm Data

You’ll want to ensure all accrued expense data is accurate and can be cross-checked with receipts and inventory records. Ensuring transaction data is precise, and expense lists are free of duplicates, spelling mistakes, and other mistakes makes the entire spend management process more efficient. 

Take this step extremely seriously if your company spend practices have relied on more manual processing methods. Standardization ensures that multiple currencies, formatting differences, and other nuances are accounted for when looking at spend analysis data. 

(Goes without saying that when using Pluto this is all pre-done for you!)

3. Categorize Information

While optimal spend management brings all expenditures under a single umbrella to review, your team will still want to categorize expenses into various groups to make reviewing and making adjustments across different departments simpler. 

It’s usually best to categorize expenses in multiple ways to understand where money is going. Pluto allows you to categorize expenses both through specialized cards or just by tagging, so everything is nicely grouped together when it is review time. 

4. Review Expenses

A well-thought-out process of calculating, verifying, and categorizing spending information will simplify your entire review process when you’re looking at spend data. 

You should immediately be able to spot expenses that are anomalies or recurring spending that might be able to be cut out from the start. 

Pluto’s dashboard can give you a high level but also a detailed view, so you can clearly identify trends and separate expenses.

5. Devise A Strategy

You’ll want to move decisively once you’ve identified potential changes to spending habits and department budgeting approaches. 

It might seem difficult at first glance to start reducing budgets, cutting out vendors, or make other dramatic changes to your company’s budget and expense habits. Rely on good change management practices and your leadership team to cultivate employee and stakeholder buy-in to any adjustments.

6. Practice Good Data Forecasting

Keep updating your expense data as you make a budget and spending adjustments. Doing so keeps your team on top of where funds are going and can help forecast different spending scenarios and how they might impact your business’s bottom line. 

Keeping data and information updated becomes particularly important if your expenses grow to ensure financial operations run smoothly. Don’t forget to cultivate supplier relationships if you work with different vendors for optimal inventory management.

Should You Rely On Spend Management Software? 

Manually processing expense claims, keeping up with petty cash, and tracking company credit cards can quickly turn inefficient, hinder your company’s financial management, and inhibit the overall procurement process.

In contrast, the right spend analysis solution can aid real-time expense tracking, provide easy-to-read charts and graphs of high-level expenses, and capture and store financial-related documents, so your finance team members are not scrambling to find a receipt or report. 

Pluto has a multitude of features including procurement software and account payable that will help you with spend management and make spend control much easier.

1. Flexibility

Pluto allows you to create cards for various purposes, edit spending limits on the go and monitor your expenses in real time. This allows you to scale up or down depending on what your business needs at any given moment.

2. Powerful Analytics

With Pluto, you will be able to track spending patterns and areas of high expenditure and get real-time insights into your business finances. The powerful analytics will help you make better decisions about where to allocate your resources.

3. Ease Of Use

The main bottleneck of many spend management platforms is that the employees do not use them - as it is just too time-consuming. Not with Pluto!  The sleek and user-friendly interface makes expense management a breeze.

4. Simplified Reimbursements

Receipt upload and reimbursements can be quite a burden for the team. Pluto allows you to take pictures of receipts with your phone and just add them to your reimbursements list. With the use of categories and tags, you will be able to both submit and review them in record time!

Key Takeaways For Company Spending

Spend management remains an essential component of all organizations regardless of size. Accountability for every dirham flowing in and out ensures your company maximizes revenue and remains growth-focused, no matter the budget.

You can take the first step today by relying on Pluto and processes to establish control over budgets, track spending, manage payments, cut costs, and boost your financial team’s day-to-day operations and processes.

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The traditional procurement process is time-consuming, prone to errors, complex, and challenging to implement efficiently. From raising a purchase request to making vendor payments, multiple stakeholders are involved. In addition, securing approvals through various channels of an organization leads to chaos. Hence, 77% of companies are shifting to procure-to-pay solutions, also known as procurement software.

What is Procurement Software? 

Procurement software are tools that automate the procurement process. 

Instead of relying on multiple platforms and different channels to procure goods and services, the process is automated and brought together on a centralized platform. 

A powerful procurement solution helps you in:

• streamlining the request and approval process for purchases
• generating, tracking, and managing purchase orders
• creating, negotiating, and tracking supplier contracts
• managing and maintaining supplier relationships 
• automating invoice validation, approval, and payment workflows
• integrating with other systems for seamless data flow and coordination.

What Are the Benefits of Procurement Software? 

By automating your procurement process with a procurement management software, you can improve it in the following ways: 

• Once you enter data, it is auto-populated throughout the procurement cycle. This minimizes the risk of errors due to manual data entry in purchase orders, invoices, and other documents.
• You get real-time visibility into the procurement process. You can also track the status of purchase requests, orders, deliveries, and payments. 
• With built-in reporting and analytics tools, you can generate detailed reports on spending, supplier performance, and other key metrics. This data-driven insight enables better inventory planning and strategic decision-making.
• You can standardize workflows for purchase requisitions and approvals. Route the requests to the appropriate individuals for approval and reduce any delays. Notifications and reminders are automated, ensuring timely responses.
• Invoice processing and payment workflows are automated. This ensures that invoices are paid on time. This helps in taking advantage of early payment discounts and strengthens vendor relationships. 

Top 6 Procurement Software 

To help you select the procurement management software best suited for the needs of your organization, we have listed the top 6 procurement solutions:

1. Pluto 

Pluto is an all-in-one procurement software designed to transform your accounts payable (AP) processes. It reduces your finance team's workload and makes procurement easy. From automating purchase requests to setting multi-layer approval workflows and managing vendors, it is the ultimate procurement solution to transform a chaotic procurement process into a faster and more efficient one. 

Key Features:

• Features fully customizable and automated workflows for raising purchase requests and purchase orders, requiring no technical expertise
• Offers flexible approval engine capable of managing intricate hierarchies
• Enables multi-layer invoice approvals with policies to align with your company's structure
• Ability to upload invoices easily via WhatsApp images, eliminating the need to search for invoice details. Also, facilitates invoice capture via emails directly to speed up the receipt capture process.
• A centralized dashboard to gather bills in one place and track the status to avoid double payments
• Vendor-specific corporate cards to control budgets and detect irrelevant expenses
• Supports local and international wire transfers to make payments 
• OCR technology minimizes manual data entry by creating and populating bills from invoices
• Supports ERP integration to synchronize your vendors, POs, and bills and integrates with accounting software, such as Oracle, NetSuite, Zoho, Quickbooks, Wafeq, Xero, etc.
• Raises alerts for upcoming payments and enables scheduling payments in advance and automate invoices 
• Provides a complete audit trail of the process to ensure visibility at each step
• Shows real-time analytics to facilitate deep insights for supporting budget control

Pricing:

‍Request the sales team for a custom quote

Pros:

• More financial control with vendor-specific corporate cards 
• Better Forex rates than most local banks 
• Multiple integration options

Cons:

• Slightly longer on-boarding due to corporate card offering 
• Integrates with all other major ERPs except Tally

2. Yooz 

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Yooz optimizes the AP process, specifically focusing on invoice management. It is a cloud based software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to enhance security and control in AP automation. It is suitable for mid-size companies of all sectors wanting to automate procurement with a cloud-based procurement solution. 

Key Features:

• Enables online, real-time management of supplier relationships, improving communication and collaboration
• Provides mobile access for invoice approval and communication
• Maintains regulation-compliant traceability, ensuring adherence to relevant laws and standards
• Automates real-time GL coding and purchase order matching
• Captures all types of documents through various channels, such as email, drag-and-drop, mobile, scan, and sFTP, supporting multiple formats, including PDF, Factur-X, UBL, CII, and EDIFACT
• Integrates with accounting software and  and ERPs
• Allows users to approve and pay invoices in batches, offering multiple payment options, such as Virtual Credit Card, ACH, eCheck, and Paper Check
• Offers a range of services, including consulting, configuration, training, and user support

Pricing:

Free trial for up to 15 days followed by a "pay-as-you-use" model.

Pros:

• Integration with Sage Intacct
• Ability to tag people in the comments and email them directly from the invoice
• Numerous criteria available for setting up the approval workflows

Cons: 

• Doesn’t offer payment services in UAE, so you need to carry out payments on a different platform
• Doesn't have integrations with major suppliers as a form of punchout
• Time-consuming to download and export files
• Hard for vendors to send the invoices through Yooz

3. Procurify

Procurify speeds up the procurement process, enhances internal communication, and reduces financial risks. It is an easy-to-implement tool that saves time for finance and operations teams. From catalog management to custom user controls, it helps to track the procurement process in real-time. 

Key Features:

• Tailors purchase orders to match your internal processes and vendor expectations
• Creates, tracks, and maintains an audit trail of all procurement transactions for transparency and compliance.
• Enhances financial controls by enabling purchase order-based purchasing
• Ensures that requested items are approved against budgets before procurement.
• Sync purchase orders with your accounting system or ERP, whether via API, CSV, flat file, or direct integration
• Integrates with trusted suppliers through PunchOut catalogs to streamline the ordering process.
• Enables blanket purchase orders, which involve making multiple purchases against a single purchase order, even when details of future purchases may be unknown.
• Purchase order workflows to save on shipping costs, unlock vendor discounts, and reduce paperwork 

Pricing:

Starts at $2000/month with a custom pricing tier

Pros:

• Easy to make amendments in the original purchase order
• Enables ordering from multiple websites for resources, including Amazon
• Makes it easy to upload documents to support expense and order reports

Cons:

• Doesn’t offer payment services in UAE, so you will need to carry out payments on a different platform
• Isn’t catered to the UAE market, and does not support UAE specific workflows such as VAT management
• Cannot edit orders once they are approved
• Cannot see the order history for a catalog item without running a report
• Physical inventory has to be tracked outside Procurify

4. Precoro

Precoro is a cloud-based solution designed to streamline operations, automate tasks, and centralize purchasing procedures. It enables tracking discounts, monitoring corporate expenses, and enhancing cash flow transparency. It also provides analytics and reports for strategic procurement planning.

Key Features:

• Simplifies the approval by allowing users to approve from any device via email or Slack notifications. 
• Supports customizable approval workflows with multi-step and role assignment
• Facilitates creating, approving, and tracking purchase orders and transfer orders from Amazon Business via Punch-in
• Connects with various ERPs and business tools like NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Xero, or its API
• Ensures data security through Single Sign-On (SSO) and 2-factor authentication
• Offers an intuitive interface and guidance from a dedicated customer success manager whenever needed
• Gives a risk-free 14-day free trial with access to all features

Pricing:

Starts at $35 per user per month billed annually for teams with under 20 members and offers custom pricing for enterprises

Pros:

1. Provides flexibility for enterprise needs
2. Works well for budgeting procurement
3. Allows tracking invoices in a centralized environment

Cons: 

1. Requires training to customize complex workflows
2. Invoice processing is slow
3. Isn’t suitable for manufacturing industries
4. Difficult to collaborate on invoice drafting

5. Kissflow

Kissflow simplifies and enhances procurement processes while ensuring transparency and compliance. It helps to automate the entire process without requiring technical expertise or coding experience. It comes with 50+ ready-to-use applications, enabling unlimited automation applications.  

Key Features:

• Offers fluid forms to enable easy capturing, approval, and tracking of purchase requests
• Allows to register and maintain vendors effortlessly with access to multilingual catalogs
• Integration with accounting systems, ERP, and finance systems like Quickbooks, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics 
• Accelerates the invoice approval process with timely alerts and automated checks. Connect invoices to contracts, purchase orders, and service entry sheets in a single dashboard
• Customizable reports to visualize data using charts, filters, and heatmaps
• Ability to define and manage budget restrictions with dynamic rules throughout the entire procure-to-pay lifecycle
• Customized approval workflows to ensure transparency with rule-based approval processes
• Smart alerts that provide real-time updates on the status of purchase orders and invoices to keep stakeholders informed 

Pricing:

Starts at $2499/month (billed annually). Pricing varies based on transaction volume and number of users.

Pros: 

• Intuitive interface with a relatively short learning curve
• Allows automated workflows to be created with limited technical expertise

Cons:

• Not built specifically for procurement teams
• Does not support payment flows in UAE
• Cost of its license is high (particularly for SMBs)
• Can not handle intricate processes that require a high degree of customization or involve multiple conditional branches
• Customization options are limited, including specific integrations, advanced business rules, or more sophisticated automation capabilities

6. Vendr

Vendr is a practical solution for streamlining SaaS procurement. It simplifies the entire process, from intake requests to contract management. It provides essential SaaS insights, negotiates expert advice, and integrates with core business tools for procurement and vendor management. 

Key Features:

• Buyer guides to provide negotiation insights and gain the upper hand in software purchases
• Negotiation advisory to provide personalized guidance on negotiating like a pro and enter negotiations with confidence
• Simplified intake forms to ensure company-wide compliance and visibility
• Integration with different accounting and finance tools, such as Oracle, NetSuite, Intuit, Quickbooks. 
• Integrates with platforms like Rippling Workday to include correct stakeholders. Additional integration with SSO providers such as onelogin.
• Comprehensive renewal dashboard to receive early alerts and streamline the renewal preparation process to maximize savings.
• Vendr Slack integration for quick answers and timely notifications to collaborate in real time with your team, minimizing approval cycle times

Pricing:

There are 2 packages—the basic one starts at $15,000/year and the pro package starts at $20,000/year.

Pros:

• Offers assisted buying with a team who negotiates on your behalf
• Comprehensive database of vendors in one place
• Helps standardize procurement workflow 
• Provides insights about fair market value 

Cons:

• Restricted to SaaS procurement only 
• Multilingual services are limited 
• Navigating multiple workflows is not as fluid as desired
• Doesn't support multiple currencies 

Find the Right Procurement Software 

When choosing procurement software, focus on user-friendliness, scalability, and integration capabilities. Make sure the software aligns with your specific needs.

Finding the right software for accounts payable automation will be crucial for your business. For instance, if you frequently deal with multiple suppliers and have a complex approval process, ensure the software can accommodate these intricacies. Similarly, if you're in the healthcare industry, look for procurement software that complies with industry regulations like UAE Healthcare Law and the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) regulations. This ensures the privacy and security of patient data and adheres to local data protection standards. Moreover, check if the vendor offers active support and training. In case of a technical issue, having an unresponsive support team can disrupt the process and create bottlenecks.

Don't rush the decision. Thoroughly evaluate multiple options. Investing in an appropriate solution will save you money and headaches in the long run.

Want a tool that is safe, fast, and transforms your chaotic procurement process into an automated solution? Book a demo today and see how Pluto can simplify procurement for your team.