How To Manage Your Company Spending In 2024?
When it comes to growing a business, many executives focus on increasing profits and growing revenue as the way to achieve their goals.
However, one aspect of growth that is sometimes overlooked is the expense management of your organization, and how to make it more efficient.
Without proper spend management strategies, your efforts to grow the company revenue could be easily sabotaged by overstuffed budgets, inefficient spending, and a lack of expense tracking that hurts your bottom-line when tax season comes around.
That’s why this article will discuss the importance of managing your company spending, and how to do it efficiently!
The Importance Of Company Spending Management
Business spend management is a combination of strategies and business tools used to track, analyze, and manage business spending, in particular in regard to supplier relationships.
When companies are unable to track and control their spending in real-time, they may expose themselves to financial leaks and lose revenue in the long run.
The majority of a company's costs come from external expenditures, which account for 40-80% of its total costs. A lack of efficient spend management can have disastrous effects on your business; the statistics speak for themselves.
As a result, businesses that understand and wish to mitigate this risk need to use spend management software to do the heavy lifting. Not only does the software offer cost-saving opportunities, but it also prevents overspending.
A spend management solution becomes particularly crucial when it comes to tax reporting, as the expense documenting process simplifies the tax reporting, which makes it easier to receive tax breaks and avoid hefty penalties.
For the United Arab Emirates region, corporate income tax (or CT for short) will be applied to business activities starting on the 1st of June 2023. You’ll be charged 9% for taxable income exceeding AED 375,000, but 0% if your annual taxable income falls below that threshold. As such, keeping track of your expenses and managing spending will be even more important than ever.
Benefits of Expense Management
The importance of spending management is not limited to enterprises with large expenses, but also to small and medium-sized businesses looking to improve profitability, scalability, and sustainability.
There are several benefits to spend management automation, regardless of your business size. These benefits include:
An in-depth analysis of all spending
Saving money for your business requires analyzing all aspects of it in order to find cost-cutting opportunities or other areas of improvement.
Pluto gives you a general overview of your operations in terms of costs, as well as an in-depth analysis of your spending, making it much easier to find what you are looking for.
Maintaining an efficient budget
When it comes to proper spend management, your budget is crucial. But building a proper budget requires that you have both an eagle-eye view of your business, as well as attention to the smaller details. This is made much easier through the use of spend management software.
Control over company spending in real time
It’s much harder to make efficient decisions about your spending when you are basing them on data that is already outdated.
With Pluto, you’ll be working with real-time data to ensure your decisions are based on current information.
An easier time identifying and eliminating out-of-policy and fraudulent expenditures
It’s harder to reduce out-of-policy spending when you can’t track it effectively. Pluto will help you automatically detect fraudulent and out-of-policy employee expenses and alert you to them.
Payables can be tracked and processed easily
If you are managing your expenses properly and using the right account payable software to do so, you won’t have an issue keeping track of your payables, as well as have a better overview of your spending.
Better negotiations with your suppliers
You can make better decisions when it comes to your supply contracts and purchases when you have real-time data of your expenses.
Using Pluto's unified spend management dashboard, finance teams can always see where money flows. Pluto's procurement software enhances the visibility of financial transactions, enabling more informed decision-making for procurement and sourcing processes.
Budgeting is the key to delivering on your promises, growing your team, enhancing your product offerings, and weathering inevitable economic downturns.
The Problem with a Manual Spend Management Process
Trying to manage business spending without proper oversight and strategies in place is like putting all your home expenses on a credit card without checking the statement every month. You might not know what you are facing until it’s too late.
If you don't implement intentional spend controls, you may still be profitable, but you won't know when your situation will change or how close you are to the edge.
The importance of spend control becomes more obvious to companies, especially growing ones, after they face a tight situation or a disruption to their business. As a result of these problems, businesses can experience budget overruns, erratic cash flows, supply chain management issues, and deteriorating customer relations.
But traditional spend management techniques are limited, which is where the aid of software comes into place. If you limit yourself to manual spend management strategies, you might face the following issues:
- Outdated spending reports: Traditional methods of managing spend tend to produce spending data that is at least a month old. As a result, finance teams have difficulty identifying and correcting unnecessary spending before the damage is done.
- Overspending: Overspending and budget noncompliance are a consequence of finance teams being unable to track real-time spend. Costs like these can quickly add up to cause trouble for tax authorities as well as overspending.
- Inefficient strategies due to lack of real-time data: If you lack real-time data and work only based on reports that are outdated, you might be missing the forest for the trees. This could have the effect of optimizing your spending rather than improving your overall business process efficiency. In order to cut costs and optimize operations, real-time spend data is essential.
- Manual entry errors: Data entry errors skyrocket if your finance team has to move data between multiple software programs and map employee spending manually. As a result, financial reporting could be delayed.
- Issues with remote working and compliance: Employees who work remotely need to pay for other business expenses quickly and in accordance with compliance requirements. The traditional spend management system, with its shared corporate cards and lengthy approval processes, simply cannot keep up.
- Strained resources: It takes finance teams a long time to manually align expenditures to budgets after the expenditures have been made. This takes up many productive hours and, of course, can lead to errors when entering data.
How To Manage Company Spending
Managing your company spending is both a science and an art, but much more the former than the latter.
Each business will have its own unique challenges to overcome when it comes to spending, but there’s still general strategies you can adopt that will fit most situations.
Create a Budget that Accounts for the Future
When it comes to budgeting, you shouldn’t just think about the expenses in front of you, you also have to consider potential unexpected expenses.
If you limit yourself to budgeting for the present, you’ll have a hard time dealing with expenses that can pop up out of nowhere.
Your budget should be realistic, but also reviewed frequently to ensure it is still appropriate for your business as it grows and evolves.
Creating a good budget will require that you examine your current and past expenses, take a look at your spending habits, and consider your potential expenses as your business grows.
This will give you an opportunity to review your existing processes, expense policies, and track expenses that you might not be thinking about.
Use Zero-Based Budgeting
It’s not uncommon for organizations to focus on past expenses and budgets when creating a new one.
However, businesses and the environments around them change, and so budgets need to change as well.
That is where zero-based budgeting comes in. This technique creates a new budget from scratch for each budgeting period. The budget is then compared to past budgets and weighed against current expenses.
In a company, zero-based budgeting can be used to keep your expenses under control. Your budget needs to be a living breathing element of your operation, and as such you need to constantly evaluate it to find realistic cost-cutting opportunities and areas that can be made more efficient when it comes to expenses.
Report and Track Your Expenses
Any expenses incurred should be documented and filed as soon as possible. This way, your business expenses are accounted for when filing its tax return. This is one area where the use of spend management software becomes crucial, as it dramatically simplifies the process of reporting and tracking your expenses. Pluto helps to categorize said expenditure, further assisting you when it comes to tax season.
Use a Spend Management Platform to Automate Processes and Digitize Expenses
As your business grows, you’ll find that using a spend management tool to track your expenses saves you a lot of time and money. In addition to tracking expenses, it tends to offer many other features, such as the ability to track invoices, payments, and credits all in one place.
Furthermore, Pluto gives you the ability to assess your expenses on the go, thanks to mobile apps and online dashboards.
It is easier to keep track of your expenses and receipts by digitizing them. Employees can do this by taking pictures of their receipts as soon as they receive them. These images can then be uploaded and tracked through Pluto.
Automating your approval workflows and processes will help to reduce, if not outright eliminate, human error.
Key Spend Management Software Features
Using spend management software is almost mandatory if you want to make your spend tracking and reporting as efficient as possible.
When looking to choose a platform, consider the following features:
Complete Control Over Spending Data
If your finance teams don’t have complete control over spending, real-time data cannot be of much use to your business.
Pluto allows your business finance managers to streamline and automate processes with superior customizability and control over workflows.
This freedom allows admins to change or optimize workflows as business/processes scale.
Real-time and in-depth spend analytics
Managing company funds efficiently is the essence of spend management. In order to do that, you need to keep track of your employee expenses as they occur.
Pluto records employee expenditures in real time and provides you with a reliable picture of what they are spending.
You can control expenses by using real-time expense tracking without restricting your employees’ work.
Additionally, Pluto provides your finance team with insights and analytics based on all the data it gets. A feature like this is crucial for proper management, especially if your goal is to cut costs and optimize spending through automation.
Your finance team will struggle to drive meaningful change without detailed analytics, requiring them to go through reams of data and make sense of it.
Reports on expenses provide an overview of your expense history, making it easier to track down individual purchases. Maintaining accurate records, limiting expenditures, and avoiding fraud are all made easier with this functionality.
Easy to Use
The most advanced software in the world is worthless if no one wants to use it. Simplicity and ease of use of essential business software, such as spend management, should therefore be a priority.
You might find, for instance, that employees don't use your spend management software if they find it clunky and difficult to use. This can result in a manual spend reporting process that is time-consuming and error-prone.
A lot of time is spent by businesses storing and processing invoices, receipts, and purchase orders.
Pluto makes it easy to retrieve and keep track of essential documents, including matching documents to authenticate transactions, for record keeping and due diligence.
An all-in-one platform
Your spend management platform should be a centralized solution for all your spending needs. Keeping all company spending in one place, in real time, is more efficient (and more secure) than using multiple smaller tools.
Pluto has it all:
- Unlimited virtual cards
- Spend management platform
- Real-time analytics
- Real-time spend control
Essentially, anything that will allow you not only manage your expenses, but really take you spending under control and make sure that everything is at it's maximal eff
Key Takeaways
Managing your company spending is a crucial aspect of company growth that is sometimes overlooked. Proper spending management strategies can help you find cost-cutting opportunities, gain a better overview of the health of your business, and simplify your tax reporting to avoid penalties.
When it comes to developing effective spending management strategies, you should focus on creating a budget that can evolve with your organization, reporting and tracking your expenses in real time, and using a spend management platform to automate and simplify your expense tracking and reporting.
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•
Leen Shami
We got funded!
We're thrilled to announce that Pluto closed US$6M in Seed funding in February, led by Global Founders Capital.
With GFC being the lead investors, we've had participation from several of the world's leading investment firms and entrepreneurs. Soma Capital, Graph Ventures, Adapt Ventures, Ramp, Thejo Kote (Founder of Airbase), Shaan Puri, and William Hockey (Co-founder of Plaid) were some of the few who participated.
With our Seed round, we aim to get closer to achieving our mission; to streamline company expenses for MENA businesses.
The problem
Company spending in the MENA region is problematic, time-consuming, and frustrating. Managing company spending in MENA today is difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating, as today, companies only get a single debit or credit card.
OTPs
Today, employees all share one company credit card, which usually leads to an OTP being sent to the CFO, financial leader, or founder of the company. Most bank OTPs last from 2 to 10 minutes before they’re expired. So, if an employee doesn’t get the OTP in time, they won’t be able to complete the transaction.
Overspending
When a company credit card is issued, you cannot control spending. This means there is no way to set limits on the card to avoid being overcharged by recurring subscriptions or employees going over budget.
No visibility
You cannot get real-time visibility or instant reports on business expenses with company credit cards. This makes making informed decisions about allocating resources in real-time more challenging.
Petty cash
Banks have no ideal solution for petty cash management. Companies typically maintain a cash vault at their offices, distribute loose cash to employees, and spend countless hours collecting and matching invoices.
The solution
Introducing Pluto Card: a corporate card & spend management platform that allows MENA companies to simplify and control their business expenses.
With Pluto's software, managers can issue their employees virtual cards with spend and control limits, cards that get canceled after a one-time purchase, and cards with a recurring daily, weekly, or monthly budget.
Employees can request expenses from their managers and submit reimbursement requests by dragging and dropping receipts onto the software. This happens in real-time, where managers can view employee requests as they happen, see what is being spent and where, and gain insight into instantaneous expense reports, helping them make informed decisions.
Pretty straightforward.
Want to see Pluto in action? Sign up and get a private demo here.
•
Mohammed Ridwan
Top 7 Accounts Payable Software in 2024
Processing bills is the most difficult part of procurement.
Bill payments are often mistakenly duplicated, goods aren’t received as per purchase orders, or there are delays in the approval workflow.
An accounts payable software makes the process hassle-free by automating approvals and payments and giving more visibility and control over your accounts payable (AP). It also enhances reconciliation and improves vendor relationships.
While the core job to be done by an AP manager is to ensure good vendor relationships, manage between timely payments & cash flow, ensure compliance in payments, what you need is a solution that supports your organization’s finances in one place and ends the chaotic back and forth.
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What is Accounts payable software?
Accounts payable (AP) software is a tool that helps businesses automate invoice and vendor payments via a centralized platform. An accounts payable automation software brings together all the key information into a single source of truth and enables teams to do the following:
- Tracks bills and their statuses to avoid double payments
- Enables two-way and three-way goods received note (GRN) & PO matching
- Supports customizable approval workflows for complete visibility
- Supports local and international payments via various payment methods
Thus, AP software simplifies the payment processes and reduces unnecessary friction between finance, procurement & other teams.
Top 7 accounts payable software in 2024
Here are the top 7 AP platforms for businesses.
Based on your company size and needs, you can pick one of these to support your accounts payable.
1. Pluto
Pluto is an accounts payable software that transforms your AP processes by simplifying bill processing. From enabling GRN matching to setting fully customizable multi-layer approval workflows, it is the best accounts payable solution to manage your vendor payments and relationships.
Key features:
- Facilitates three-way GRN matching with purchase orders and item-based matching
- Consolidates approved invoices in a single window to highlight pending bills and avoid delays
- Offers a flexible approval engine capable of managing intricate hierarchies without requiring technical expertise
- Enables multi-layer invoice approvals with policies to align with your company's structure
- Ability to upload invoices easily via WhatsApp images and 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
- Enables creation of a preferred vendors list for quick payments
- 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, enables scheduling payments in advance and automates 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:
- Enables branch- and subsidiary-level spend tracking (not offered by other platforms)
- Offers up to 2% cashback on all non-AED transactions
- Independent PCI DSS Level 1 certification
- SSO/SAML Capabilities for Enterprises
- Integrates with Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamics
- Better Forex rates than most local banks
- Multiple integration options
Cons:
- Integrates with all other major ERPs except Tally
- Slightly longer on-boarding due to corporate card offering
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2. Tipalti
Tipalti is an automation tool that supports end-to-end AP processes. It helps you streamline accounts payables and make global payments in local currencies for various recipients, from suppliers to freelancers. The cloud-based platform helps finance teams manage payments without losing visibility and control.
Key features:
- Supports supplier onboarding and vetting to ensure supplier reliability and trustworthiness
- Integrates with ERP and accounting systems to help with reconciliation reporting
- Uses OCR to scan, capture, match, and process invoice data to reduce manual errors
- Provides built-in approval workflows and payment scheduling
- Offers invoice processing, including two-way and three-way PO matching and approval to avoid overpayments
- Assists AP processes for subsidiaries and entities
Pricing:
Starts at $129 per month per user for the platform fee and charges for additional features separately.
Pros:
- Can manage supplier bank account details in a secure environment
Cons:
- Cannot use it for prepayment invoices on inventory purchases with the ERP system
- High foreign currency exchange fees
- Tax forms can be difficult to fill out and very difficult if you do not speak English
3. Airbase
Airbase is an automation solution for managing global AP processes. It focuses on ensuring compliance and syncing with your accounting tool to streamline the payment process.
Key features:
- Offers OCR to populate details, including general ledger (GL) category, date, amount, and purpose
- Supports onboarding with a self-service vendor portal and custom questionnaires
- Has a centralized dashboard with all key information about the invoice to avoid friction
- Accepts invoices from email or vendor portal across all subsidiaries
- Offers automated approval workflows based on multiple parameters, such as vendor, amount, GL category, etc.
- Enables three-way invoice matching to ensure compliance and reduce wasted spend
- Facilitates payments and approvals, including multi-subsidiary support, international currency, and real-time GL sync
- Real-time audit trail with receipts, notes, and documentation for transparency
Pricing: Request a custom quote.
Pros:
- Intuitive and easy to use; no training or previous knowledge required
- Seamless approval workflows
Cons:
- The mobile app is slow and takes time to load pages
- SSO-based login is not smooth
- Not suitable for complex branch-level approvals and expenses
4. Ramp
Ramp is an accounts payable solution designed to manage payments and business expenses. It automates bill entries, approvals, and payments while offering complete visibility and control. By tracking each AP step from data recording to approvals, it simplifies payment processing and takes the burden off teams.
Key features:
- Uses AI to automatically extract key details from invoices to offer accuracy and eliminate data-entry errors
- Identifies duplicate invoices and helps with two-way matching to purchase orders
- Offers custom approval workflows to minimize errors and ensure timely payments
- Provides a unified dashboard with visibility into the status of invoices
- Consolidates multiple payment options, such as check, card, same-day ACH, or international wire
- Integrates with accounting solutions, such as QuickBooks, Xero, Oracle NetSuite, Sage, etc. for auto-sync bill pay transactions
- Supports international payment processing in multiple currencies
- Tracks vendor data and transactions for easy reporting and data-driven decisions
Pricing:
Three pricing packages—free or basic features, $15 per user per month for Ramp Plus, and custom quote for enterprises with features like enterprise ERP integration, custom implementation, and local card issuance.
Pros:
- Works with multiple subsidiaries
- Offers cash back on credit card purchases made using VISA cards
Cons:
- Can’t unmatch an incorrectly matched invoice (invoice to credit card)
- Approval routing can only be set on the vendor level, not department level
- Limitations in syncing repayments
5. Bill
Bill is a spend management solution for SMBs to control payables, receivables, expenses, and all corporate expenses. It allows businesses to streamline scattered AP processes into a single platform and gain more control over their finances.
Key features:
- Enables tailored approval processes to facilitate approvals with minimal hassle
- Automates purchase order workflows with the option for automated two-way and three-way matching
- Simplifies expense reconciliation through quick coding and integration with accounting systems
- Automates receipt matching, categorization, and expense reporting, decreasing administrative tasks
- Syncs with all major accounting systems like QuickBooks, Sage, Intacct, and NetSuite
- OCR auto-populates invoices for data entry
- Provides bulk payments of approved invoices with payment choices, such as ACH, credit cards, checks, and international wire transfers
- Offers audit trail of any changes or actions related to the invoice on a single page
Pricing: Provides a free trial and essentials pack starting at $45 for six standard user roles. Its team and corporate pack are for $55 and $79, respectively. Enterprises need to request a custom quote.
Pros:
- One-click swift payments
- Minimum training required
- Easy-to-use mobile app
Cons:
- Customer support is difficult to initiate, slow, and unresponsive
- Frequent changes in the interface create confusion for users
- Limited customization options for reporting
6. Melio
Melio is a bill payment tool that enables businesses to pay via bank transfer and debit cards. Even when the vendor accepts only checks, it pays checks on your behalf to facilitate bill processing. It processes payments and issues checks without the payee having to use the platform. It is a tool suitable for small businesses to process payments without hassle.
Key features:
- Enables payments via credit card even when the vendor doesn’t accept the card to support deferred payments
- Allows inviting additional users (such as accountants) to set up roles and permissions and manage approvals easily
- Supports two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero
- Facilitates bulk payments and split payments (splitting bills into multiple payments)
- Offers international payments across the border
- Raises duplicate payment alerts to assist in fraud detection
Pricing:
Free to process ACH payments to vendors; charges a fee for other payment modes (check Melio pricing)
Pros:
- Offers a free-to-use payment module (only with QuickBook)
Cons:
- Lack of integration with accounting software
- Turnaround time on a check is three business days
- Support is very limited
- Limits payments to two checks per month
7. Spendesk
Spendesk automates the AP process by bringing together purchase orders and invoices to facilitate budgets, payments, and approvals. It creates a single source of truth to cut hours of manual work and detect errors better. It is a cloud-based software that improves budget control and financial reporting.
Key features:
- Offers a centralized platform for tracking payments right from the purchase order stage
- Supports invoice capture via email and image/file upload
- Uses OCR to extract key information from the invoice, such as supplier name, amount, dates, and purchase details
- Enables budget changes in real time without a manual data-entry system
- Allows scheduling of payments and matching of purchase orders with the invoice for effective GRN matching
- Provides customizable and built-in approval workflows and controls to monitor spending
- Raises alerts for duplicate invoices to enable teams to avoid overpayments and defect frauds
Pricing:
Pros:
- Super convenient for ad-hoc expenses
- Intuitive and interactive interface
- Easy manual upload in case OCR doesn’t support receipt capture
Cons:
- Glitchy virtual card payments with delayed notifications and declined transactions
- OCR-based receipt capture only works for emails
- Basic features like memorizing accounting patterns for vendors are only available in the paid module
What are the benefits of accounts payable software?
Adopting AP software helps you in the following ways:
- Gives real-time visibility into the status of invoices and payments
- Provides insights into spending patterns, vendor performance, etc.
- Streamlines payment and approval workflows, leading to smoother payment processes and vendor relationships
How to choose a good accounts payable Software
Ease of use
The AP software must be flexible to accommodate complex hierarchies without making it difficult to follow the workflows. It should offer trigger-based workflows and a clean user interface. Your team shouldn’t struggle to learn how to use the product and rely on the support team to get basic invoices cleared.
Multiple payment options
From local transactions to international wire transfers and other digital payment options, AP software must support multiple payment options. It becomes easier with vendor-specific cards that make payments safe and fast. Pluto helps you set up vendor-specific cards, even for public relations officers. This is something most platforms on the market do not support.
Accurate data capture
AP software with OCR capabilities makes invoice processing faster and reduces errors. The ability to process invoices from different platforms and sources, such as emails, Slack, and WhatsApp, is required. Moreover, moving these captured invoices into the centralized database and syncing with accounting software eliminates the manual data entry task.
Approval workflow
Approval workflows are key for timely and accurate payments. An AP software must have a simple no-code workflow builder, even for complex hierarchies. This is especially useful for large organizations where this process can be intricate and long.
Integration
Vendor payments need to be recorded across accounting systems for effective reconciliation. The AP software must integrate with your accounting systems and platforms to automate data entry and facilitate a synchronized record-keeping system.
Centralized dashboard
The AP software should offer a dedicated dashboard with all the key information such as vendor, invoice number, status, description, etc. Also, it must give a separate centralized view for expense tracking. This gives you visibility into where you spend the most and helps you optimize resource allocation.
Supports GRN matching
The AP software interface must be designed in such a way that it supports GRN matching, both two-way and three-way matching. Be it in the form of OCR invoice capture or offering item-based matching capabilities. This will avoid any under- or over-payments and support a healthy vendor relationship. Also, this eliminates complications in the reconciliation process.
Reporting
Reporting capabilities of AP software help to identify the spending patterns and other key insights related to department-specific expenses, budgeting, etc. Hence, AP software must provide a dedicated reporting dashboard with the option to export the reports for enhanced analytics and reporting.
Transforming Accounts Payable with the Right Software
Accounts payable is not just about clearing bills and vendor payments. It is the basis for vendor relationship management and proper order in financial processes. From getting approvals to matching GRN, you need software that offers ease of use with the right blend of functionality.
Too complex of a product will leave your employees confused, leading to double work. Lack of customization will have teams work harder to adopt the product. Limited integration will have the accounting department working twice as much on data entry and syncing.
Make the right decision and choose software that gives you control, customization, security and speed, all while embracing automation capabilities.
Book a demo and discover how a simple automation tool transforms your AP process.
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•
Mohammed Ridwan
Top 6 Procurement Software Solutions for Modern Businesses
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
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:
- Provides flexibility for enterprise needs
- Works well for budgeting procurement
- Allows tracking invoices in a centralized environment
Cons:
- Requires training to customize complex workflows
- Invoice processing is slow
- Isn’t suitable for manufacturing industries
- 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.
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The product and services mentioned on this webpage belong to Pluto Technologies Ltd (Pluto), a company incorporated under the laws of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Dubai holding commercial license number CL5294. Pluto is a financial technology provider and not a bank. Pluto provides certain facilities for the utilization of payment services through Nymcard Payment Services LLC under the applicable payment network and Bank Identification Number Sponsorship of Mashreq Bank PSC. This is pursuant to the license by Visa® Inc and is available for the residents of UAE subject to Terms and Conditions of use