Spend Management: Guide & Tips For 2023

Vlad Falin

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November 14, 2022

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Spend Management: Guide & Tips

Businesses that have trouble managing spending run the risk of impacting their financial bottom line.

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.

The Importance Of Spend Management

What happens if your company is not careful with spending or has too much indirect spend?

You risk revenue loss and other issues that can quickly destroy a well-thought-out business plan. It’s hard to cut costs and improve efficiency if your financial processes are very time-consuming.

A McKinsey report reveals that external spending with suppliers often accounts for 40-80% of a company’s total expenditures - underscoring the importance of effective spending control.

For many companies, reviewing and optimizing spend can profoundly impact employee workloads!

Good spending management practices will help the company be more financially stable and prevent any financial crises. It is always a good idea to have a system to track where the company's money is going. This can help to make sure that all expenses are accounted for, and no money is wasted.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Overreliance 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.

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.

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.

‍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.

‍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.

‍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.

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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.

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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.

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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!)

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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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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Find out how much your business can save with Pluto

Discover your savings with Pluto's Cost Saving Calculator and take control of your expenses. Unlock cost-efficiency now!

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Learn how Pluto is helping Keyper to eliminate petty cash spending and optimize spend management

At Pluto Card, our mission is to assist businesses of all scales make well-informed choices. To uphold our standards, we follow editorial guidelines to guarantee that our content consistently aligns with our high-quality benchmarks.

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All

Procurement

November 23, 2023

•

Mohammed Ridwan

Top 9 Procure-to-Pay Software for Enterprises

You want a procure-to-pay (P2P) software that automates your procurement process and addresses issues like lack of visibility, double payments, and delayed approvals. However, since such a tool has multiple users at different hierarchies and a complex workflow, you often end up with a more complex process if you don’t choose the right software.

With ad-hoc processes, many issues pop-up: employees wait weeks for approvals, procurement teams have no real-time visibility over purchase requests and don’t know how to prioritize, finance teams get minimal control over expenses, and the entire process is chaotic. Hence, choosing the right procure-to-pay solution requires a focus on ease of use and flexibility.

In this post, we will share the best procure-to-pay software for businesses in the UAE. We will discuss how P2P software helps with procurement and which tools are worth considering.

What is Procure-to-Pay Software?

Procure-to-pay software is a tool to automate the complete procurement process, which combines accounts payable (AP) and procurement software.

Instead of having your procurement processes and data scattered across emails, Jira, different task management tools, and custom ERPs, you bring it onto a single platform.

By moving from your legacy tools to an automated P2P software, you can:

automate approval workflows, making the purchase request (PR) process easier and faster. Flexible approval workflows enable all stakeholders to approve requests with a trigger-based flow.
integrate with ERPs to maintain a preferred vendor list and manage order items. While most P2P software supports record-keeping only, some allow the conversion of PRs to purchase orders (PO) automatically after approval.
match the goods received note (GRN) to enable two-way or three-way matching and ensure proper inventory and timely vendor payments.
process payments with multiple payment options to avoid delays and foster vendor relationships. It also helps avoid double payments, underpayment, or overpayment.
reconcile data faster via integrations with accounting software, enabling more visibility and control. Accounting teams get the right documents, and finance teams get visibility over expenses.

Since legacy ERPs aren’t enough to manage your entire procurement process, adding P2P software makes purchasing and payments easier.

Top 9 Procure-to-Pay Software

Here is a procure-to-pay software list for companies in the UAE:

1. Pluto

Pluto is an all-in-one procure-to-pay solution to transform your procurement and AP processes. It sits on top of your ERP as a layer to manage the multiple stages of the procurement process. From automating PRs to setting multi-layer approval workflows and managing vendors, it is the ultimate solution to transform a chaotic procurement process into a faster and more efficient one.

Key Features:

Features fully customizable workflows for raising PR and POs, requiring no technical expertise
Offers a 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.
Integrates with payment gateways and accounting software for seamless payments and reconciliation (a feature not available in other solutions)
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 including Netsuite, Dynamics and more

Cons:

Slightly longer on-boarding due to unlimited corporate purchasing card offering
Directly integrates with all other major ERPs except Tally

2. Order.co

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Order.co is a procure-to-pay platform that provides you access to over 15,000+ vendors in addition to your preferred vendors. It acts as an online marketplace like Amazon or eBay to help you procure items for your business. You add items to the cart, and it enables a rule-based approval system for POs with complete control and visibility.

Key Features:

Provides a custom, pre-approved Order.co catalog, including your current vendors and a vast network of 15,000+ vendors
Supports purchases from multiple vendors regardless of their ordering methods (API, website, email)
Sources the best prices for your needs to automatically generate POs and set up recurring orders to save time and reduce manual errors
Offers real-time budgeting and reporting insights by the user, location, cost center, or vendor
Simplifies payment processing by consolidating all orders from multiple vendors into one monthly invoice

Pricing:

Dependent upon locations and usage; contact hello@order.co for pricing information

Pros:

Customizable product lists for ordering
Easy-to-create customizable workflows
Ability to categorize purchases and run reports

Cons:

Set up is confusing and requires customer support help
Can not order from multiple vendors at the same time

3. Yooz

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

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 general ledger (GL) coding and PO matching
Captures all types of documents through various channels, such as email, drag and drop, mobile, scan, and secure file transfer protocol (SFTP)
Integrates with accounting software and ERPs
Allows users to approve and pay invoices in batches, offering multiple payment options, such as virtual credit card, ACH, e-check, 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. Also offers “gold edition” subscription pricing (based on the volume of documents) for an unlimited number of users and 4 hours of complimentary service

Pros:

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

4. Kissflow

Kissflow simplifies and enhances procurement processes while ensuring transparency and compliance. It helps users 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 PRs
Allows users to register and maintain vendors with access to multilingual catalogs
Integration with accounting systems, ERPs, and finance systems like Quickbooks, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics
Accelerates the invoice approval process with timely alerts and automated checks. Connect invoices to contracts, POs, 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 POs 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

Cons:

Does not support payment flows in the 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

5. Coupa

Coupa is a cloud-based automation platform to manage procurement processes. It facilitates supply chain optimization by providing visibility and control. It brings consumer shopping ease to the procurement process. With a focus on user adoption, it provides an intuitive shopping experience for employees, making it easier to adhere to pre-approved spending guidelines.

Key Features:

Simplifies procurement by allowing organizations to track pre-approved spending and get real-time visibility into POs and order lifecycle
Maximizes pre-approved spend to offer complete visibility over the purchase-to-pay processes
Promotes user adoption at all levels with an easy-to-use interface, creating value for both employees and vendors
Provides a centralized platform within Coupa Procure, allowing easy comparison of items across multiple vendors
Offers real-time budget management with budget meters, allowing organizations to assess budget sufficiency before committing to spending
Employs AI and machine learning to detect errors and fraud across business spend
Enables quick notifications of disruptions and allows vendors to confirm availability, minimizing unplanned downtime
Provides real-time visibility into inventory availability, helping organizations reduce redundant and wasteful spending

Pricing:

Request the sales team for a custom quote

Pros:

Several categories and filters in the analytics section to streamline data
Chat option enables approver and claimant to discuss issues with receipts
Enables setting up of customized approval chains and including additional new approvers

Cons:

Lots of unnecessary notifications, making it difficult to select the ones that need action or comment
Low receipt searchability, making retrieval time-consuming
Inconsistent syncing of remit-to address from NetSuite
Complex to implement and not intuitive, forcing admins to spend more time resolving employees' queries
Slow customer service

6. Esker

Esker is a cloud-based automation procurement software. It helps you optimize procurement processes and collaborate strategically with your vendors. With the ability to integrate across various company departments, it simplifies user adoption while facilitating visibility and control.

Key Features:

Facilitates approval mechanism and GRN matching for each PR and invoice
Offers real-time analytics, enabling you to maintain tighter budget controls
Gives access to products from preferred vendors, aligning purchases with company procurement policies
Provides a self-service portal, facilitating supplier onboarding, catalog management, and invoice status access
Customizable dashboards to manage daily tasks, monitor productivity, and identify issues and opportunities as they arise
Enables you to customize the interface with your company's corporate identity, enhancing the supplier's ability to identify and engage with your organization seamlessly

Pricing:

Contact sales for pricing

Pros:

Contains filtered views to allow for focused priorities
Auto-sends payment reminders

Cons:

Gets expensive with each customization implemented
Doesn’t allow unused/old customer accounts to be deleted
Integration with accounting software isn't seamless
Approval workflow requires a manual trigger to start

7. PayEm

PayEm offers a procure-to-pay solution, covering everything in one place to replace your traditional procurement process. With a core focus on processing PR, it simplifies the creation of POs with custom forms and approval workflows. It facilitates collaboration between procurement and finance teams to enhance visibility and control.

Key Features:

Offers custom request forms equipped with conditional logic to ensure a user-friendly experience
Provides fully customizable automated approval workflows based on factors like amounts, subsidiaries, and stakeholders
Integrates with communication platforms like Slack and email, allowing request tracking and approvals
Consolidates all the requests and approvals, simplifying discussions, document sharing, and creating an audit log
Enables real-time updates and clear overviews of request statuses, minimizing the need for follow-up inquiries
Offers OCR technology for invoice processing
Syncs with your ERP and enables exporting reconciled transactions and uploading them to your ERP
Automates vendor management with payment scheduling, funds transferring, and limits setting for each vendor

Pricing:

Request a custom quote

Pros:

Multiple virtual credit cards for different vendors
Supports global transactions

Cons:

Some vendors don't accept PayEm cards
High transaction clearing time
Limits the user to either a virtual or physical card at one time

8. Pipefy

Pipefy is an automation procure-to-pay tool to manage end-to-end procurement processes, from PR to paying vendors, to create a frictionless experience. It aims to break silos between teams to simplify purchase and AP.

Key Features:

Allows you to create and customize workflows, from purchase requisition to supplier management
Provides secure portals where records and documents can be organized, ensuring that all information is easily accessible, especially during audits
Ensures compliance with custom forms that include required fields to accelerate POs
Enables access to real-time insights to help you forecast ideal quantities and vendors for requisitions
Evaluates your processes, delivering reliable data to enable strategic and data-driven decisions
Integrates with your existing ERPs and accounting systems, such as NetSuite, Oracle E-business Suite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, etc.
Enables deadline alerts, approval flows, and information exchange to prevent late fees and cashing in on early payment discounts
Offers a customizable dashboard to streamline vendor registration, updates, onboarding, and contract management

Pricing:

Offers three packages starting with a free option for smaller teams, and a subsequent model that costs $20 per month per user and $34 per month per user. Also, offers an enterprise plan with custom pricing

Pros:

Offers templates for organizing processes

Cons:

Complex sign-up process
Workflows aren’t flexible with difficulty with respect to adding new users and making changes
Difficult to import data and search in the database for information

9. 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 POs 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 PO-based purchasing
Ensures that requested items are approved against budgets before procurement
Syncs PO with your accounting system or ERP, whether via API, CSV, flat file, or direct integration
Integrates with trusted vendors through punchout catalogs to streamline the ordering process
Enables blanket PO, which involve making multiple purchases against a single PO, even when details of future purchases may be unknown
Provides PO 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 PO
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
Doesn’t cater 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

Which Procure-to-Pay Software Should You Pick?

Don’t choose a platform that offers the maximum functionality. Instead, choose the one that is user-friendly and flexible.

Procurement is already a complex process that requires visibility by different stakeholders. Choosing a tool that offers visibility and accommodates complex business needs will help you transform your chaotic procure-to-pay process.

If you want to get started, book a demo, and our team will help you identify the bottlenecks and make the entire process simpler and manageable.

Disclaimer: The comparisons and rankings of procure to pay software competitors in this article are based primarily on reviews found online. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, these reviews are subjective and reflect the opinions of the users who posted them. The information presented is intended for general informational purposes and should not be considered as a definitive guide for choosing a software provider. We encourage readers to conduct their own research and consider their specific needs before making a decision.

All

Procurement

November 2, 2023

•

Mohammed Ridwan

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 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

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.

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.

Disclaimer: The comparisons and rankings of procurement software competitors in this article are based primarily on reviews found online. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date information, these reviews are subjective and reflect the opinions of the users who posted them. The information presented is intended for general informational purposes and should not be considered as a definitive guide for choosing a software provider. We encourage readers to conduct their own research and consider their specific needs before making a decision.

All

Spend Management

November 12, 2022

•

Leen Shami

Expense Management; Definition, Types & Tips

Pluto Technologies LTD.  Gate District 4, Dubai International Financial Centre Dubai, UAE

Pluto Financial Services INC.  2261 Market Street STE 4675 San Francisco, CA 94114 USA

Features

Corporate Cards

Employee Reimbursements

Procurement & AP

Accounting automation

Solutions

Retail & E-commerce chains

Enterprise & Large Group Holdings

Resources

Company

Accounting

Netsuite MS Dynamics Quickbooks Xero

Zoho Tally Wafeq

Tools

ROI Calculator

Expert advice

The Strategic MENA CFO

Join 2000+ finance professionals keeping up to date with the latest news & releases.

License & Service Agreement

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

End Q4 strong with AP automations!

Contents

Spend Management: Guide & Tips For 2023

Spend Management: Guide & Tips

The Importance Of Spend Management

Advantages Of Digital Spend Management

Insight Into Everyday Expenditures

Stronger Financial Controls

Budget Optimization

Common Spend Management Challenges

Relying On Old Spending Data

Overreliance On Manual Mapping

Harnessing Too Much Technology

Outdated Processes

How To Improve Your Spend Management Process

6 Efficient Spend Management Strategy Tips

Calculate Expenses

Confirm Data

Categorize Information

Review Expenses

Devise A Strategy

Practice Good Data Forecasting

Should You Rely On Spend Management Software?

Flexibility

Powerful Analytics

Ease Of Use

Simplified Reimbursements

Key Takeaways For Company Spending

Find out how much your business can save with Pluto

Learn how Pluto is helping Keyper to eliminate petty cash spending and optimize spend management

STOP Wasting Time & Money

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Budget _Optimization