Best Procurement Software for SMEs: Features, Pricing & Use Cases

The features of spend management software and best procurement software in HelloProcure can be deployed to cure most issues faced by Small and Medium-sized businesses. The key points, like tracking manually, compliance, etc., are all interconnected and can have an important role to play within the SME’s bottom line as well as efficiency of processes.
Below is an introduction to why SMEs need the best procurement software:

Manual Tracking ( and inefficiency)
Without dedicated and specialised spend management software, the purchasing is most often grounded on dispersed emails and paper records. The problems are the following:

• Absence of Visibility: It becomes tedious and difficult to have an overall, up-to-date picture of all the expenses. The operational visibility, including what is being bought by whom, by whom from whom, and how much, is impaired. Thus, an ordering black box is created, from where it becomes virtually impossible to make good decisions.
• Human Error: Human beings tend to make errors, and where data is being manually input, one is sure to have some data input issues as a result. The errors are not only time wastage but also expensive to rectify.
• Disordered data: It is hard to find documents like vendor information and contracts during an audit since the documents are found in physical locations.
  Time Consuming
• Procedure: The process is too time-consuming for repetitive work like producing purchase orders, getting approvals and bill reconciliations, etc. This occupies the time that is otherwise to be spent on strategic planning and labour.

Best procurement software performs centralisation of all the purchasing data, automating manual repetitive tasks and delivering real-time dashboards.

The process of examining all the purchases for compliance with firm policies and the budget is key to financial control becomes extremely difficult due to the nature of their procedures.

• Lack of Control: There is the possibility of employees’ unauthorised spending, which leads to rogue spending out of the approved channels. This translates into excessive spending and loss of accountability.
• Intricate Authorisation Procedures: It is difficult to receive timely approvals for expenditures, as this is a slow, laborious process by hand. This kind of lag is capable of causing delays in projects as well as frustration. So that all purchases have to go through an acceptable chain, spend management software allows you to set up custom, automated approval procedures based on purchase value or by department.
• Audit Trail: There needs to be a clear and continuous account kept of all transactions in the event of an external and internal audit. This is achieved by any kind of manual method is an absolute nightmare as data is liable to incomplete records or loss. The best procurement software, however, creates or develops an automated audit trail for all the phases of the procurement process, from the request to the payment.
• Vendor Risk: The SMEs are not well-organised when it comes to their vendors’ information, making them vulnerable to various risks.
• Inconsistent Vetting: There is no standardised approach to screening new vendors without the existence of a centralised system. This is likely to take up one’s time combating poor performance, financially questionable or unethical business practices by vendors.
• Poor Performance Monitoring: There are plenty of issues with monitoring the performance of an average vendor on an average basis, say, delivery on time or product quality. Issues like selecting the ideal suppliers and bargaining for the best price come up.

Overspending
Overspend is witnessed due to inefficiencies like bench walking, poor compliance and lack of good vendor control, all totalling a big problem for SMEs

• Lack of Spend Visibility: Without spend visibility, you can’t possibly identify areas where costs can be cut. Spend management software provides real-time analytics so you can see where money’s going and spot duplicate purchases, bulk discount opportunities, and areas where costs can be reduced.
• Inadequate Negotiation: Spending power is utilised due to the lack of automation for purchasing history tracking. The data supply required for negotiation of better terms and pricing on contracts with suppliers is obtained with the assistance of the best procurement software.
• Preventing Unauthorised Buying: By implementing pre-approved catalogues as well as automated approval processes, HelloProcure prevents the buying of unbudgeted items or off-policy items before they are bought. This is extremely vital for financial discipline.