Complement your purchase order software with Amazon Business

How purchase order software can advance your business

Purchase order (PO) software can eliminate pain points associated with manual processes, including compliance risks, inefficient approval cycles, and a lack of real-time visibility. With a PO system, you can automate the entire purchase order management lifecycle by generating POs from approved purchase requisitions, routing them through the approval process, and handling supplier management with automated communications.

Amazon Business complements purchase order software by supporting key stages of the purchase order process—such as product selection, approval workflows, and invoicing—through features like custom catalogs, spend controls, and Guided Buying.

Benefits of purchase order software

Automate manual purchase requisitions

Purchase order management software can create POs automatically from templates based on approved purchase requests, helping your procurement team reduce paperwork and minimize manual data entry. 

Speed up approvals

PO software can automate approval workflows by routing purchase requests to the correct approvers. These systems also help keep teams on track by sending notifications about pending requests.

Track spend across teams and categories

With purchase order software, you can link POs to specific budgets, which allows you to monitor spending across teams to prevent overspending in any one area.

Improve compliance and audit readiness

A purchase order management system keeps a clear audit trail of all transactions, making it easier to demonstrate adherence to procurement policies and regulations.

Simplify operations with accounting and ERP integrations

Integrating purchase order software with your accounting software and ERP systems can streamline financial processes and improve collaboration through automated data entry and simplified tax compliance.

Ways Amazon Business can improve your purchasing process

Amazon Business offers advanced features that work alongside purchase order software solutions to help organizations enforce purchasing policies, streamline order creation, and ensure consistency across distributed teams.

Real-time access to curated inventories

Amazon Business’s Punchout feature simplifies the buying experience by letting your organization purchase directly from Amazon Business within your procure-to-pay system.

Policy-aligned purchasing

Customizable catalogs and Guided Buying give you more control over employee spending by directing team members toward preferred vendors and categories while restricting access to others.

Simplified approvals and reconciliation

Buying policies and approval workflows that match your internal procedures identify the right approvers, ensure proper approval for purchases above specific spend limits, and enable efficient batch processing.

Streamlined post-purchase data flows

Actionable analytics reports uncover cost-saving opportunities through supplier consolidation, bulk purchasing, and available tax exemptions, helping you make better purchasing decisions and optimize spend.

Building a scalable purchase order management workflow

1. Automate PO creation

To set up automatic purchase order creation, use Amazon Business to establish clear purchasing parameters, such as acceptable spend limits and preferred supplier lists. Next, use purchase order software to allow employees to submit purchase order requests electronically to trigger PO creation.

2. Define approval workflows

Use approval workflow features from both Amazon Business and purchase order management software to designate approvers, set spend thresholds that require approval, and enable batch approvals. 

3. Set up Punchout or hosted catalogs

Enable employees to make purchases within your existing procurement platform by setting up Punchout or hosted catalogs through Amazon Business. These catalogs help you comply with your organization’s procurement policies while simplifying the buying process.

4. Configure Guided Buying rules

Set up Guided Buying within Amazon Business to steer buyers toward suppliers and products your organization prefers. This can include vendors that are part of your supplier diversity program, such as woman-owned businesses or small businesses.

5. Enable Pay by Invoice

Give your organization more flexibility and control with Amazon Business’s Pay by Invoice feature, which lets you buy now and pay later with no up-front fees or interest.  

6. Track and optimize with Spend Visibility

Identify compliance issues and find opportunities to save with Spend Visibility. This feature provides dashboards, data filters, and customizable KPIs to inform decision-making and improve your procurement process.

How to choose the best purchase order software

Assess procurement needs and workflows

Consider your current PO process and the key features you’ll need to support it. Since the goal is to make the process more efficient, look for tools that can help you save time and make your work easier. For example, if you’re manually fielding purchase order status updates from suppliers, consider a system that will manage that process for you.

Identify required integrations

Your PO software may need to work with other supply chain and financial operations systems, including business and inventory management systems, accounting software like QuickBooks, or ERPs like NetSuite. Check to make sure any new software solutions you choose will integrate with your current tech stack.

Prioritize compliance and reporting features

Compliance is non-negotiable in the business, procurement, and financial world. Ensure any systems you consider track purchase orders and approvals with clear audit trails and provide detailed reports and payment terms for compliance verification. These features can also help you monitor internal policy adherence.

Consider usability and internal adoption

Digital transformation involves a learning curve, but some systems are easier to adopt than others. Choose purchase order software with user-friendly, easy-to-navigate dashboards. Also consider convenient functionality, like a mobile app that lets you manage work away from your desk. 

Why procurement teams choose Amazon Business

Amazon Business serves more than 6 million active business customers, including 96 of the Fortune 100 companies and 90 of the 100 most populous local governments in the US. Customers get access to hundreds of millions of products from hundreds of thousands of suppliers, all in one place.  

The smart buying solution combines the selection, familiarity, and convenience of Amazon with features tailored to business needs. Procurement teams also appreciate its easy integration, as Amazon Business supports Punchout with more than 100 leading procure-to-pay (P2P) systems.