Procurement systems your whole company can use
A procurement system decides how a company buys: who can ask, who must approve, which suppliers are allowed and how every purchase is recorded. The best procurement systems are the ones people actually use, because a process that only finance touches still leaves the real buying in email and chat. Procurer is built so that every employee who buys anything is inside the system, without a per-seat bill for each of them.
Four kinds of procurement systems
Companies usually pass through these stages as they grow. Knowing which one you have makes it easier to see what is missing.
- Spreadsheet and email: a shared sheet of PO numbers, approvals by reply, invoices entered by hand. Cheap and familiar, but there is no control before spend and no audit trail an auditor trusts.
- ERP or accounting module: purchase orders inside QuickBooks, NetSuite or a similar system. Good records, but usually only finance has access, and approval rules are basic or require customization.
- Enterprise procurement suite: very broad functionality for large organisations, with sourcing events, supplier networks and global compliance. Typically long implementations and pricing sized for large companies.
- Standalone procure-to-pay system: requests, approvals, POs, receiving, matching and budgets in one tool that syncs to the ledger. This is where Procurer sits, for companies with roughly 50 to 1 000 staff.
One system, five roles, one record
A procurement system only works if each person gets a view that fits what they do. Procurer gives each role its own screen on the same underlying record.
- Requesters see a short form, their open requests and a status line that says exactly who is deciding right now.
- Approvers see the amount, the supplier, the remaining budget and the reason the rule sent it to them, and decide in one click, on Business also in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Purchasing sees approved requests ready to become POs, the supplier directory and, on Business, catalogs with agreed prices.
- Finance sees invoices that need attention, open POs to accrue and the sync status with accounting.
- Leadership sees spend and commitments by department, supplier and month.
Roles are standard on every plan. Custom roles arrive on Scale, and segregation of duties rules (for example, the person who creates a supplier cannot approve payments to it) are part of Enterprise.
Why a procurement system should not be priced per seat
When every user costs money, companies give access to a handful of people and the rest send requests by email to someone who has a login. That recreates the problem the system was meant to solve: purchases arrive at finance already agreed, with no approval on record. Procurer prices each plan per company with a generous user allowance: up to 25 user accounts on Team, 100 on Business and 300 on Scale. A requester who raises two purchases a year costs nothing extra, so there is no reason to keep them out.
Turning your purchasing policy into rules
Most companies already have a purchasing policy, often a PDF nobody reads. A procurement system should enforce it instead.
| Policy sentence | Rule in Procurer |
|---|---|
| Purchases over 5 000 USD need finance approval | Amount condition adds finance as an approval step |
| New suppliers must be vetted | Requests to a supplier without completed onboarding add purchasing as an approver |
| Software needs IT security review | Category condition adds the IT security reviewer |
| Nobody approves their own request | Self-approval is skipped and passes to the next approver |
| No payment without a PO | Invoices without a PO are held in a separate queue |
- Purchases over 5 000 USD need finance approval
- Rule in ProcurerAmount condition adds finance as an approval step
- New suppliers must be vetted
- Rule in ProcurerRequests to a supplier without completed onboarding add purchasing as an approver
- Software needs IT security review
- Rule in ProcurerCategory condition adds the IT security reviewer
- Nobody approves their own request
- Rule in ProcurerSelf-approval is skipped and passes to the next approver
- No payment without a PO
- Rule in ProcurerInvoices without a PO are held in a separate queue
Rules for thresholds are explained step by step in our purchase approval workflow guide.
Questions to ask any procurement system vendor
- Can every employee raise a request without buying a seat for them?
- Is the budget checked on the request, or only when the invoice arrives?
- Does it match invoices to both the PO and the receipt, with tolerances?
- Does it sync to our accounting system, both suppliers and GL codes?
- Can our finance team configure it without consultants, and how long does setup take?
- Are prices published, and can we leave with all our data?
For a fuller comparison, read best procurement software and how to choose procurement software.
Plans
Team is 149 USD a month for companies setting up their first formal process. Business is 299 USD a month and the most popular, with unlimited approval steps, three-way matching and spend analytics. Scale is 699 USD a month for multi-entity companies with a procurement team, adding NetSuite and Sage Intacct, the supplier portal and SSO. Enterprise is priced by quote. Yearly billing is 1 488, 2 988 and 6 948 USD. See the pricing page for every limit.
What is a procurement system?
A procurement system is the set of software and rules a company uses to request, approve, order, receive and pay for goods and services from suppliers, with one record of each purchase.
Do we need a procurement system if we already have an ERP?
Many ERPs record purchase orders but leave requests and approvals to email. Procurer sits in front of the ERP, handles requests, approvals, receiving and matching for everyone, and syncs the results to NetSuite or Sage Intacct on Scale.
How many people can use Procurer?
Up to 25 user accounts on Team, 100 on Business and 300 on Scale. Enterprise has no user limit.
Can different departments have different rules?
Yes. Rules can combine department, amount, category, project and supplier, and each department can have its own approvers and budgets.
Is there an audit trail?
Every request, approval, PO revision, receipt and invoice decision is recorded with the person, the time and the rule that applied, and can be exported.
Bring every purchase into one system
Create your account and invite the whole company, not just finance.