5 key steps on how to select the right Procurement software for your business

Choosing the right Procurement software can transform your purchasing and procurement processes, optimise costs, engage stakeholders and suppliers and improve efficiency.

You might be looking for Procure-to-Pay software for the wider business, through to full Source-to-Pay suites down to individual topic areas such as Contract Management, Spend Analytics or e-sourcing software more aligned to daily Procurement use.

With so many options available, finding the perfect fit for your business (not to mention creating the financial and cultural support) can look and feel overwhelming – and that is before you have even ridden the internal wave of reviews and approvals!

Here is our 5-step guide to help you move from consideration to execution.

1. Understand your business needs

Start by identifying the business pain points in your current purchasing and procurement process and supporting systems.

Relevant questions (non-exhaustive) could include:

• Does your business have challenges with manual text and manual approvals?
• Do you need greater visibility and accuracy in business wide spend data?
• Would you benefit from improved supplier and/or contract management?
• Is internal compliance a challenge? Will a new system improve this, or is the existing system workable with slight alterations or culture improvements?
• Is this a Procurement need only?  Could you include Finance or Operations across the Source to Pay (S2P) lifecycle for their key pain points and needs? This could significantly help your investment business case and future buy-in
• Do you have a regulatory need i.e. collecting ESG metrics?  If so, link Procurement need back to company external or internal business strategies and priorities to build a robust investment business case
• Do you have an existing enterprise system that feels clunky and you wish to investigate how to improve the purchasing user experience?

Document your key needs and high-level prioritise them (ideally with Finance and/or Operations) for greatest value and benefits. This will serve as your checklist or guiding principles when undertaking market research, evaluating software and business case design.

You may wish to consider an external expert to undertake this review (as well as any further steps in this guide) if you feel underqualified or under resourced to fully identify and detail your business needs against the full S2P lifecycle, and gain an external market insight to the maturity of your Procurement process and culture against competitors or best practice.

2. Define your budget

Procurement software comes in various, and often confusing, pricing models: subscription-based, per-user, or enterprise licenses as just some examples per system (while even more complicated if you have multiple systems to ensure you and not overlapping and overpaying)

This section is really important. Before you begin a detailed process to choose the right software, you need to gain initial approval (win heads and hearts) of key stakeholders that this will affect (those who will need to approve or those who can support the approval and integration). Otherwise you could be wasting a lot of time, or get very frustrated when you cannot get approval and have to start again.

Depending on your type of business, you will likely need to undertake some initial market analysis, and create an initial business case, to gain senior approval to move to a market engagement / selection exercise.

Consider (non-exhaustive):

• Initial business needs, benefits and clear guiding principles agreement
• Long list of suppliers that can potentially meet the need(s). This is a big one. You can use Gartner Magic Quadrants, Procurement Software.com site or many other benchmarking guides, but also reach out to peers and consultants for views and recommendations. Technology is moving fast always, so watch out for consolidation and cannibalism in the Procurement software market (e.g. it was not long ago a business may have separate systems for Spend, Contract and ESG needs but that can all now be managed in the same place, same as Intake and Orchestration which is being merged by the big brands such as Zip)
• Analysis of existing technology in use (what are you locked into and how can this be adapted) vs external market options
• Initial setup costs of new technology (vs adaptions and enhancement of existing technology)
• Number of users and ongoing subscription fees (existing and new)
• Integration and training expenses (existing and new). Be careful here, organisations nearly always overestimate their ability to maintain BAU and in parallel implement adapted or new technology and process. If enterprise wide, (and sometimes just department wide) this is almost always a major change and needs focused business and system integration resource and expertise, including project and change management to ensure adoption and success.
• Be realistic with any budget against the value this will create. If the system cost is £1mil, you better have a very positive Return on Investment (ROI) breakdown in your initial business case (and a realistic ROI based on real business numbers, not software sales numbers for adoption)
• Separate hard and soft benefits in your initial business case. Most new Procurement systems will take several years to deliver a strong ROI so separating and mixing key benefits against business strategy and priorities is important so that this is a business investment and not a system led or Procurement vanity project

3. Market Engagement

So, you successfully gained initial buy-in to proceed for a new external system (adaption or enhancement of internal business systems to meet Procurement needs can be a different blog!).

Maybe it was for the full scope, or partial. But it is progress. So, now you need to formally engage the market to firm up costs and options.

What do you need to consider:

What type of market engagement is best suited to your sector and organisation?

Considering sector and budget, do you need to run a formal tender process?

Would you benefit from a Request for Information (RFI) stage first - or straight to Request for Proposal (RFP), Request to Tender (RFT), Invitation to Tender (ITT), usually depending on your timelines

Pull together your detailed plan, timelines and share and agree with key internal stakeholders

Whatever the RFx steps chosen, you will need to consider any of the following during the end to end process:

Evaluate key features

Look for features that match your guiding principles and defined requirements. Common needs can include:

• Purchase Order Management: Automate and optimise PO creation and tracking and the user experience
• Supplier and Contract Management: Collect and maintain supplier data, risk and performance metrics
• Spend Analytics: Gain visibility and insights into spending data and patterns
• Approval Workflows: Streamline and optimise multi-level approvals
• Integration Capabilities: Connection (and disconnection) with ERP, accounting, or inventory systems

Check scalability and flexibility

Your business will develop in future, and your software should develop with you.

Ensure any enabling software solution:

• Handles increasing transaction volumes (or you are not locked in badly if you need to decrease volumes)
• Supports multiple locations and currencies
• Offers customisation options for workflows

Assess user experience

A user-friendly interface may be one of your key priorities. It can also reduce training time and boost adoption.

Request demos and involve end-users in the evaluation process to gauge ease of use.

Currently most S2P platforms benefit from an added Intake and Orchestration layer (a front end which smooths the user interface and likelihood of engagement) which can confuse the novice software buyer, and substantially increase budgeted costs depending on your current software and business landscape and ability to change.  

Verify security and compliance

Procurement involves sensitive financial and external data.

Confirm that the software:

• Meets industry and your business security standards
• Offers role-based access controls
• Complies with relevant regulations now (and can comply with what you may know is coming soon)

Compare supplier support

Reliable support is crucial for smooth implementation and troubleshooting.

Check:

• Availability of 24/7 support
• Implementation scope (i.e. will you need further business integration support from internal or external Procurement experts)
• Training resources
• Customer reviews and case studies

Request a trial or pilot

Before committing, either during the RFx process or between selecting a preferred supplier and committing, run a pilot program to test the software in real-world conditions. This helps validate functionality, user satisfaction, outputs and the investment.

And lastly, do not truly believe any supplier ROI statements that their enabling system will deliver x, y or z benefits. You need to create your own benefits analysis based on your spend, use, outputs and outcomes over 1, 3 and 5 year periods.

4. Approval

Once you have engaged the market, involved key stakeholders, and created a firm understanding of the right fit option(s), you will need to present and seek final approval.

Update your initial business case and create a Executive Summary deck that covers:

• Summary of options – clearly stating why one is preferred
• Financial benefits over different time periods – clearly stating why one is preferred
• Breakdown of benefits – separate soft and hard benefits
• Timelines for implementing and ROI calculations
• Key next steps to proceed – highlight critical path, as well as internal and external dependencies

This should be 5-10 slides only and presented in person (not sent!) and include all key stakeholders (key c-suite decision makers and those most affected, and key senior supporters)

Further details can be provided to your steering group as needed / on request to demonstrate the depth of analysis and thought

5. Implementation

You got approval - congratulations!  Now the hard work starts 😊

You need to contact the preferred supplier, and any other external consultants you may need and budgeted for (i.e. business integration, project or change management), to kick off contracting in line with your projected timelines.

Hold joint workshop(s) with your team and all key implementation leads before formally going live and engaging the business so it is well co-ordinated and executed – remember that many people are typically resistant to change and you need to make this as seamless as possible and communicate and show them the benefits and wins continuously to ensure the business continues to support and champion Procurement on this journey.

Final Thoughts

Selecting the right Procurement software is not just about features and making Procurement’s life easier. It’s about finding a solution that clearly aligns with business goals, is value for money and can scale as you need. Take the time to research, involve stakeholders and clear evidence to make a financial and data-driven decision.

Support to your Procurement needs

Do you need to assess your Procurement related software to enable improved business outcomes?

Do you require a step change in Procurement culture and outcomes?

Get in touch with 7 Step Solutions to discuss how we can assist with building or augmenting your internal processes and delivery.

On our homepage you will find a Commercial Assessment you can take in 5 minutes that provides you with a personalised one-page report on your organisation’s Commercial and Procurement maturity.

If you are interested how your business can create P&L impactful savings to start 2026 quickly, read our short blog Commercial thinking Procurement – is your function creating enough P&L value?