7 Best Practices for Smarter Purchase Order Management

Purchase Order Processing might not be the most exciting part of running a business — but it’s one of the most important. When it’s done well, it can help you prevent overspending, speed up procurement, and give finance teams a real-time view of committed costs. Done badly, it can lead to manual errors, rogue spending, late payments, and a lack of control.

If your business is still relying on spreadsheets, emails, or outdated systems to handle purchase orders, now’s the time to take a step back and rethink the process.

At Agilico, we work with organisations every day to streamline purchasing using our cloud-based Purchase Order Processing solution — Agilico POP. Based on what we’ve seen work in the real world, here are seven best practices to help your organisation get PO management right.

1. Standardise the Purchasing Process

The most effective PO systems start with a clear, consistent process. When every department follows the same steps — from raising requests to receiving goods — it reduces confusion, removes process bottlenecks, and speeds things up.

With Agilico POP, all purchase requests follow a unified process. Users can search for items, build a basket, add a reason for the purchase, and send requests for approval — all in one place. This consistency not only improves accuracy but also simplifies training and adoption across the organisation.

2. Empower Approvers with Real-Time Budget Visibility

Approvers need more than just a list of items and a total cost — they need context. Knowing how a purchase will affect their budget at the point of approval helps them make smarter decisions and avoid nasty surprises at month-end.

Agilico POP gives users instant visibility into how each purchase will impact their available budget. With this level of insight, budget holders can confidently approve or question spend, knowing they’re making informed, financially sound decisions.

3. Make It Easy for Non-Finance Users

A big challenge with traditional PO systems is that they’re often built with finance teams in mind, not everyday users. That can lead to low adoption, slow approvals, and people bypassing the system altogether.

Agilico POP is designed for simplicity. Whether someone works in marketing, operations, or IT, they can create, approve, and track POs with ease — no finance expertise required. And because the system is cloud-based and works on any device, staff can stay productive whether they’re in the office or on the move.

4. Control Spend and Enforce Policy

It’s not unusual for organisations to struggle with off-the-books purchasing — where staff order goods or services without going through proper channels. The result? Missed approvals, mismatched invoices, and unplanned costs.

With Agilico POP, every purchase follows a formalised approval workflow. Spend thresholds and permissions can be configured to match your company policy, giving you greater control and visibility. By tightening the process, you reduce the risk of unauthorised spending and improve compliance across the board.

5. Keep Things Moving — Even When You’re Remote

Delayed approvals are one of the biggest sources of procurement bottlenecks. When everything is done via email or paper forms, things get missed or stuck waiting in someone’s inbox.

That’s why Agilico POP works wherever your team does. Staff can raise requests, review budgets, and approve POs on any web-enabled device, no matter where they are. This flexibility speeds up decision-making and ensures the purchasing process doesn’t grind to a halt.

6. Automate the Matching Process with Invoice Integration

Once the goods or services arrive, the next step is matching the PO with the supplier’s invoice. Manually cross-checking these documents can be time-consuming and prone to error, and mistakes at this stage can lead to duplicate payments or overcharges.

Agilico POP integrates seamlessly with Agilico Verify, our automated invoice processing system. Together, they handle three-way matching between the PO, the goods received, and the invoice. If everything aligns, payment can be approved automatically. If not, exceptions are flagged and routed for review saving valuable time and reducing the risk of financial errors.

7. Use Reporting to Spot Trends and Plan Ahead

The value of a good PO system isn’t just in processing orders — it’s in the insights it gives you. When you can see where your money is going, who’s spending it, and what it’s being spent on, you can start to optimise procurement, negotiate better supplier deals, and forecast future spend more accurately.

Agilico POP offers comprehensive reporting and analytics tools to help you do just that. Whether you’re tracking recurring spend, identifying budget variances, or spotting bottlenecks in your process, the right data can help you take control and make confident decisions.

Getting purchase order management right ensures your whole organisation has the tools, processes and visibility it needs to spend wisely.

By standardising workflows, enabling smarter approvals, and improving control at every stage, these seven best practices can help reduce costs, improve supplier relationships, and make day-to-day operations more efficient.

If you’re ready to put these best practices into action, Agilico POP offers a smart, intuitive, cloud-based system that supports every stage, from request through to payment.