Procurement software

It’s a popular phenomenon in B2B: the procurement platform. But what exactly is this and what kind of procurement software do you need for it?

In this article we focus on the procurement platform for the graphic industry. Prindustry leads the way here with print buying software.

A procurement platform is an online marketplace where supply and demand for products or services come together. It can be products like Amazon, or services like Airbnb. There are various types of purchasing platforms, both in the B2C and B2B markets.

They are there for good reason.

Procurement platforms bring enormous opportunities. Vendors can enter new markets quickly and easily through a digital platform. Buyers can easily find all kinds of products and/or services in one platform. The entire procurement process takes place in one place.

With software, you connect buyers and sellers on a digital platform. Procurement software ensures that all procurement processes are automated. Automation from order to delivery, with intermediate processes for requesting quotes, placing orders and invoice processing. The main benefits: convenience for the administration, access to the info everywhere and one interface for the entire management.

Often this online purchasing is done from the cloud. With software from the cloud you have lower costs because you don’t need hardware or maintenance yourself. New additions, integrations and all security are taken care of by default.

There are several types of procurement software. It can be a part of the ERP or financial solution, but also stand alone. Important is that it can integrate with the other solutions.

Procurement, buying, purchase to pay software: they are all names for the same process. When you search the internet with these terms, you end up on the same definitions.

It is about software that automates the management of purchasing. From the moment of ordering until the invoice is processed in the administration. The flow for this is also referred to as the purchase-to-pay process.

Digital platforms are also possible for print procurement. With special print buying software you get a web-to-print platform with a marketplace where graphic producers offer their products to graphic resellers. The resellers can furthermore load the suppliers’ product range into their webshop.

As a reseller you get the opportunity to present a large graphic assortment to customers. They choose which products from the purchasing platform to sell in their webshop. This process in the graphic industry usually happens white label, so using their own brand name and with prices they determine themselves.

As a supplier, you reach a larger target group who can sell the products. With a minimal investment you increase your sales market at once.

Prindustry has been successfully offering a print buying platform in the Benelux for several years, where dozens of graphic producers are connected to resellers in a transparent way. It enables producers to make products available and findable for resellers. It is a marketplace where graphic resellers can find, order and purchase all sign and print products from a single platform. The orders can be automatically forwarded to the producers through API connections in the purchasing software. The API connection also ensures that the owner of the web shop can display and sell the assortment of the external supplier from his own shop.

Many well-known (Dutch) graphic suppliers are already connected to the platform, such as Probo, Control Media, Print.com, Inpromo, Zig Zag Forms, Digi Promotions or Siersema Flags.

Purchasing and booking all orders in one flow. That’s what software developers Prindustry and ProActive are doing with a joint procurement connection.

From within the ProActive expenditure system, users gain access to multiple webshops. In Prindustry’s print webshop, they can order communication products. The order is then imported into the ProActive system through the connection. Instead of completing the order in each individual web shop, everything happens in one central system. Only after an automatic approval process is the order presented to the producer. The internal approval processes are predetermined and set. You can also immediately add an order number to the system. It saves a lot of time with administrative actions for the financial administration.