A purchase order approval app matters because approvers are rarely at a desk. Approval that needs a laptop is approval that waits. Most of a purchase order product is storage, and storage is not where the differences are. The two features that act without being asked, approval routing and overdue tracking, are the ones worth testing properly before buying anything.
Approval and tracking are the two live features
Everything else in a purchase order product is storage. Approval decides whether a commitment happens; tracking decides whether anybody notices it is late. Both act without being asked, which is what separates them from the fields around them, and both are worth testing in a demo rather than reading on a feature list.
Ask what an overdue order does
An order placed against a 14-day lead time and needed in 21 days has 7 days of slack. When that slack is gone, does anything happen? A product that can show you overdue orders when you go looking is doing half the job; one that tells the person who raised it is doing the whole one.
Approval on a phone, or approval does not happen
Approvers are the busiest people in the process and the least likely to be at a desk. If approving requires a laptop, requests wait, and waiting requests are exactly what pushes people into ordering first and asking afterwards. This is the one place in the product where a phone screen genuinely matters.
Matching software is worth less than it looks
Products that compare invoices to orders automatically are useful and should flag rather than clear, because a false match approves an overpayment quietly. For a small business the value is in surfacing the two or three discrepancies a month, not in clearing the ninety that are fine.
Questions people ask about purchase order approval app
What should purchase order tracking actually do?
Tell the person who raised an order that it is overdue against its lead time, without them going to look. Anything that only shows overdue orders on a screen is a report rather than a tracker.
Does approval need to work on a phone?
Yes, more than anything else in the product. Approvers are rarely at a desk, and requests that wait are what push people into ordering first and asking afterwards.
Is automatic invoice matching safe?
Have it flag discrepancies rather than clear them. A false automatic match approves an overpayment silently, which is the one error in this category worth designing against.