A purchase order system for a small business needs five states, not eleven. Simple here means a shorter lifecycle, not a stripped-down product. The honest starting point is that a spreadsheet and a numbering scheme are enough while one person commits all the spend. The case for software begins when a second person can commit money without asking the first, and from that point the questions below are what separate the products.
Simple means fewer states, not fewer features
The products that suit a small business are not stripped-down suites; they are ones built around a shorter lifecycle. Requested, approved, ordered, received, invoiced is enough for almost anybody under fifty people. A product with eleven states and a workflow designer is not more capable for this buyer, it is more expensive to keep current.
Free tiers, and what they usually withhold
Free plans in this category commonly cap users or orders and put export behind the paid tier. The cap is honest; the export is the one to check, because a record you cannot take with you is a record you do not own. Ask what happens to your orders after cancellation before you rely on a free plan.
Flat pricing matters more here than in daily tools
A purchase order record is consulted occasionally by several people rather than worked in daily by one. Per-seat pricing makes those occasional users expensive, and the predictable outcome is a shared login, which destroys the approval trail the system exists to provide. Requly Pro is $49 a month for the whole team for exactly that reason.
Questions people ask about purchase order system for small business
What is the best purchase order system for a small business?
The one whose lifecycle matches yours and whose pricing does not penalise occasional users. Judge on unprompted alerts, whether approvals become orders without re-keying, and export terms.
Is there a genuinely free option?
Free tiers exist and usually cap users or orders. The thing to check is whether export is included, because a record you cannot take with you is not really yours. The worksheets on this site are free with no cap and no account.
How small is too small for this?
If one person commits all the spend, a spreadsheet and a numbering scheme are enough. The case begins when a second person can commit money without asking the first.