Evaluating a cloud based purchase order system on features produces the same answer for every product, because the features are the same. Three practical questions, asked early, discriminate usefully, and all three relate to how the system behaves in the places purchase orders are actually used, which is rarely at a desk in the finance office.
How does receipting work on a phone
Not whether there is an app, but what recording a partial receipt against one line of a ten-line order actually takes: how many taps, whether the order can be found by scanning or by number, and whether somebody with no finance training can do it in under a minute at a loading bay. This is the capability the whole downstream match depends on.
What happens without a signal
Deliveries arrive in basements, loading bays and rural sites. A system that requires connectivity at the moment of receipt will simply not be used there, and the receipt will be recorded later or not at all. Ask whether capture works offline and syncs, and test it rather than accepting a yes.
What does the export contain
Orders, lines, receipts, revisions and approvals, or just order headers. Ask, and test it during a trial. Organisations change purchase order systems more often than they expect, usually because they outgrow the first one, and an export that omits receipt history makes the next move considerably worse.
Questions people ask about cloud based purchase order system
Should suppliers have access?
Supplier portals are useful at scale and are a later step. They change what suppliers have to do, so they need a reason beyond your convenience.
How do we control who can raise orders?
By role, with a value limit, mirroring your delegated authority. Keep the roles few enough that somebody maintains them.
Is uptime a real risk?
Ask for the actual record rather than the target, and think about what happens if the system is unavailable on a delivery-heavy day.