The case for a purchase order app is usually made in terms of approving on the move, which is genuinely useful. The larger benefit is at the other end: recording what arrived, at the delivery point, by the person who saw it. That step is where paper-based processes lose a week, and it is the step everything downstream depends on.
Receipting where deliveries actually happen
Loading bays, back doors, sites. The person signing for a delivery is not at a desk and has no interest in payables, so recording a receipt has to take seconds and work on whatever phone is in their pocket. If it takes longer than that it will be batched, forgotten or done from memory, and all three degrade the match.
Approving orders away from a desk
The second benefit and the more commonly cited one. An approver who can release an order between meetings removes days from the front of the cycle, and for purchase orders that delay is operational as well as administrative: an order not approved is a delivery not ordered.
What to check before relying on it
Offline behaviour, because loading bays and basements are common signal dead spots and a receipt that cannot be recorded there will not be recorded at all. And how few taps a partial receipt against one line of a long order actually takes, tested by somebody who does not work in finance.
Questions people ask about purchase order app
Do delivery staff need accounts?
A limited role that can only receipt against orders. Keep it simple, because complexity here directly reduces the compliance you need most.
Is an app better than a mobile browser?
Only if it handles offline capture or barcode scanning. Otherwise a good browser experience avoids installation friction.
What about photographing the delivery note?
Worth doing, particularly where short deliveries are noted by hand on the docket. It preserves evidence that otherwise exists only on paper somebody will lose.