If your purchase orders juggle between spreadsheets and email threads, you are at risk and lagging behind the competition. The last two years have witnessed supply chocks, inflation, and compliance demands. And yet, many procurement teams still manage purchase orders with tools that are technologically outdated and do not match today’s speed, scalability, or agility. Procurement is more than just placing orders- it’s about strategic decisions around quality, price, compliance, reliability, risk, and maintaining strong business relationships. But companies holding on to legacy systems likely face data silos and integration headaches. In this blog, we will explore the reasons that determine your purchase order management is outdated and needs an upgrade.

Here’s a list of five reasons your PO processes still favour reliance on disconnected systems, manual workflows, and spreadsheets:

1. You’re Managing POs in Spreadsheets

You are managing purchase orders in spreadsheets if your workflow still relies on duplicating last month’s tab just to keep a track of history. This usually leads to fragile setups where cell formulas break when someone sorts any columns/rows or applies filters incorrectly. Collaboration becomes fragmented when two stakeholders edit the same shared file simultaneously, overwriting each other’s updates without realizing it. To make matters worse, you cannot see real-time updates – what’s approved, ordered, shipped, delayed, or received. Without a centralized system, everything is buried in invariable rows and columns.

Why is it a problem

Spreadsheets may seem familiar and flexible, but they are not ideal for managing transactional workflows. Research proves how error-prone spreadsheets get – not just when sorting one specific column but also by order amount, product category, supplier, approval status, supplier information. Any filtering or rendering can misalign formulas and distort references. Although spreadsheets are perpetually outdated, procurement relies on them. Studies claim that 76% of teams managed their suppliers using Excel or home-grown solutions in 2023.

Knock-on effects

• Slow cycle times with manual copy-paste processes
• Version control challenges during audits
• Duplicate or conflicting POs from multiple tabs

Tech advancement is already an investment priority. A CIPS Global State of Procurement & Supply 2025 survey found that 59% of organizations are willing to invest in digital technology in the next 12 months (followed by AI at 44% and supply chain visibility at 30%). 

Here’s how you can fix it:

• Centralize PO creation/approval in a system with role-based access control
  and unchangeable audit log.
• Generate POs from approved requisitions to reduce manual errors.
• Connect your PO system to ERPs so suppliers and invoices stay synchronized.

You Have Untracked Changes and Disputes

Untracked changes often arise when important details in procurement are altered but not properly documented or communicated. This can happen when the price listed or other info listed on a PO does not match the quoted figure, creating discrepancy among teams. In some cases, a stakeholder may modify quantities in an internal spreadsheet without informing the supplier, leading to discrepancy in delivery schedules or invoices. Without a centralized, transparent platform, teams end up relying on multiple versions of documents to check who modified what and when.

Why is it a problem

Such situations waste valuable time as stakeholders attempt to reconcile discrepancies, also strain relationships with suppliers, and affect project timelines. Without document version control and communication protocols – even small modifications can escalate into disputes quantities, costs, or delivery commitments. Implementing real-time change tracking, shared system for document version control, and approval workflows ensure that every update is logged, accessible to authorized relevant parties, and agreed upon before execution. This minimizes friction, prevents financial errors, and promotes accountability across procurement and finance operations. 

Knock-on effects

• • A price on the PO doesn’t match the quote in someone’s email.
  • A stakeholder adjusts quantities / order information in a spreadsheet but forgets to tell the supplier.
  • Suppliers spend hours chasing clarifications.

  Month-end accruals are wrong because the latest change would never make it to finance. 
  

Here’s how you can fix it:

• Tie every PO alteration to a user and reason code; auto-notify suppliers.l
• Apply change orders with auto-versioning and side-by-side differences.
• Lock commercial terms (payment, incoterms, price) to contract records; reduce manual overrides without approval.
  

Your Supplier Communication is Lost in Email Threads

Your procurement team furiously sifts through the cascade of internal messages and CCs to find the confirmation of a supplier’s ship date. You forward PO documents via email, then wait for manual acknowledgement. “We never received that PO” becomes a weekly refrain and chasing confirmations becomes a tedious job. Somewhere wading through meeting recaps, drawn-out discussions, and in-person conversations, crucial tasks remain undone.  And emailing becomes the digital equivalent of passing the buck.

Why is it a problem

Relying on email as the backbone of supplier communication is highly fragile. Even with spam filters, inbox rules, and labels – email threads bury context and make it challenging to reconstruct a chain of events. A survey found that 79% of procurement teams do not trust their data due to disconnected workflows and fragmented systems. Ultimately, you either waste considerable time trying to keep a tab of your unopened messages or abandon your inbox completely and tell people to text you instead.

Knock-on effects

• Delays are discovered too late – commonly after production gets impacted, or customer deliverables are at risk.
• No systematic audit trail or structured record – any PO alteration, acknowledgement, or commitment lives in email threads.
• Duplicate work: team members retype the same order details and updates across spreadsheets and ERP modules, resulting in version mismatch and human errors. 

Here’s how you can fix it:

• Implement a centralized supplier platform that binds all communication, acknowledgement, contracts, and invoices to each PO record – so everything is synchronized and duplicate information is restricted. 
• Automate supplier communication reminders (for instance, if there is no acknowledgment in 48-72 hours, escalate automatically).
• Consolidate messages – make correspondence a structured flow inside the PO system (so everyone can access documents, replies, and alterations and never miss out on important information).

4. You Can’t Provide ‘Real-Time Status’ on Demand

A stakeholder (accounts, operations, executive) asks for the live status of a PO and your team finds it difficult to export a “snapshot” from a spreadsheet or combine multiple system reports. Your performance metrics scorecard is a manually combined PDF or PowerPoint slide deck. The numbers go stale the moment you distribute it. Your KPI package is a manually stitched PDF or PowerPoint slide deck. The moment you distribute it, the numbers are already stale. Different stakeholders find it difficult to achieve a single source of truth – procurement, accounting, and supply chain reports don’t align.

Why is it a problem

Relying on email as the backbone of supplier communication is highly fragile. Even with spam filters, inbox rules, and labels – email threads bury context and make it challenging to reconstruct a chain of events. A survey found that 79% of procurement teams do not trust their data due to disconnected workflows and fragmented systems. Ultimately, you either waste considerable time trying to keep a tab of your unopened messages or abandon your inbox completely and tell people to text you instead.

Knock-on effects

• Decisions based on conflicting data, increasing operational risk.
• Losing stakeholder trust and confidence when numbers don’t align or report back incorrectly.
• Endless reconciliation across disparate systems (procurement tracker vs ERP vs finance).

Here’s how you can fix it:

• Implement an integrated platform to keep track of all PO status, receipts, invoice matching at one place.
• Leverage real-time dashboards that show key KPIs (commit vs need-by dates, late deliveries, exception alerts) to stakeholders.
• Enable read-only dashboard accessibility to leadership so they see live, synchronized metrics.

5. You Don’t See Delivery Risks Until It’s Too Late

You learn about a shipment delay once a stakeholder pings you or worse when the delivery truck never arrives. Purchase orders don’t come with promising live ship dates, advance ship notices, or linked tracking. No proactive alerts are received when a line item misses its confirmed ship date without update – everything is last minute. 

Why is it a problem

Visibility is more than just vanity, it’s a boardroom issue. A Deloitte survey reported that more than 70% of CPOs found procurement-related risk and supply chain disruptions increased over the past year. Notingly, only 25% of firms claimed that they were able to identify and predict disruptions to a large extent – meaning most operate partially blind. Due to this, delays weigh heavy on pockets: you end up rushing freight, making emergency purchases, or missing inventory deadlines – all of this erodes margins, increases lead times, and impacts credibility.

Knock-on effects

• Last-minute freight erodes margins – premium shipping is used as a cover up for missed timelines.
• Production reschedules and purchase price variances disrupt downstream operations – triggering a supply chain reaction that makes supply chain scramble, resulting in negative consequences.
• Stock-outs or late customer orders – missed delivery targets leads to lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction.

Here’s how you can fix it:

• Keep a note of supplier delivery timelines and milestone updates (acknowledgement, production start, ready-to-ship) on every PO line.
• Deploy risk automation – whenever commit and confirmed date differs, or a carrier exception is detected.
• Integrate real-time PO tracking so exceptions trigger alerts proactively before the due date lapses.

How does Quloi help?

The supply chain and logistics industry is signalling loud and clear: digitization and real-time end-to-end visibility are not nice-to-haves but standard business needs. Organizations that go beyond messy emails, lengthy spreadsheets, and untracked changes will shrink processing times, cut exception rates, and protect margins – especially when disruptions hit. CPOs who modernize their PO management don’t just advance; they build resilient, data-driven procurement functions. The Quloi platform is designed to replace spreadsheets with a centralized system for POs, requests, approvals, invoice matching, supplier collaboration. The SaaS platform drives accountability and transparency across buyers, suppliers, approvers, and finance – so you spend less time reconciling files and more delivering outcomes. 

Book a FREE Demo to explore how our intuitive platform helps you simplify purchase workflows by offering multi-currency management, bulk order management, centralized document management, real-time order tracking, and more.   

Achieve a single source of truth with Quloi’s centralized PO management system!