Behind every successful nonprofit is a web of purchases — supplies, services, and partnerships that keep things running. Without the right systems in place, managing all that spend can quickly become overwhelming. Without a streamlined system, purchasing can become a major source of inefficiency and risk, diverting valuable resources away from core programs. This is why choosing the right procurement software is not just an operational decision — it's a strategic one.

For nonprofits, the best procurement system centralizes purchasing, automates workflows, and provides the detailed reporting needed for grant compliance and audits. By bringing spend under control, organizations can reduce costs, ensure financial transparency, and free up their teams to focus on making a difference.

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Why nonprofits need specialized procurement software

Nonprofits need specialized procurement software to maximize the impact of every dollar, ensure compliance with grant and donor restrictions, and maintain audit-ready financial records. Manual purchasing processes are often inefficient and prone to error, leading to wasted funds and administrative burdens that pull teams away from their primary mission.

Maximizing budgets and reducing purchasing costs

Every dollar saved on operational expenses is a dollar that can be reinvested into an organization’s programs. A procurement platform helps nonprofits reduce purchasing costs by centralizing spend, consolidating vendors, and leveraging data to find the best prices. This ensures that budgets are stretched as far as possible without sacrificing the quality of goods and services.

Ensuring grant and donation compliance

Managing funds from various grants and donations is one of the biggest challenges for nonprofits. Each funding source may have specific rules for how money can be spent. A robust procurement system enforces these rules automatically, ensuring every purchase is compliant. Features like custom approval workflows and budget controls prevent out-of-policy spend before it happens.

Simplifying audit and reporting requirements

Nonprofits are subject to rigorous audits and reporting standards to maintain their status and demonstrate accountability to donors. Manual record-keeping makes this process time-consuming and stressful. Procurement software creates a clear, digital audit trail for every transaction. With all purchasing data in one place, organizations can generate detailed spending reports instantly, making it easy to track spending for grants and prepare for audits with confidence.

Freeing up teams to focus on the mission

Time spent chasing invoices, seeking approvals, and manually entering data is time not spent on mission-critical work. Procurement automation eliminates these repetitive tasks, freeing up finance, operations, and program staff to focus on what truly matters: advancing the organization’s cause.

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Choose the Right Procurement Technology With This Decision Matrix

Find 15 must-ask questions to narrow down your software search and make your research process MUCH easier.

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Key features to look for in a nonprofit procurement system

The best procurement systems for nonprofits offer features like granular budget controls, automated approval workflows, detailed spend reporting, and centralized vendor management. These capabilities directly address the sector's unique needs for financial accountability, compliance, and operational efficiency.

Granular budget and spend controls

For a nonprofit, budgets aren't just guidelines — they're strict limitations tied to specific funding sources. Look for software that allows you to set dynamic budgets by department, project, location, or even individual grant. This ensures that spending stays within allocated amounts and prevents overspending before it occurs.

Automated approval workflows

Manual approval processes create bottlenecks and delays. An effective procurement system automates approval routing based on custom rules, such as purchase amount, category, or budget. This accelerates the purchasing cycle while ensuring every transaction receives proper oversight, which is essential for maintaining an accounts payable audit program.

Real-time spend visibility and reporting

To manage funds responsibly, you need to know where your money is going at all times. A platform that provides real-time, line-level visibility into all purchases is essential. This allows leaders to monitor spending against budgets, identify savings opportunities, and generate the detailed reports required for grant management and financial audits.

Centralized vendor management

Juggling relationships with dozens of vendors leads to inefficiency and missed opportunities for savings. A centralized system brings all vendors, products, and purchasing history into one place. This not only simplifies ordering but also provides the data needed to consolidate suppliers, negotiate better pricing, and improve your overall procurement process.

User-friendly interface for high adoption

A powerful tool is only effective if your team uses it. An intuitive, easy-to-use interface encourages adoption across the organization. When employees can easily find and order what they need through a guided, compliant process, it significantly reduces the risk of maverick spending and ensures data accuracy.

A review of the best procurement systems for nonprofits in 2025

While several systems offer procurement features, the best choice depends on your organization's specific needs for budget control, compliance, and reporting. Order.co provides the most comprehensive solution by unifying the entire purchase-to-pay process in a single, guided marketplace.

Order.co: the all-in-one solution for nonprofits

Order.co is uniquely positioned to help nonprofits manage their entire purchasing lifecycle, from requisition to payment. Unlike point solutions that only handle one part of the process, Order.co offers an end-to-end platform that delivers complete control and significant cost savings.

The platform centralizes all vendors into a single, easy-to-use marketplace, making centralized purchasing a reality. For nonprofits, this means:

• Guaranteed cost savings: Order.co's AI-powered strategic sourcing finds the best prices on products, saving organizations an average of 5% on product costs.
• Effortless grant tracking: With automatic, line-level GL coding, every purchase is correctly allocated to the right grant or fund from the moment of order. This makes reporting seamless and accurate.
• Audit-ready records: All purchasing data is captured in one system, creating a permanent, easily searchable digital record. Consolidated billing dramatically simplifies accounts payable by rolling hundreds of invoices into weekly or monthly bills.
• Complete spend control: Customizable approval workflows and dynamic budgets ensure every purchase is compliant and within budget, eliminating rogue spend.

Procurify

Procurify is a spend management platform that offers tools for creating purchase requests, managing approvals, and tracking budgets. It helps organizations gain visibility into their spending and control costs through a structured workflow. Its interface is generally user-friendly, which can help with team adoption.

However, Procurify primarily focuses on the front end of the procurement process (requisition and approval). Order.co offers a more complete solution by also managing the fulfillment, delivery, and payment processes, consolidating hundreds of invoices while handling vendor communications.

Precoro

Precoro is a procurement software solution designed to streamline purchasing workflows. It provides features for creating purchase orders, managing approvals, and tracking budgets and expenses. The system integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks and NetSuite to help sync financial data.

While Precoro helps organize the purchasing process, it functions more as a workflow tool rather than a comprehensive purchasing platform. Order.co differentiates itself by providing a guided marketplace where all purchasing occurs, directly facilitating fulfillment and payments, and offering AI-powered sourcing to proactively reduce costs.

How to reduce purchasing costs in a non-profit organization

Nonprofits can reduce purchasing costs by centralizing spend, leveraging strategic sourcing, consolidating vendors, and automating manual processes with a procurement platform. Taking a strategic approach to purchasing ensures that every dollar is used as efficiently as possible.

• Centralize purchasing for greater visibility: When purchasing is decentralized, it's impossible to see the complete picture of your organization's spend. A centralized purchasing system provides the visibility needed to identify redundant purchases and opportunities for consolidation.
• Use strategic sourcing to find the best prices: Don't assume you're getting the best price from your current vendors. Strategic sourcing involves analyzing your spend data and the market to find the highest-quality goods for the lowest cost. AI-powered tools can automate this process, continuously finding savings opportunities.
• Consolidate vendors and leverage buying power: Working with fewer, preferred vendors allows you to build stronger relationships and negotiate better terms and volume discounts. A procurement platform makes it easy to guide users to these strategic partners.
• Automate manual tasks to reduce operational overhead: The time your team spends on manual data entry, invoice processing, and chasing approvals is a significant hidden cost. Automating these tasks through a unified platform reduces administrative overhead and frees up resources for more impactful work.

Ebook

Choose the Right Procurement Technology With This Decision Matrix

Find 15 must-ask questions to narrow down your software search and make your research process MUCH easier.

Download

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How to track spending for grants and donations effectively

The most effective way to track spending for grants is to use a procurement system with automated GL coding, real-time reporting, and customizable budget controls that align with specific funding sources. This ensures accuracy and compliance from the very beginning of the purchasing process.

With a platform like Order.co, every purchase is coded at the line-item level before the order is even placed. This eliminates the need for manual reconciliation and ensures that expenses are always attributed to the correct grant or department. When it's time to report to a funder or prepare for an audit, you can generate a precise, detailed report in seconds, confident that the data is 100% accurate.

Streamline your nonprofit’s procurement with Order.co

For nonprofits, effective procurement software is more than a tool for buying supplies — it’s a strategic asset for maximizing mission impact. By gaining control over your indirect procurement and implementing a robust spend management strategy, you can ensure financial stewardship, maintain donor trust, and dedicate more resources to the communities you serve.

Order.co provides the only platform that unifies the entire purchase-to-pay process in a guided marketplace. With AI-powered sourcing, automated AP workflows, and granular reporting, Order.co simplifies buying and empowers nonprofits to operate with the efficiency and control they need to thrive.

Ready to see how you can reduce costs and simplify compliance for your nonprofit? Schedule a demo of Order.co today.