Procurement Management

SME procurement is reactive — purchases are initiated only when a customer asks for an item that is out of stock, causing lost sales and emergency buying at unfavourable prices.

SMEs often default to the same vendor out of habit, missing better pricing available from alternative suppliers for the same item.

SMEs place purchase orders without checking available cash or upcoming payables, leading to payment stress when multiple vendor due dates coincide.

All purchase orders go to the owner for approval regardless of value, creating a bottleneck that delays routine replenishments and wastes the owner's time on small decisions.

Duplicate purchase orders are placed when multiple staff raise requirements for the same item, or when a previous order is forgotten and a new one is raised.

Monthly procurement spend regularly exceeds the budget because there is no system checking PO values against available budget before confirming orders.

Repeat purchases of the same items from regular vendors are placed at varying prices each time because there are no negotiated rate contracts formalised in the system.

New suppliers are added informally — a phone number in a contact list and a WhatsApp conversation — with no documentation of terms, banking details, or compliance status.

Supplier invoices are paid based on their face value without systematic verification against what was ordered and what was actually received.

Advance payments to suppliers are made and then not tracked against deliveries, resulting in either missing goods or forgotten advances that are never recovered.