As of 13 August 2026, AI can find procurement software for your small business.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a document or spreadsheet and record your business size, purchasing categories, number of requesters and approvers, current process, accounting software, supplier volume and budget.
   2. List the controls you need, including approval levels, purchase orders, invoice matching, budget limits, audit history, user permissions and any UK-specific requirements.
   3. Paste the completed requirements into the prompt and run it in a chatbot with web access, asking it to use current official vendor pages and to mark unavailable facts as unknown.
   4. Copy the proposed shortlist and comparison table into your document, keeping the source link beside every feature, integration and pricing claim.
   5. Open each vendor's official product and pricing pages and compare the claims against the table, removing any product that fails a must-have requirement.
   6. Book demonstrations for the remaining products and ask each vendor to show your actual approval, purchase-order and invoice process rather than relying on a generic presentation.
   7. Compare the verified costs, implementation work, integrations and demo results with your requirements, then send the preferred option to the person responsible for approving business software.

   Prompt

   I run a small business in the UK and need to choose procurement software. Research a shortlist of suitable products using current official vendor sources where possible. Use these requirements: business type and size: [describe]; number of people who raise or approve purchases: [number]; purchasing categories: [describe]; current process: [email, spreadsheets, accounting system or other]; accounting or finance software: [name]; required integrations: [list]; supplier or purchase-order volume: [describe]; approval and audit requirements: [describe]; budget: [amount or unknown]; implementation deadline: [date or unknown]; must-have features: [list]; unacceptable features or constraints: [list]. Compare 5 to 8 relevant products in a table covering purchase requests, approvals, purchase orders, supplier management, invoice matching, budget controls, audit trail, integrations, UK suitability, implementation difficulty, pricing model and evidence source. Separate verified facts from your assessment. Do not invent prices, features, customer numbers or UK compliance claims. If a fact is unavailable or could have changed, mark it as unknown and give me the exact vendor page or question to check. Rank the shortlist against my must-have requirements, identify deal-breakers, and finish with five questions to ask each vendor in a demo. Do not recommend a product solely because it is well known.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.