Procurement & Supplier Management Software for SME Manufacturers
Stop shortages from killing your cash flow and customer promises.
Flowlens purchasing software drives every purchase order from real demand, so your buyers order what production needs, when it needs it, from suppliers you can rely on.- Demand-driven purchasing priorities, colour-coded by urgency
- Purchase orders pre-populated from live shortage reports
- RFQ workflow for supplier quotes
- Multiple suppliers and prices per part
- Supplier delivery and performance tracking
“Now We’re Buying Smarter.”
“We’re using the Flowlens data where we can see how late a supplier is. We’re able to effectively manage an underperforming supplier, ultimately removing them from our vendor list.”
Gareth Black
Technical Director, Flint Subsea
Demand-Driven Purchasing for Equipment Manufacturers
Flowlens is built for equipment, device and machinery manufacturers with 10 to 100 staff: scientific instruments, sensors and detectors, electrical and electronic devices, test and measurement equipment, industrial plant, materials handling and farm machinery. Most come to us with purchasing run from spreadsheets, supplier emails and a weekly walk round the stores, and most are buying either too early or too late. Because Flowlens links sales orders, bills of materials, stock and production in one system, every purchasing decision starts from what the shop floor actually needs, and your buyers get their time back for negotiating with suppliers.Shortage Reports and Pre-Populated Purchase Orders
The shortage report shows every part that is short across all open jobs and raises purchase orders from it with the supplier, quantity and price already filled in, so a morning of cross-referencing becomes a few minutes of checking and sending.
Demand-Driven Purchasing Priorities
Flowlens reads demand from live sales orders, job cards and BOMs, then ranks every outstanding requirement with a traffic-light urgency system, so the buyer opens one screen each morning and knows which orders matter today.
Request for Quotation Workflow
Raise RFQs to your suppliers from inside Flowlens and keep every quote on record against the part, so negotiations stay visible to the whole team and the price history is there the next time you buy.
Multiple Suppliers and Prices Per Part
Hold several approved suppliers against each part, each with their own price and lead time, so a late delivery or a price rise becomes a change of supplier on the order and never a stopped production line.
Supplier Delivery and Performance Tracking
Every delivery is logged against its promised date, so you can see which suppliers hit their dates and which ones cost you delays and rework, and decide who stays on your vendor list with evidence behind the decision.
Batch and Lot Traceability in Purchasing
Batch and lot numbers are captured at goods-in and follow the component through the build, so a supplier quality issue traces back to the exact purchase order and forward to the exact serial numbers shipped, which is the trail an ISO 9001 auditor asks for.
“Faster Decisions.”
Now we have visibility when parts are dropping below a trigger level. We know we can react in time to have the parts in place and the customer gets their order when they need it.
Rob White
Director of Excellence, DD Scientific
Purchasing That Talks to the Rest of Your Business
Procurement in Flowlens is part of one MRP system, so a purchase order raised today updates stock, job costs and your accounts ledger without anyone re-keying it, and the lead times, subcontractors and BOMs that drive your buying all live in the same place.
Lead Times Built Into Reorder Logic
Supplier lead times sit against each part, so Flowlens flags the date an order has to be placed to land in time, and long-lead components get ordered before they hold up a build.
Purchase Costs Flow Into Job Costing
The price you paid on each purchase order feeds the job cost automatically, using FIFO or LIFO valuation, so margin on every build reflects what the parts actually cost and not a standard cost from last year.
Subcontractor Demand
Subcontract operations sit inside the production route, so free-issue parts and subcontract purchase orders are raised and tracked alongside everything else, and nothing sits at a supplier that production has forgotten about.
Xero, QuickBooks and Sage 50 Integration
Purchase invoices, credit notes and supplier records sync directly to Xero, QuickBooks Online or Sage 50, so your bookkeeper is never re-keying purchase orders and the ledger matches what was actually bought.
Driven by Your Bills of Materials
Demand comes straight from the multi-level BOMs on your open jobs, so when engineering revises a part or a sub-assembly, purchasing sees the change the same day. See how Flowlens BOM management software handles revisions, sub-assemblies and imports.
Live Stock Levels and Reorder Points
Goods-in, issues to jobs and dispatches all update stock in real time, so reorder points trigger on what is actually on the shelf and buyers stop ordering components that are already sitting in stores. Flowlens stock management software covers multi-location stock, serial and batch tracking.
From Sales Order to Purchase Order
A confirmed sales order creates the job, the job explodes the BOM, and the shortfall lands on the shortage report, so the parts for a new order are on their way to you within minutes of the customer saying yes.
Linked to Production Planning
Every job card shows which parts are on order and when they are due, so the production planner can see at a glance whether a build can start on Monday, and purchasing and the shop floor stop working from two different lists.
Purchasing Reports and Dashboards
One-click reports on open purchase orders, late deliveries, spend by supplier and stock value, with custom dashboards for the buyer, the operations manager and the MD, so the Monday meeting runs on numbers and not on memory.
“Flowlens lets us buy better.”
Flowlens provides me with a shortage report, so I know what to order. I can hang back and wait until other orders have come in, and it’ll provide me with a list of everything across multiple orders, rather than just me working on one order and then tomorrow having to work orders some more.
Steve Drake
Cap Coder Filling & Capping Automation Machinery
Commonly asked questions about procurement software...
Can we hold more than one supplier and price for the same part?
Yes. Each part can carry several approved suppliers, each with its own price, lead time and supplier part number. When you raise a purchase order you pick the supplier for that order, so a price change or a late delivery is handled on the order and the alternatives are already set up.
Does Flowlens raise purchase orders automatically from shortages?
The shortage report pulls together every part that is short across all open jobs and lets you raise purchase orders from it with the supplier, quantity and price pre-populated. You review and send, so nothing goes to a supplier without a buyer checking it first.
Is procurement a separate module or part of the system?
Purchasing is part of the core Flowlens system, alongside stock, BOMs, production and CRM. Purchase orders, goods-in and supplier records share the same data as everything else, which is what makes demand-driven purchasing possible.
How are subcontractors handled?
Subcontract operations are set up as steps in the production route. Flowlens raises the subcontract purchase order, tracks the free-issue parts sent out and the finished work coming back, and keeps the cost against the job.
Does it work with Xero, QuickBooks or Sage 50?
Yes. Flowlens has direct integrations with Xero and QuickBooks Online at no extra cost, and with Sage 50. Purchase invoices and supplier records sync to your accounts package without re-keying.
How is supplier performance measured?
Every delivery is recorded against the date the supplier promised, so Flowlens builds a record of on-time and late deliveries by supplier over time. Clients use that data to identify and remove an underperforming supplier from their vendor list.
How long does it take to get purchasing running?
A typical Flowlens implementation takes between two and sixteen weeks to be fully operational, depending on how ready your data is and how complex your processes are. The data import toolkit brings in parts, suppliers and BOMs from spreadsheets, and every implementation includes a free sandbox for training the team before going live.
Take Control of Purchasing and Supplier Management
Book a demo with the Flowlens team and see purchasing run from real demand, using your own products and suppliers as the example.
