Top 5 Procurement Processes You Should Automate in 2025

There are at least several areas in procurement that could benefit from automation. And if your company’s not doing it yet, it’s not even time to reconsider. It’s time to start. With the multitude of available procurement automation tools and AI agents, eliminating bottlenecks and facilitating data-driven decisions is probably easier than ever. 

Here are the top five procurement processes you should automate in 2025 to unlock efficiency, agility, and a touch of procurement magic. ✨

Why you should automate procurement

Procurement workloads keep growing. According to the Hackett Group, procurement needs have globally increased by at least 10.6%. Because of a lack of procurement experts, the productivity and effectiveness gaps keep growing. 

That’s why 64% of companies expect AI to transform how their teams work over the next five years. According to the most recent study by The Hackett Group, 33% of organizations are piloting AI for PO processing. With AI-powered automation, procurement sees up to 9.9% average improvement across value metrics, with 9% of companies reporting at least 25% productivity gains.

While not all automation is AI, we’re definitely moving in that direction, with an increasing number of procurement tasks that can be automated. 

Here are five areas of procurement automation you should adopt this year if you want to bridge the productivity gap, see efficiency gains, and, ultimately, do better procurement. 

1. Purchase requisition and approval workflows

If your purchase requisition process still involves email chains, spreadsheets, and manual sign-offs, it’s probably high time for an upgrade. Approval workflows are frequent bottleneck-creators, while it really doesn’t take a magic trick to make them much more efficient. It just takes a little bit of automation in procurement.

Automating purchase requisitions and approvals speeds up the entire process while complying with procurement policies. AI-powered automation can instantly validate requests, match them against budgets, and route them to the appropriate approvers based on pre-defined rules. 

Those who approve also receive more reliable information more quickly, which makes it easier to make decisions confidently without papers piling up on the desk or emails waiting to be read. This reduces delays and improves overall procurement agility. 

2. Supplier communication, onboarding, and management

Supplier relationships are the lifeblood of procurement, but onboarding and managing vendors can be a tedious, manual-intensive process. 

Until you automate it. With AI agents, you can automate essential communication with suppliers. For example, an agent can analyze quotes and ask for missing information if a quote is incomplete. Or it can confirm that the supplier received your emails and follow up with them. And you can chat with the AI agent to pinpoint the missing info and see which offers are problematic.

Working with suppliers worldwide is also no longer a challenge. Procurement automation lets you translate emails and replies on the fly, so language becomes a non-issue.

AI agents can also monitor supplier performance, flagging risks and opportunities in real time. They can track contract compliance, performance metrics, or sustainability commitments. 

With this kind of automation, procurement teams get a single source of truth, so they don’t have to spend time chasing down data in scattered emails and spreadsheets.

The result? Magically more efficient communication and better supplier relationships.

3. Purchase order (PO) creation and processing

Manually generating and processing purchase orders slows down operations and potentially introduces errors. If you’re in procurement, you know that better than anybody. Again, automating PO creation can help with accuracy, efficiency, and seamless communication between procurement teams and suppliers.

AI-powered systems can auto-generate POs based on approved requisitions, validate them against supplier contracts, and even predict future purchasing needs based on historical data. 

What used to feel like magic is now an easy way to move between procurement cycles faster with fewer discrepancies and reduced manual workload. And procurement teams can spend more time focusing on strategic sourcing rather than paperwork. TA✦DA!

4. Invoice processing and payment approvals

The invoicing process, while it sounds straightforward, is often full of with inefficiencies, from mismatched invoices to delayed approvals. Guess what – you can eliminate them with AI-driven automation in procurement and automatically match invoices with POs.

AI agents can also streamline payment approvals to make sure payments are processed on time and consistently compliant with financial controls. And timely payments are an essential element of building strong and lasting supplier relationships. 

So, if you’re not automating your invoice workflows yet, there really is no more time to waste. These days, it’s procurement 101.

5. Contract lifecycle management

Contracts are the backbone of procurement. But their manual management might give you a serious backache. 

Luckily, it’s also one of the easiest things to automate in procurement, letting procurement teams efficiently track key contract milestones, renewal deadlines, and compliance requirements.

AI-powered contract lifecycle management solutions can:

• analyze contract terms, 
• identify risks, 
• and even suggest renegotiation opportunities based on market trends. 

And it’s another element helping stay compliantand minimize risks with centralized contract management and automated alerts.

It’s not magic – it’s automation

Think of automation in procurement as a tool that helps teams become more efficient, eliminate inconsistencies and errors, and leave more time for strategic tasks and relationship building.

Because it’s what it really is. And increasingly more tasks can be automated in procurement to support teams and benefit entire organizations.

In 2025, automation in procurement isn’t something to “consider.” Instead, it’s time to start implementing workflows into your internal processes. 

If you want to start in an easy and user-friendly way, with no lengthy onboarding processes and complicated software integrations, start with Zingflow and its AI agents. You can sign up for a demo here.