How to Fix Gaps in Your Lab's Purchasing Workflow | ZAGENO

A lab’s ability to innovate depends on more than just brilliant ideas and cutting-edge equipment. Behind the scenes, operational processes, especially purchasing workflows, can either accelerate discovery or create costly bottlenecks.

If your lab has ever experienced delays due to missing reagents, struggled to manage supplier quotes, or had orders sit in approval limbo, this post is for you. Below, we’ll help you identify common purchasing gaps and how to close them before they impact your science.

The cost of a broken lab purchasing process

When workflows are fragmented or overly manual, it’s not just operations that suffer. Researchers feel it at the bench. Finance feels it in the budget. Procurement feels it everywhere.

According to ZAGENO internal data, lab managers lose an average of 6.5 hours per week sourcing and ordering products. Multiply that across departments, and inefficiencies can add up to hundreds of hours per month.

Other hidden costs include:

• Failed experiments due to wrong or delayed materials
• Duplicate orders from decentralized purchasing
• Lost rebates or missed discount thresholds
• Inability to forecast spend accurately

Efficient lab operations are increasingly recognized as a strategic advantage, not just a logistical necessity. According to the Lab Manager’s breakdown of what successful lab ops look like, best-in-class labs prioritize automation, supply chain resilience, and proactive spend management. If your purchasing workflow is reactive or fragmented, you’re likely missing those benchmarks.

8 questions to diagnose the gaps in your workflow

Use this checklist to evaluate your current procurement process. These eight questions will help uncover where inefficiencies and “pain points” are lurking:

The real impact of workflow gaps

These workflow gaps don’t just create inefficiency in abstract terms; they create real friction across your organization. Here’s what that sounds like in practice:

For scientists, it might be:

• “I don’t know if this item is in stock.” (Lack of inventory visibility)
• “It took 10 days to get an order approved.” (Clunky approval process)
• “I ordered it myself because it was faster.” (Workarounds due to slow or rigid systems, aka rogue spending)

For procurement and finance, it could be:

• “Why are we seeing rogue spend from XYZ vendor?” (Unapproved purchases happening outside official channels)
• “We’re not hitting our contracted volume for rebates.” (Fragmented spend diluting your purchasing power)
• “We had to reconcile 7 invoices for one experiment.” (Too many suppliers and invoices for a single project – an administrative nightmare)

These disconnects lead to lost time, strained relationships, and budget overruns.

What a streamlined lab purchasing workflow looks like

Forward-thinking labs are modernizing procurement with centralized platforms. These systems simplify purchasing while supporting compliance, cost savings, and scientific speed.

With a lab procurement platform like ZAGENO:

• Search 40M+ SKUs across 5,000+ suppliers in one view
• Compare real-time availability, pricing, and lead times
• Route orders to preferred vendors automatically
• Consolidate purchases into one cart, one PO, one invoice
• Track every order from request to receipt
• Integrate approvals, budgets, and analytics in one place

Need hard proof? In real-world use, ZAGENO customers have seen:

• 70% less time spent on 3-way matching for finance teams
• 2–4 weeks saved when onboarding new suppliers

Your next step: Map and fix the gaps

Don’t wait until missed deliveries or blown budgets force a change. Proactively mapping your current workflow and comparing it to what’s possible can uncover quick wins.

Start by identifying:

• How many suppliers are you actively managing?
• How many systems do researchers need to place an order?
• How much time do orders spend waiting for approval?

Then ask: What would change if it all happened in one platform?

FAQs

1. What is a lab purchasing workflow?
   A series of steps that govern how lab teams request, approve, order, and receive supplies, including sourcing, supplier selection, budgeting, and compliance.
2. What causes inefficiencies in lab procurement?
   Common causes include using too many supplier systems, lack of real-time data, manual approvals, and misalignment between procurement and research.
3. How can labs streamline their purchasing workflow?
   Use a centralized procurement platform to unify catalogs, automate approvals, consolidate orders, and provide spend visibility.