Procurement management software startup Zip today announced several new user interface features in its product.

Zip, which is the business name of ZipHQ Inc., simplifies the procurement process by routing and tracking requests, asking conditional questions, and documenting the status of requests as they move through the approval process. The need for such functionality has increased as the use of software-as-a-service’s surged, creating additional complexity for procurement, information technology and finance teams. Zip says it can reduce procurement cycle times by 35%.

The enhancements, which are currently in beta test, include new collaboration features, comment and notification functionality, new options for viewing pages and one-click approval updates.

Comments and notifications are now centralized in a single collaboration space to make it easier for approvers to communicate with requesters and others in the approval chain. Administrators can now customize the information they need for each approval and filter out irrelevant information.

“Processes are becoming more complex with 15 to 20 approvers not uncommon,” said Lu Cheng, co-founder and chief technology officer. “Our status panel now shows where everything is and we’ve also built a central comments panel so you can see comments persisted throughout.”

The one-click approval feature provides details about each spend request and approval within the review chain, allowing managers to quickly reassign, change the status of or complete tasks with a single click.

A redesigned page tabs layout lets users auto-scroll for more details on a single page, making it easier for procurement teams to see the details of a request and to interact via comments. “Previously people had to click around to find information on a page,” Cheng said. “The entire page is now scrollable so you can see all the details.”

Founded in 2020, Zip has raised more than $80 million and counts more than 100 paying customers including Databricks Inc., Snowflake Inc., Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Zapier Inc.

“We’re in great shape financially,” Cheng said. “We sell into enterprises so contracts are typically annual or longer. We’ve had good retention and the purchasing process is core even to companies that are cutting down their ‘nice to have’ spending.”

Image: Zip