The holiday season is a time many teams look forward to, an opportunity to rest, recharge and spend time away with families. But for many departments including procurement, it often brings added complexity.

Staff absences can leave critical tasks bottlenecked, reporting requests missed and essential supplier communications delayed. The challenge lies in balancing reduced resource levels with the need to keep projects moving, contracts under control and the procurement pipeline flowing smoothly.

The good news? With the right procurement software, organisations can navigate high leave seasons without disruption. By automating workflows, enabling smarter resource planning and streamlining manual tasks, your procurement software must ensure continuity even when teams are operating at reduced capacity. In this article, we’ll explore how the right source-to-contract solution helps procurement teams stay on top of their workload during high leave periods and why it’s critical for leaders to adopt tools that support efficiency and resilience year-round.

The challenge of high leave seasons in procurement

Procurement doesn’t stop because teams are on leave. Suppliers still need onboarding, approvals must flow and stakeholders often request urgent reports at the least convenient moments.

Without the right systems in place, these peak leave seasons can expose weaknesses in a team’s setup:

During high leave seasons, procurement teams often find themselves facing bottlenecks that can slow the entire pipeline. One of the most common challenges is delays in approvals. If key approvers are away, manual processes can stall, creating knock-on effects across sourcing events or contract awards. At the same time, reporting backlogs begin to build. Senior leadership still expects clear visibility of spend, risk and supplier performance, yet with fewer team members available, producing reports often becomes a last-minute scramble. There’s also the issue of task duplication or gaps. With colleagues stepping in to cover for those on leave, manual tracking systems make it easy for tasks to be missed or, equally, repeated unnecessarily. Finally, supplier responsiveness can suffer when there’s no clear handover process in place. Without a structured system, communication risks slipping through the cracks, potentially damaging relationships and delaying outcomes.

How procurement software supports teams through leave seasons

1. Automation removes bottlenecks

Modern procurement software ensures processes continue seamlessly, even when individuals are unavailable. Automated approval workflows can reroute tasks to delegated approvers, keeping projects on track. Notifications and alerts prevent bottlenecks, ensuring suppliers and internal stakeholders experience no delays.

For example, a sourcing project doesn’t need to pause because a line manager is away, automated rules can escalate approvals to the next in line. This not only reduces dependency on individuals but also builds resilience into the procurement pipeline.

2. Centralised visibility into the procurement pipeline

With a unified view of the procurement pipeline, teams can quickly see what’s in progress, what’s delayed and where risks may lie. This centralisation is invaluable during holiday periods, giving managers an instant snapshot of activity across sourcing, contracts and supplier onboarding.

Instead of scrambling through email chains or spreadsheets, teams can log into one platform and immediately understand project status. This shared visibility reduces the risk of missed tasks and enables smoother handovers.

3. Simplified reporting

Holiday leave doesn’t pause board meetings or audit requirements. Procurement software provides real-time dashboards that make reporting far easier, even for stretched teams. With automated data collection and visualisation, reports can be generated at the click of a button, providing leadership with the insights they need without placing additional strain on individuals. With Atamis you can even subscribe colleagues to relevant reports and schedule them to run and go out at certain intervals. 

The time saved on manual reporting frees up teams to focus on higher-value activities or simply ensures they’re not overstretched covering for absent colleagues.

4. Clear task ownership and delegation

Procurement software allows tasks to be clearly assigned, delegated and tracked. This prevents the confusion that often arises during leave cover, where responsibilities blur and things slip through the cracks. Automated reminders ensure that even during a busy holiday period, key tasks are not forgotten.

For procurement leaders, this provides reassurance that nothing is left undone, while giving teams confidence that they can manage their workload effectively.

5. Strengthening supplier relationships

High leave seasons are also felt by suppliers, who may struggle to get responses if they don’t know who to contact. A supplier portal within procurement software gives them one central point of access, ensuring communication remains consistent even when individuals are away. Automated acknowledgements, status updates and shared documentation all help suppliers feel supported and valued.

By maintaining clear communication, organisations prevent delays and strengthen trust with their supply base even in periods of reduced internal resourcing.

6. Resource planning for seasonal resilience

High leave seasons provide a valuable reminder of the importance of resource planning. The right procurement software helps teams identify workloads well in advance and redistribute tasks accordingly. With pipeline visibility, managers can forecast where additional support may be required and plan workloads around anticipated gaps.

Some teams may opt to slow down certain non-critical projects during holiday periods, while ensuring business-critical processes (such as supplier renewals or urgent sourcing events) remain fully resourced. The key is having the data and tools to make those decisions proactively, rather than reactively.

The right procurement software provides the framework for this planning by highlighting upcoming deadlines, contract renewals and project milestones in one place.

Manual vs. digital: The cost of outdated approaches

Many procurement functions still rely on spreadsheets, emails or paper-based processes. These manual approaches are particularly vulnerable during high leave seasons:

  • Critical knowledge may sit with one individual, unavailable to colleagues
  • Approvals get buried in inboxes, waiting for someone to return
  • Reporting becomes an onerous, manual task at exactly the time resource is tightest

In contrast, a procurement software partner can help to ensure continuity. Knowledge is centralised, processes are automated and tasks are visible to the whole team. By digitising procurement pipeline management, organisations reduce reliance on individuals and build resilient processes.

Long-term benefits beyond the holiday season

The benefits of procurement software extend far beyond December or the summer break. Any time staff are away, whether for parental leave, sickness or unplanned absences, the same challenges arise. By implementing the right tools, procurement leaders future-proof their teams against disruption.

Over the long term, Atamis’ procurement software also:

  • Builds a culture of consistency and accountability.
  • Reduces time wasted on manual administration.
  • Provides leadership with real-time insight into procurement performance.
  • Strengthens supplier collaboration and trust.

Ultimately, investing in procurement software isn’t just about surviving the holiday season. It’s about creating a resilient procurement function that thrives year-round.

Key takeaways for procurement leaders

  1. Automate approval workflows to ensure projects keep moving, even when individuals are away.
  2. Centralise pipeline visibility to make handovers smoother and reduce missed tasks.
  3. Simplify reporting with real-time dashboards, removing manual effort.
  4. Plan resources proactively, redistributing workloads around anticipated leave.
  5. Strengthen supplier communication through portals and automated updates.

Why now is the time to act

As organisations spot the end of the summer holidays, Christmas starts looming in the distance. Procurement leaders should ask themselves: do we have the systems in place to maintain momentum, or are we relying on manual processes that could buckle under reduced staffing?

Adopting modern procurement software is an investment in continuity, efficiency and resilience. By ensuring that automation, visibility and resource planning are embedded into day-to-day operations, teams can enjoy the holiday season without the stress of bottlenecks or missed tasks.

For procurement leaders looking to strengthen their procurement pipeline management, now is the perfect moment to explore how the right software can support your team.