In education, budgets are tight, audits are stringent, and funders expect crystal-clear reporting and accountability. For schools, the stakes are high as every purchasing decision affects more than just academic priorities. Misallocated funds can jeopardize critical programs, and poor oversight can lead to audit issues that can impact future funding.
Schools have significant operational costs, ranging from facilities and maintenance to IT infrastructure, academic supplies, and sporting equipment. With so many areas of spend, having control over how much you’re spending and which vendors you’re purchasing from can make the difference between overspending and realizing real cost savings through approved, contracted vendors. Teachers and staff need a simple way to request what they need, and get it approved quickly, so educational programs and activities aren’t disrupted. Effective procurement management in schools is key to keeping operations running smoothly without straining the budget.
Managing these processes across departments and facilities is never simple. Still, many are stuck managing purchasing with paper-based processes, email chains, spreadsheets, or legacy systems that were never built for today’s demands for agility and remote access.
From missed approvals to duplicate purchases, the hidden costs of manual procurement systems stack up quickly and often go undetected. Let’s take a closer look at what schools are really paying for when they rely on outdated processes, and how cloud-based procurement software like Fraxion can help bring order, visibility, and savings to school operations.
How manual procurement impacts schools: 5 costs you can’t afford to ignore
Most finance leaders can spot an over-budget line item. But the inefficiencies that cause overspending? Those are harder to catch.
Here’s where manual procurement usually goes wrong:
1. Constant approval bottlenecks slow everything down
When every purchase needs to be tracked down and approved by hand, it slows everything and everyone down. Teachers and staff waste time chasing signatures. Business managers and bursars spend even more time reacting to the impact of purchases they didn’t see coming.
Without guardrails in place, it’s easy for staff to order supplies from unapproved vendors. That might seem harmless, but over time, schools end up spending more due to missed opportunities for pre-negotiated pricing, early settlement, and bulk discounts.
3. Duplicate purchases that drain your budget
Not having centralized spend visibility might lead to staff ordering items they already have, or that someone else has already bought. These duplicates rarely get noticed until after the fact.
4. Misaligned budgets and misreported spend
When purchases aren’t tied to a specific grant, fund, or budget in real time, it’s easy to misallocate spend. That creates headaches when reporting back to donors or trying to balance department budgets later.
5. Audits turn into a paper chase
Pulling records from filing cabinets, multiple inboxes, and dispersed locations doesn’t just take time. It increases the risk of errors, missing documentation, and noncompliant transactions.
Each of these problems chips away at a school’s financial resilience. And they cost you time and trust with stakeholders, funders, and leadership.
The benefits of replacing manual procurement workflows with cloud-based procurement software
A digital procurement solution doesn’t just digitize forms. It introduces real visibility and control over spending before it happens.
Here’s what that looks like in practice with a solution like Fraxion:
Built-in spend controls
With Fraxion, every purchase request is automated and routed via escalating approval workflows. Budget thresholds and vendor authorization are embedded from the start, meaning that purchases follow policy by design and not by chance.
Live budget tracking
The software shows you how every request impacts the budget in real-time, so no one approves purchases or expenses blindly. That includes tracking spending across grants, donations, or projects.
Purchasing visibility
Whether you manage a few departments or multiple locations, procurement software allows you to track spending by employee, vendor, transaction, and budgets in one place.
Mobile and Microsoft Teams approvals
Fraxion meets teams where they work. Purchases, budget checks, and approvals can happen from a phone or within Teams, helping staff move quickly without skipping steps.
PunchOut catalog support
Your staff can shop from approved PunchOut catalogs (like Amazon Business or Lakeshore) right from the system. This keeps purchases controlled and convenient, with the familiar ease of online shopping.
Audit-ready records
Every step of the process is tracked with digital records and audit trails in Fraxion. Since everything gets documented automatically within the platform, audit prep is always streamlined and organized.
Education success story: The Hotchkiss School gained full visibility and spend control
The Hotchkiss School, an independent boarding school in Connecticut, relied on manual procurement system. Purchasing processes included manual, paper-based, and email-driven methods that were slow and inefficient. Staff used different payment methods and individual vendor accounts, which limited visibility, control, and opportunities for savings. Approvals were cumbersome, often delayed by missed steps or unavailable personnel. Without centralized oversight, spend control, policy enforcement, and audit readiness were difficult to achieve.
Once they implemented Fraxion, the change was significant.
The school achieved procurement efficiency, gaining transparency, accountability, and stronger spend control. Staff benefited from familiar PunchOut shopping experiences, simplifying purchasing while improving compliance. Centralized vendor management enabled better terms and savings, while a robust approval matrix reduced delays and financial risk. Automated invoicing, seamless ERP integration, and enhanced visibility into endowment and departmental spend helped cut unnecessary costs and support smarter purchasing decisions.
As they put it, Fraxion helped them make better decisions about how and where to spend:
“One of the primary advantages of Fraxion is its ability to provide visibility into every transaction. This transparency allows us to seek out the best deals for high-dollar purchases, often leading to savings. We frequently see cost reductions—sometimes up to 20%—compared to schools that may pay full price.”
Rob Seymour, Purchasing Manager
Exploring the best tools to replace manual procurement systems
It’s important to know how to choose the right procurement software for education because not every school needs a comprehensive platform with features they’ll never use.
The best tools for replacing manual procurement processes are intuitive, built with finance and purchasing KPIs and objectives in mind, and flexible enough to support your school’s specific needs. If you're in the process of evaluating tools, make sure to look for platforms that include:
- Built-in budget checks and multi-level approval workflows
- Clear audit trails and digital records
- Robust integrations with ERPs/accounting systems, messaging apps, and vendor catalogs
- Real-time spend tracking and analytics for easy reporting and insights
- Advanced mobile app functionality.
Curious about the top platforms available? Take a look at the top procure-to-pay software platforms in 2025. Compare options and find the right fit for your school.
Automate your manual procurement processes with Fraxion’s all-in-one procure-to-pay software
When schools have full visibility into purchasing, they avoid budget overruns, reduce financial surprises, and maintain compliance. They earn trust from funders and stakeholders who expect accountability.
Fraxion equips finance leaders and business managers with everything they need to control spending, drive efficiency, and ensure accountability, while making processes and compliance easy for faculty and staff. The platform is designed to handle the real-world challenges schools face, such as limited budgets, multiple funding sources, and strict reporting requirements. It simplifies the management of every purchase, expense, and invoice with automated approvals, policy enforcement, and real-time budget tracking.
If your school is still managing procurement with paper trails or email approvals, hidden costs and inefficiencies are likely adding up. See how Fraxion helps schools like yours simplify procurement, reduce spend, and gain financial control.
Book a demo with the Fraxion team today.