The ABCs of procurement in schools: How to simplify and save

In private, independent, and charter schools, balancing spending and budgets with educational priorities is essential to ensure resources are allocated efficiently and educational goals are met. With teachers and staff already stretched thin by curricular and student needs, time-consuming tasks like procurement can divert valuable focus. Procurement automation can transform how schools manage purchasing, expenses, and accounts payable, reducing the administrative burden for staff and giving educators more time to focus on their core responsibilities. 

Effective procurement and spend management are crucial to a school’s success. Procurement secures the resources needed for educational goals, while spend management ensures these purchases are approved and align with budgets. Together, they maximize efficiency, control costs, and support better educational outcomes. Streamlining these processes with easy-to-use technology frees up teachers and staff to focus on what matters most—teaching and student development.

6 Essential tips for streamlining spend control in schools

1. Simplify processes and gain control of costs

Private, independent, and charter schools face a distinct set of financial challenges:

• Enrolment uncertainty
• Collection challenges
• Fluctuating student numbers
• Rising operational costs
• Shrinking budgets
• Limited funding

Schools are constantly navigating how to do more with fewer resources. At the same time, they must meet high expectations for student achievement, facility management, and extracurricular programming, all while ensuring they maintain compliance with strict regulatory standards.

Managing this fine balance requires not only careful planning but also efficient control over how funds are spent across various departments and projects. 

For example, a school undergoing a campus renovation project needs visibility and control to track spending across multiple vendors and ensure the project stays within the allocated budget. 

By using procurement software, the school can monitor spending in real-time, avoid overspending, and simplify the process for purchasing goods and services from the right vendors, at the best prices.

Gaining more visibility and control over spending can help schools overcome these obstacles by optimizing how resources are allocated, ensuring every dollar is stretched to its maximum potential. 

2. Use accessible and familiar tools to streamline processes

Leveraging a mobile app-enabled procurement system can streamline purchasing and expense management for teachers, allowing them to quickly submit purchase requests or track expenses while out at field trips, on the sports field, or during semester breaks. 

With real-time access, they can submit purchase requests and heads of departments (HODs) can approve on-the-go, reducing the need for paperwork and admin when they return.

Procurement software that integrates with familiar tools like Microsoft Teams enhances both compliance and process efficiency for schools. Staff can seamlessly manage requisitions, approve purchases with budget insight, within a platform they already use daily, reducing the learning curve and driving user adoption. 

PunchOut catalog integrations provide seamless access to core educational vendors like Amazon Business, Staples, and Lakeshore, allowing educators to purchase classroom essentials through familiar eCommerce interfaces. 

These integrations maintain critical procurement controls, such as budget checks and approval workflows, ensuring that all purchases align with the school's policies. By streamlining access to trusted suppliers, schools can efficiently acquire the necessary resources while maintaining fiscal responsibility and compliance.

For schools looking to accelerate time to value and realize savings, it’s worth considering software with these adoption-enhancing features, ensuring quicker onboarding and smoother transitions to more efficient procurement practices.

3. Manage spending across budgets, grants, and endowments

Schools often manage a complex range of financial resources, from operating budgets and project-specific allocations to restricted grants and endowments. This complexity necessitates precise tracking and reporting to maintain compliance and prevent overspending. 

Procurement software simplifies this by offering real-time insights into expenditures across all funding streams, ensuring financial accuracy and control.

Transparency is a cornerstone of effective school financial management. With advanced procurement tools, schools can generate detailed reports that provide clear visibility into fund allocation and spending patterns. 

This level of transparency is essential for maintaining accountability to boards, and funders, all of whom depend on accurate, timely data to make informed decisions. By automating and streamlining reporting, procurement software helps schools meet stringent stakeholder requirements, fostering trust and demonstrating responsible financial stewardship. 

Ultimately, this strengthens compliance and enhances the school's capacity to secure future funding and resources.

4. Get the best value with memberships to group purchasing organizations (GPOs)

Many procurement software vendors offer memberships to group purchasing organizations (GPOs), providing schools with a significant advantage by offering access to pre-negotiated, competitive pricing for essential goods and services. 

By leveraging the collective buying power of many institutions, schools can secure lower costs on everything from classroom supplies to technology and maintenance services. 

Procurement software that integrates GPO memberships simplifies the process by automatically linking purchases to negotiated contracts, ensuring that schools consistently receive the best available prices. This streamlined approach not only saves time but also helps schools avoid overspending, enabling them to allocate their budgets more strategically. 

By reducing procurement costs in schools, financial leaders and bursars can invest more in educational programs, facilities, and other priorities that directly benefit students and staff.

5. Leverage AI to improve accuracy and avoid overpayment

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI)-driven accounts payable automation tools can greatly improve efficiency for finance teams in schools by eliminating manual data entry and mitigating the risks of costly errors.

By automating the invoice processing workflow, schools can minimize issues like overpayments, duplicate invoices, and late payments that disrupt financial planning and incur penalties. 

Leveraging AI technology not only improves accuracy in accounts payable but also streamlines approval processes, ensuring timely payments to vendors and maintaining strong relationships—all crucial for supporting the educational mission. 

It's beneficial to consider procurement solutions with integrated AP automation to strengthen spend control and efficiency in resource constrained schools.

6. Simplify audit readiness and ensure compliance

Having a centralized system in place, like procurement software, positions schools to manage audits efficiently and maintain financial oversight. By consolidating all purchasing records into one accessible platform, schools eliminate the need to chase down paper trails or manually search for purchase orders, receipts, and invoices. 

Instead, procurement software digitally tracks every transaction, approval, and budget allocation in real-time. This transparency ensures alignment with both internal policies and external regulations, greatly simplifying the audit process. 

Digitizing processes like purchase orders, approvals, and invoice matching reduces the risk of human error or lost documentation, providing a clear and organized audit trail year-round. 

Ultimately, this centralized approach enhances financial transparency, fosters accountability, and positions schools to meet audit requirements with confidence. 

Why prioritize procurement automation in schools? 

Automating procurement and spend management in schools can significantly enhance operational efficiency and financial control. 

By prioritizing these practices, schools can foster a cost-conscious spending culture and mitigate risks associated with collection issues, enrolment uncertainty, potential budget cuts, and fraudulent activities. 

Gaining visibility and control over operational spending can unlock savings that can be redirected toward key initiatives. By leveraging procurement automation, schools not only enhance their financial health but also create a more sustainable future for their educational missions.

When considering procurement solutions, it's essential to choose one that meets your school's needs via functionality and usability, while prioritizing factors like security, customer satisfaction and success in schools, and reliable application support. 

Ultimately, selecting a vendor that will be a true partner in your success enables schools to operate more efficiently while optimizing financial oversight and resource allocation.

Simplify, save, and succeed

For schools looking to optimize procurement processes, investing in solutions like Fraxion can make a substantial difference. With its user-friendly interface and seamless integrations with familiar platforms like Microsoft Teams, Amazon Business, and accounting systems, Fraxion simplifies purchasing, expenses, and accounts payable. It provides the necessary controls and real-time visibility into spending against budgets, projects, grants, and funds. 

Ensure that every dollar spent is aligned with your educational goals. Embrace the power of technology to streamline procurement and position your school for success with smarter spending that leads to sustainable savings.

Get in touch with Fraxion today, we’d like to understand your needs and help you drive spend management success in your school.