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In today’s challenging economic landscape, it’s more important than ever for educational institutions to prioritize increased control of their spending. As costs escalate and budgets tighten, procurement teams are facing heightened scrutiny while continually navigating the balance between spending and essential needs.
eProcurement solutions help accelerate procurement cycles and control costs.
eProcurement is the use of digital tools, technology, and online platforms to streamline the procurement process for schools to get the goods and services they need. Leveraging digital tools and automated workflows, eProcurement streamlines each step of the purchasing process, reducing manual tasks and paperwork to save time and money.
eProcurement also standardizes processes, enabling tighter control of purchasing and spend and ensuring policies and governance rules are followed. Many of today’s education eProcurement tools are cloud-based, enabling seamless coordination between procurement teams, authorized users and various vendors.
Adopting an eProcurement solution produces significant benefits.
One of the biggest appeals of eProcurement solutions is that they simplify workflows and automate purchasing processes that otherwise require time-consuming manual effort. eProcurement allows educational institutions to:
By eliminating paper-based processes and manual data entry, eProcurement systems greatly reduce administrative costs in procurement. It is estimated that up to 80% of manual work can be eliminated compared to traditional paper-based purchasing, significantly accelerating purchasing cycles.
eProcurement tools come with built-in compliance features that enforce purchasing policies and procedures to improve compliance with regulations and purchasing protocols. Key features like audit trails, permissions controls and digital record-keeping improve transparency.
The most effective eProcurement systems also collect comprehensive data on purchasing activities, contracts, vendors and fulfillment. Reporting dashboards let users generate analytical reports to identify areas for improvement and evaluate vendor performance. In turn, this can enable educational institutions to make better purchasing decisions. eProcurement software creates greater transparency and promotes accountability.
Data and market insights can also help educational institutions to secure better pricing, terms and conditions.
The procurement process is about more than just purchasing. It also includes identifying needs, selecting suppliers, negotiating contracts and managing vendor relationships. You need a robust eProcurement solution to achieve success. When evaluating eProcurement tools, here are some of the key things to consider.
With today’s remote and hybrid workforce, mobility is crucial. A cloud-based platform allows access by procurement teams and other authorized users to request, approve and manage orders regardless of where they are located. This flexibility speeds up procurement cycles by enabling approvals and notifications on the go.
Look for an eProcurement platform that integrates with your accounting or ERP system for seamless data sharing between systems. This avoids duplicate data entries and reduces human errors. Integrated systems also give a comprehensive view of spend across organizations.
Ensure the software handles everything from purchase requests to invoice approval and payment. An end-to-end solution streamlines the entire procurement workflow into one system. This level of automation and integration improves efficiency and control over the full procure-to-pay lifecycle.
You also want the ability to customizable approval rules based on thresholds, departmental budgets and other parameters. Configurable workflows increase efficiency by routing requests to the right approvers quickly to accelerate the procurement process.
You need real-time visibility to help inform spending decisions. Many systems provide automated alerts when spending gets close to budget limits.
Comprehensive data reporting and spend insights are key. When you have complete visibility into spending categories, trends and vendors, you can make data-driven decisions. You can also quickly pull reports for various stakeholders.
Another must-have feature is audit trails. Activity logs should track complete order history across the entire procurement lifecycle to support compliance and purchasing policies.
eProcurement systems may also include three-way matching of purchase orders, receipts and invoices to avoid discrepancies. Automating three-way matching can significantly reduce the time it takes to process invoices or resolve errors.
Your education eProcurement solution should include supplier management tools to provide to help with supplier oversight Even in today’s digital procurement world, supplier relationships are important.
E&I Cooperative Services® offers a no-cost online marketplace that is purpose-built for education. Whether it is your first entry into eProcurement, or you are already working with an enterprise system supporting multi-campus purchasing, E&I’s solution can centralize the shopping experience in a secure environment.
As the only member-owned sourcing cooperative focused exclusively on education, E&I’s competitively solicited contracts leverage the bulk-buying power of its members to stretch your dollars further and achieve best-in-class pricing.
