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Case Study

El Paso ISD Brings Dollars Back into Classrooms and Community by Innovating Its Procurement Process

When Ron Gatlin (now retired) was appointed Executive Director of Procurement and School Resources at the El Paso Independent School District (ISD), he quickly realized the district’s need to transform procurement into a more user-friendly and efficient process. Gatlin had heard about emerging technology that could help simplify and control spend, and expedite shopping, while also complying with Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) and other state purchasing requirements. Gatlin’s required features for the new platform were:

■ Easy implementation
■ Punchout capabilities
■ Multiple catalogs for EDGAR compliance
■ A one-stop-shop
■ The ability to identify local suppliers 

Solution

Gatlin and colleague Leticia Rivera (Assistant Purchasing Director of Procurement and School Resources), took the lead in innovating El Paso ISD’s outdated procurement process. Their first step was to implement an electronic bidding system along with a K-12 enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, “TEAMS by Frontline,” for organizational management. Their next step was to integrate EqualLevel’s procure-to-pay solution to further extend their ERP system.

Results

“This eliminates several steps and immensely speeds up the process.”
With the help of EqualLevel, Gatlin and Rivera created a procure-to-pay marketplace that offers a single, seamless platform to facilitate all processes associated with the shop-order-pay transaction. By eliminating any maverick spending and ensuring that staff is only purchasing through approved contracts, the district can demonstrate that they are being fiscally responsible with public funds. “Our staff can now go in and shop for what they want, push a button and it automatically turns into a requisition. They no longer have to type in the description, specs, or pricing, and can be ensured that all of those details are accurate and compliant,” Gatlin said after implementation. “This eliminates several steps and immensely speeds up the process.”

Savings

El Paso ISD also utilizes the EqualLevel Savings Advisor (ELSA) in their marketplace. ELSA is powered by artificial intelligence to automatically optimize spending and comparison shop punchout items to identify the best savings. In the first six months that ELSA was in use, the district saved $44,000.

Additional Benefits

Accounts Payable
Fewer purchase order changes and less invoice reconciliation.

Local Suppliers
EqualLevel’s marketplace was able to integrate more local suppliers, enabling El Paso ISD to support the community in which they work and live.

Morale
“The purchasing department was viewed as slowing down the process. Now campus staff is happy to have a more streamlined and efficient procurement process in place,” said Gatlin after implementation.

COVID-19 Ready
When the need arose to work remotely, procurement staff were able to continue their operations without interruption.

“The campus staff love it. They can go into the marketplace and shop for whatever they want in the online store and know that they are getting the best savings on products that are EDGAR compliant,” said Rivera after implementation. “We went from horse and buggy to the Starship Enterprise.”

Conclusion

Digitizing the procure-to-pay process has put El Paso ISD at the forefront of public procurement. Not only has it improved its complete purchasing process and the support provided to their campuses and classrooms immensely, it is allowing El Paso ISD to deliver efficient and effective management of its funding.

Case Study

DonorsChoose Simplifies Its e-Invoicing and Order Management With EqualLevel

DonorsChoose, a non-profit organization with an online platform that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects, has selected EqualLevel’s e-invoicing solution to automate its supplier orders and invoice processing. The move will streamline both its management and accounts payable processes. The new solution has been integrated with DonorChoose’s existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and automatically transmits invoices to accounts payable for reconciliation and payment.

The sheer volume of invoices and variety of sources that they come from, makes the accounts payable process a daunting task for organizations, said Orville Bailey, CEO and Co-Founder of EqualLevel. Digitizing this process streamlines the workflow and frees up valuable time for these financial professionals to spend on more strategic tasks.

EqualLevel’s e-invoicing solution manages supplier enablement to ensure that DonorsChoose suppliers are set up to send e-invoices. The solution can also create rules-based exceptions for suppliers such as price thresholds, or where to route an invoice for review. Automated invoice entry and reconciliation have proven to reduce errors, shorten processing times, and reduce processing costs by up to 60-80%.

For years, we handled large vendor payments outside of our ERP system and had to manage two separate accounts payable processes, said Geoff Hill, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Fulfillment at DonorsChoose. EqualLevel was able to help quickly integrate e-invoicing into our existing ERP system and has saved us time and money. We now have a fully integrated system that allows us to focus more time on our mission of getting much-needed materials to public school teachers.

About DonorsChoose

DonorsChoose is the leading way to give to public schools. Since 2000, 4,831,527 people and partners have contributed $1,103,209,997 to support 1,945,688 teacher requests for classroom resources and experiences. As the most trusted crowdfunding platform for teachers, donors, and district administrators alike, DonorsChoose vets each request, ships the funded resources directly to the classroom, and provides thank yous and reporting to donors and school leaders. Charity Navigator and GuideStar have awarded DonorsChoose, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, their highest ratings for transparency and accountability. For more information, visit https://www.donorschoose.org.