Higher Ed Needs Innovative eProcurement Solutions. Here’s Why:

Saving dollars is one thing but being able to use those savings to funnel stellar academic programs for your students is another. So, the question here is, “why wouldn’t you?”

More specifically, “why wouldn’t you embrace modern eProcurement solutions to eliminate process inefficiencies and save your institution some major dollars?”

When you sign on with an advanced eProcurement solution, you have a better opportunity of eliminating any business process inefficiencies. In addition to this, you also help your educators to buy from preferred vendors, creating more opportunities to save dramatically.

A purchase order software solution can manage:

• requisitions, 
• purchase orders, 
• invoices, 
• expense reports, 
• and contracts.

But by no means is an eProcurement solution the answer to all of your school’s financial distress. But what it can do is provide data on how you can save money going forward. This can allow you to then invest those dollars into better academic programs or the hiring process. 

But before you make the switch to a better procurement solution, here are eight questions to consider when evaluating and updating your current procurement solution.

1. What does your current procurement process look like? 

Before ditching your already existing procurement process, evaluate your current process, and ask:

• What’s working about the current process we have? 

• What’s not working? 

• What are some of the roadblocks we need to address immediately? 
• What areas can we improve but can address at a later time?

2. Are you ready to roll out something more advance? 

At this point, after evaluating your current PO process, you’re probably ready to get a new process up and rolling. Something more advanced of course. 

This is where you can put all those much-needed improvements to work!

Business software solutions can automate requisition approval by sending purchase requests to the appropriate approver based on dollar amount, project, purchase type, and/or department.  

Also, moving from a manual to an electronic purchasing system helps to ensure that invoice approvals and exceptions are processed on time.

3. Is everything being done electronically?

While many educational institutions would like to do away with paper entirely, according to Levvel Research, only 18 percent of colleges/universities are making use of electronic invoices.

What does that mean for you? It means that your school your vendors need to go electronic.

4.  Have you implemented vendor catalogs and punch-out to vendor websites? 

If you haven’t done this, you should, as enabling these abilities will allow your staff to access items that are within the correct contract pricing. This will allow your team to purchase what they need without disruption or interference from the procurement team.  

5. Are you taking advantage of your newfound visibility into purchase requests, documents, and budgets?

A new and advanced procurement solution will have budgeting capabilities that can make the entire procure-to-pay process much more straightforward.  

Your superintendent can use this capability not only to view purchase requests but observe the impact of those requests on the school’s budget, all before giving the final sign-off. 

6.  Are you strategic about your vendor sourcing?

Here is where you’ll want your procurement team to analyze the current purchasing activity and spend with vendors. This will allow you to decide what vendors should be awarded contracts. 

7.  Does your solution integrate contract management? 

Once you’ve awarded contracts, you’ll want to manage them in your new procurement solution. 

With your solution, you should be able to manage contract spend and view all the purchasing activity under that agreement. 

8.  Are you making use of all the data you have? i.e., analytics and reporting on vendors and contracts 

Making use of the information your procurement solution provides is key to saving dollars for your school. You should be able to see how your employees are spending from month-to-month, allowing you to make better decisions when it comes to vendor renewals. You can take note of what vendors your employees prefer and what items they tend to purchase more of.