How digitization helps your School Purchase Management

Facilities play a vital role in most educational institutions. Schools also have to purchase a large number of materials including books, teaching aids, and other stationery. School Purchase Management is not an easy task. Paperwork no longer works, and it’s high time to automate the process! 

Challenges in School Purchase Management

Just like in other industries, School Purchase Management requires carefulness, accuracy, and efficiency. Purchasing staff has to work with various different vendors at the same time. They have to handle a bunch of orders, as well as debits and bills. This costs them much time and effort. Education Procurement has some common issues as below: 

Inefficient process: 

Usually, the purchase workflow is: submit a purchase requisition for approval, work with suppliers, make a contract, and pay. This might sound like a simple process. However, let’s imagine how tedious and repetitive it is to deal with 10 purchase orders at the same time. The staff has to work with partners, then go back to the managers for approval, over and over again. This procedure is also likely to have bottlenecks and delays. 

Too much paperwork:

As procurement comes with other accounting activities, there is a lot of paperwork in the whole procedure. Staff needs to handle a lot of requests, bills, contracts, etc whenever they proceed to buy something. This might lead to inaccuracy, and increase costs for schools. 

Lack of human resources with purchasing expertise: 

In most schools, especially public ones, most purchasing tasks are carried out by admin staff. These employees also have other roles to be in charge of such as organizing events. They usually have general skills rather than outstanding expertise in procurement. They do have much time to spend on purchasing tasks. However, schools might feel reluctant to hire an expert in this area, as they are afraid of rising costs.

How digitization helps you manage the purchasing process 

What is Digitization in purchase management? 

Digitization refers to the application of technology into the process. The software or system will handle various phases in procurement, leaving schools less burden and more time.

Benefits of a School Purchase Management module

Adopting technology leads to a more efficient and flexible workflow. It helps save schools time, effort, and money. Some prominent benefits are as follow: 

Minimizing paperwork and increasing efficiency 

• Automation results in much less paperwork. Files are now digitized, reducing some risks. For example, there will be no longer missing documents, typing mistakes, and overloaded storage units.
• Instead of constantly emailing to keep track of a PO, school admins now just need to sign in to their mobile app. By doing so, they can view the status of the procurement process and proceed with approval when needed. There will be little back and forth in the process, minimizing delays and bottlenecks.

Ensure transparency 

• With digitization, the purchasing process is not only more efficient but also more transparent. The system moves all purchasing data online so that the authorized can check it at any time. The information is absolutely correct, and no one might be able to interfere or change it. 
• It is much easier to keep track of payment. No payment will be made beyond the control of management boards.
• Notifications and reminders are also available on Management Web/App Portal. Therefore, school administrators can stay updated about school procurement despite being off-campus. 
• Digitization in purchasing management helps eliminate budget embezzlement at schools. 

Reduce cost and human resources

• The system streamlines some stages of the process such as submitting a PO request or issuing an approval. Less manual work is required, thus, schools might not need to worry about hiring more purchasing staff.  
• Besides, the process now requires less printing or scanning. Educational institutions can, therefore, save some operational costs. 

Contribute to better financial management 

• Purchasing and financial activities have a close connection. A more efficient method to control your procurement also leads to success in school financial management. 
• With accurate and reconcilable expenditures information, school managers can have a better understanding of their institution’s finance. 
• Automation in Purchasing Management also enables precise expense reports with insightful information. As a result, it helps school improve their long-term planning on budget and spending.

Conclusion

It is obvious that digitization in education procurement is beneficial in terms of efficiency, cost, and resources. Understanding such a high need to automate such a process, Helen team has developed and integrated this module into our Interactive School Solution. With Helen Purchasing Management System, School Management can create budget plans. Department heads can submit PO/PR using the software and get the approval online. 

If you are interested, leave us a demo inquiry at: https://helen.edu.vn/contact-us/
Or you can learn more about Helen here.