How Spendwise helped Two Rivers Public Charter School transform how it manages its Spending
Overview
Two Rivers is a public charter school that was founded in 2004 by more than three dozen parents from the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC. Today, it proudly serves a diverse community of more than 1,000 students and their families.
To keep up with growing needs, the school recently created a new business manager role with responsibility over managing all spending. With more people involved in managing spending, the school needed a better way to run its purchasing process and turned to Spendwise.
Since implementing Spendwise, the school has been able to automate its purchasing process, centralize its purchasing activities, and gain greater visibility and control over its spending.
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Industry
Education
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Company Size
101-200 employees
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Location
Washington, DC
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Website
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Key Outcomes
VISIBILITY
Real-time Visibility
EFFICIENCY
Increased Efficiency
TRACKING
Better Tracking
The Challenges
Two Rivers regularly purchases classroom supplies, IT equipment and services, and anything else needed for the school to run smoothly.
Prior to adopting Spendwise, the school had been using spreadsheets, paper and PDFs to create purchase orders and manage its purchasing activities. This approach worked fine for a while, but as the school grew and brought on more people to help, it became increasingly difficult to work this way.
In addition to manual inefficiencies, one of the problems with using spreadsheets, paper and PDFs was that there wasn’t a centralized repository where purchases could be monitored and reviewed. Another was that it was nearly impossible to see how spending was tracking against budgets until long after purchases were made when accounting reports became available.
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Why Two Rivers chose Spendwise
After deciding it was time to look for a purchasing system, Gail Williams, the school’s Chief Operating Officer, tasked a member of her team to look into different options and to come up with a recommendation.
In looking for a system, the school wanted to find something that was affordable, easy-to-use and that they could grow into as more needs arose.
After evaluating different options, Spendwise became the clear choice as it met all of the school’s requirements and more.
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The Results
After choosing Spendwise, the school was able to get it up and running smoothly and was soon able to see the benefits.
“The implementation of Spendwise has been extremely smooth. We have been very happy with the responsiveness and help we have received from customer support.”
– Gail Williams, Chief Operating Officer
Increased efficiency
Before adopting Spendwise, purchase orders were created using spreadsheets, paper and PDFs, and approvals were managed through a manual process. With Spendwise, users are able to create purchase orders using preset dropdown lists and other time-saving tools and quickly route them for approval through the system.
In addition, the school was able to connect Spendwise with Amazon and Staples through punch-out integrations so that buying from these vendors could be done easily through Spendwise. Because of these integrations, the school is able to manage access to these online vendor accounts in one place and centralize its purchasing activities.
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Real-time visibility
When the school was using spreadsheets, paper and PDFs for purchase orders, it was difficult to see where things were with spending until long after purchases were made when the accounting reports came out. It was also difficult to research past transactions when questions arose as it required digging through a lot of paper.
With Spendwise, the school can now see where things are at with spending in real-time which has made it easier to think more strategically and make better decisions. The school can also easily look up historical transactions when it needs to get answers to questions.
“Before, we had to dig through lots of paper to find answers to questions about past transactions…it was a mess! With Spendwise, everything is now online in one place where we can easily find what we need.”
– Gail Williams, Chief Operating Officer
Better tracking
The school receives some grant funding and must be able to track how funds from grants are being spent. In addition, the school needs to be able to see how much is being spent by each department and how spending is tracking against budgets.
Spendwise allows for the school to set up accounting codes so that it can track spending the way that it needs to, including by department, grant and category. Spendwise also allows for the school to create budgets and compare actual spending to budgets through dashboard charts and reports.
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