Please click below for answers to Frequently Asked Questions about eSchoolMall Solutions.
1. We’re procuring online already. Why isn’t that enough? 2. Isn’t it wiser to invest in an all-new financial system that will provide e-Procurement plus everything eSchoolMall provides? 3. Isn’t the workflow built into our general ledger system adequate? 4. We’re about to upgrade our GL to a newer version. Is this a good or a bad time for eSchoolMall? 5. Why would I want eSchoolMall if I’m already doing e-Procurement with vendor websites? 6. What benefit is eSchoolMall if we’re already buying our textbooks from textbook vendor websites? 7. Why invest in eSchoolMall when we’re already buying from vendor websites using credit cards and purchasing cards? 8. Why would eSchoolMall be beneficial if its interface doesn’t support our current process? 9. We already have a sealed bidding system. How can eSchoolMall help? 10. Does eSchoolMall provide access to an unlimited number of vendors? 11. Why would we invest in eSchoolMall if we’re already paying staff to tailor software to our needs? 12. Aren’t eSchoolMall solutions expensive? 13. What kind of ROI can I expect with eSchoolMall? 14. Don’t the vendors object to paying bid fees? 15. We already pay fees to our local cooperative purchasing program. Why would we want to add to our costs by paying an additional licensing fee to eSchoolMall? 16. Isn’t it better to wait until I have a more computer-savvy staff? 17. What if we aren’t yet comfortable with the idea of our teachers entering requisitions electronically? 18. How do I bring my local vendors on board? And what if they don’t want to work with eSchoolMall? 19. Can you give me any local references in my state or at a local government agency? 20. What can I do about our auditors who require a hard copy of every PO? 21. How long does it take to implement eSchoolMall solutions? 22. Will eSchoolMall force us to be more centralized than we want to be? 23. What if we’re afraid to change? How do we get over that?
1. We’re procuring online already. Why isn’t that enough? As many school districts have learned the hard way, just because you order online doesn’t mean you’re getting the best price. It doesn’t mean you can electronically track every step in the procurement process. And it doesn’t mean that your school district isn’t still suffering from errors and delays and the manual and redundant data entry that causes them. If all you’re doing is ordering online, then your school district is still missing out on the cost and time savings that eSchoolMall Procurement Automation solutions deliver. Back to FAQ's
2. Isn’t it wiser to invest in an all-new financial system that will provide e-Procurement plus everything eSchoolMall provides? Because they’re normally a small component of a larger general ledger package, e-Procurement modules are not as comprehensive as a solution designed specifically for electronic procurement automation. eSchoolMall’s entire focus is on purchasing and sourcing solutions for schools. Over 2,900 educational entities currently use eSchoolMall e-Procurement solutions because they recognize the value eSchoolMall adds to their general ledger and procurement processes. Because eSchoolMall solutions have been designed from the ground up for ease of use and the unique needs of schools, they enable you to deploy best practices in e-Procurement at all levels of your district — including the teacher’s desktop — without having to teach your entire staff how to log into your general ledger system. Back to FAQ's
3. Isn’t the workflow built into our general ledger system adequate? Workflow is just one small aspect of effective electronic procurement. In addition to supporting a workflow that will reflect your district’s business rules, eSchoolMall offers proven purchasing and sourcing processes, online access to your approved vendors, rapid time to benefit and a compelling return on investment - typically six months or less. Back to FAQ's
4. We’re about to upgrade our GL to a newer version. Is this a good or a bad time for eSchoolMall? This is an excellent time to implement a procurement automation solution from eSchoolMall. eSchoolMall solutions extend the life of your existing general ledger system while immediately saving your district time and money. When you upgrade to a new GL, it’s easy to integrate your existing eSchoolMall investment with the new GL system, with little or no change to the user interface and your established processes. Back to FAQ's
5. Why would I want eSchoolMall if I’m already doing e-Procurement with vendor websites? Although ordering directly from vendor websites is a form of e-Procurement, you can only realize the full benefits of e-Procurement if that experience is integrated with your general ledger system. That way you can eliminate the need for multiple sign-on’s, centralize the management of account codes for purchases, and control your district’s spend across all vendors. e-Procurement in its purest and most beneficial form is what eSchoolMall is all about. Back to FAQ's
6. What benefit is eSchoolMall if we’re already buying our textbooks from textbook vendor websites? eSchoolMall’s textbook management solutions help you better control your textbook inventory, thereby reducing the need to purchase additional textbooks. Knowing what you have on hand and where textbooks exist within your district are important first steps in controlling textbook spend. As new textbook adoptions occur, textbook costs can skyrocket from $500,000 to over $1,000,000 annually for a large district. eSchoolMall not only makes it easy to buy textbooks by providing visibility to your approved textbook vendor websites, but eSchoolMall also enables you to control costs by helping you to reuse books that you already have on-hand and to purchase used books. Back to FAQ's
7. Why invest in eSchoolMall when we’re already buying from vendor websites using credit cards and purchasing cards? Vendor websites offer distinct benefits, including detailed product descriptions, advanced search capabilities, delivery lead times and configuration. But there’s a downside to buying directly from vendor websites. For one, the purchase is not integrated with your general ledger. For another, the vendor website will require your users to maintain a unique sign-on. eSchoolMall’s easyPurchase solution eliminates those problems with dynamic punch-out which enables a controlled visit to vendor websites. Once you choose the vendor sites that you want to be visible to your staff, the buying is done in easyPurchase, rather than through the vendor’s website, in a manner that’s integrated with your business rules. Thanks to dynamic punch-out, a single sign-on completes the transaction. As for purchasing cards, they do reduce costs on the payment side of the process. Their disadvantage is that they do nothing to control spend across the organization. With eSchoolMall, users buy only from approved vendors with the payment process streamlined by electronic purchase orders and electronic receipts. Back to FAQ's
8. Why would eSchoolMall be beneficial if its interface doesn’t support our current process? eSchoolMall’s easyPurchase solution integrates with the general ledger systems used by school districts. By interfacing with your general ledger system, eSchoolMall enables you to institute the best practices in procurement automation that we’ve developed and refined for K-12 school districts across the country. Our approach is to personalize your solution using your own business rules in a manner that mirrors the existing processes in your district. Our Professional Services consultants can review your current processes and show you how eSchoolMall can save you and your district significant time and money. Back to FAQ's
9. We already have a sealed bidding system. How can eSchoolMall help? eSchoolMall offers a complete Sourcing Solutions Suite featuring two sealed bidding tools - one for line item bids and one for catalog discount bids. Our sourcing solutions include easyQuote - an electronic RFQ tool that’s ideal when your business rules require evidence of competition - and easyProject, which has been designed for RFP/RFI creation, communication and award. eSchoolMall differs from many sealed bidding systems on the market today. Our approach is to offer a complete electronic capability that can create a sealed bid, quote or request and communicate electronically with your vendor community while facilitating online awards. Our solutions communicate with each other, making awarded bids and quotes visible as electronic catalogs and purchase requisitions within the easyPurchase solution. Back to FAQ's
10. Does eSchoolMall provide access to an unlimited number of vendors? Our experience has shown that the best approach is to focus on your most effective vendor relationships. Why? The simple reason is that having too many vendors can dilute your buying power. Our Professional Services consultants can help you identify which vendors currently receive the bulk of your district’s spend. By starting with these vendors, typically one per major product category, you will have greater control over your district’s spend. We can always add additional vendors at your request as you expand your product categories or as the number of vendors in each category increases. Back to FAQ's
11. Why would we invest in eSchoolMall if we’re already paying staff to tailor software to our needs? The advantages of delivering software solutions as a service over the web far outweigh any disadvantages. As a software service provider, our solutions are available 24/7 with only a web browser and Internet access required. We manage both the hosting and the hardware. Our customers don’t have to load software or buy hardware. All updates to the software are released in previously announced off-hours maintenance timeframes and are made immediately available to all customers. Our systems setting screens, available to your authorized personnel, allow our solutions to be personalized to meet your needs without the burden of custom development. This enables your technical staff to focus on the technology and solutions you use to educate your students. Back to FAQ's
12. Aren’t eSchoolMall solutions expensive? eSchoolMall offers something that few other procurement automation companies offer - compelling return on investment, typically six months or less. We also offer several options for our solution licenses, including subscription pricing, as well as maintenance and services. Through partnerships with innovative public financing, we can also offer deferred payments out of the current fiscal year and packages that link payment to benefit. Back to FAQ's
13. What kind of ROI can I expect with eSchoolMall? When it comes to Return on Investment, eSchoolMall is at the head of its class. That’s due in large part to a dramatic and immediate effect on hard dollar costs such as paper, forms, envelopes and stamps. Additional ROI comes from better utilization of staff time, compliance with existing contracts and vendor relationships, and the improved oversight and accountability that help school districts meet their mandated reporting requirements. Back to FAQ's
14. Don’t the vendors object to paying bid fees? More than 2,000 bidding events have been conducted by eSchoolMall users over the past several years. During that time, we’ve spoken with hundreds of vendors, including most of the national vendors that do business with schools. These are vendors who have participated in sealed bids and paid a percentage bid fee. All the vendors we’ve talked to understand and appreciate the substantial savings that eSchoolMall makes possible for them. The value they gain far outweighs the bid fees they pay. If you know of specific vendors with questions, we’d be happy to contact them and explain how electronic sealed bidding works over the Web. Back to FAQ's
15. We already pay fees to our local cooperative purchasing program. Why would we want to add to our costs by paying an additional licensing fee to eSchoolMall? One of the many benefits of using easyPurchase is the ability to make any vendor catalog visible to your buying constituency. The catalogs can come directly from vendors or from awarded bids and quotes, from warehouse inventory, from state and/or local contracts and from buying cooperatives. Even when the fees charged by your local cooperative are figured in, the savings to your buyers in any specific category can be significant. With eSchoolMall, you have complete control over vendor catalog presentation. Back to FAQ's
16. Isn’t it better to wait until I have a more computer-savvy staff? eSchoolMall has developed its procurement automation solutions in direct partnership with K-12 schools. We know from experience - in schools ranging in size from under 1,000 students to over 100,000 students - that eSchoolMall solutions are easy to deploy, easy to learn and easy to use. Keep in mind that you control the depth and breadth of deployment. Not everyone in your district has to be a user. Back to FAQ's
17. What if we aren’t yet comfortable with the idea of our teachers entering requisitions electronically? Numerous districts we work with deploy eSchoolMall solutions selectively, for example only to the business office or only to the building level (where administrators purchase for the teachers). But we also work with districts that deploy our solutions to the teacher’s desktop. The level of deployment is completely under your control and can be changed by you at any time. Back to FAQ's
18. How do I bring my local vendors on board? And what if they don’t want to work with eSchoolMall? eSchoolMall works with thousands of national, regional and local vendors who do business with K-12 school districts. With easyPurchase, we can import vendor records from your general ledger system so you can continue purchasing from your local vendors without interruption when the system goes live. Furthermore, our sourcing solutions give you immediate access to all the vendors in our database for purposes of a sealed bid, quote or request. Back to FAQ's
19. Can you give me any local references in my state or at a local government agency? Over 2,900 entities in 22 states currently use eSchoolMall procurement automation solutions. We’ll be happy to supply you with local references. Back to FAQ's
20. What can I do about our auditors who require a hard copy of every PO? Any purchase order can be printed for filing purposes or to mail to a vendor. And all your transactional data remains available to you online for three years. During that time, you also have online access to all the reports that come with our solutions. Back to FAQ's
21. How long does it take to implement eSchoolMall solutions? You can go live with eSchoolMall solutions in as little as five business days. Even in top 100 school districts, our complete procurement automation suite has deployed in under six months. Because we’re a Software as a Service provider (SaaS), you can access our solutions via the web without having to load any software. You don’t need to maintain version control of the software. You don’t need to buy hardware. And only minimal staff is needed to administer the system. eSchoolMall manages all the vendor relationships. We host the software and maintain the system. Plus, we provide phone and e-mail help desk support. Back to FAQ's
22. Will eSchoolMall force us to be more centralized than we want to be? Over the years, we’ve worked with districts that are extremely centralized, extremely de-centralized and everything in between. No matter how your district business processes are structured, it’s easy to deploy our procurement automation solutions for control at either the district or building level. At the same time, we provide visibility to vendor contracts that enable you to take full advantage of the combined buying power of all the schools in your district. In other words, schools can keep control of their processes even as they save substantial time and money. Back to FAQ's
23. What if we’re afraid to change? How do we get over that? Procurement automation solutions are a means to save time and money. It’s all about the ability to make the most of what you have so that more resources can reach the classroom. We’ll be happy to show you how you can maintain your district’s unique character and still save substantial time and money. Back to FAQ's
