Administrative & Business | News

Iowa State U Adopts e-Procurement To Cut Costs

• By Sharleen Nelson
• 09/10/13

To reduce routine purchasing costs, restructure procure-to-pay process, and better serve administrators and staff members, Iowa State University (ISU) will implement a cloud-based e-procurement and management system for institution-wide purchasing.

ISU has selected spend management and e-procurement provider ESM Solutions to roll out its integrated easyPurchase cart application to more than 5,000 users across the university system.

The easyPurchase interface, which replaces ISU's current platform, will allow the ISU user community to better manage contracts, bids, awards, and place online orders more efficiently, as well as provide secure budget and purchasing transactions in a single interface.

Key features include:

• A dashboard for viewing spend data;
• Credit card (P-Card) and purchase order support;
• Full enterprise resource planning and general ledger integration;
• Single- and two-level, ad-hoc routing and multi-dimensional workflows;
• Desktop and central receiving;
• Electronic forms management;
• Invoice management services;
• Storeroom, warehouse, electronic forms, and textbook management;
• Custom branding applications;
• Support for Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari; and
• iPad and Android tablet support.

"The ESM Solutions eProcurement platform will add the flexibility and affordability that will allow us to expand our e-commerce reach on the ISU campus," said Cory Harms, associate director of purchasing at Iowa State University, in a prepared statement. "I am excited to be able to add more suppliers in the future, and the nimbleness and responsiveness of ESM Solutions will give me the opportunity to bring more functionality to my ISU users."

Iowa State University of Science Technology is a land-grant university based in Ames, IA. Situated on 1,984 acres, the campus serves more than 31,000 students through nearly 300 academic programs across eight colleges, which include graduate, veterinary medicine, agriculture and life sciences, business, design, engineering, human sciences, and liberal arts and sciences. ISU's annual operating budget is approximately $574 million.

For more information about ESM Solutions, visit esmsolutions.com.