Education procurement software is key to becoming proactive when it comes to finding cost savings and managing your workflow. Depending on the level of process automation and AI tools you have in place, you can see significant cost reductions. For example, a 2025 analysis shows that building a comprehensive cost-reduction strategy with the right tool and processes can achieve savings up to 15% in the first year and another 3–5% annual savings in the years that follow.
When you consider that public and private higher education institutions spend more than $700 billion a year, those savings can add up fast.
Educational procurement software is streamlining workflows and elevating the role of procurement teams. Rather than spending time on routine manual tasks, procurement teams are now able to focus more on strategy, backed by data.
Increasingly, this means AI and data analysis tools. An EY CPO survey showed that 36% of procurement teams already use artificial intelligence, while 80% plan to deploy AI in procurement within the next three years. This rapid adoption reflects a growing recognition: automation, analytics, and AI can transform your process. For universities, that means deeper insight into spend patterns, improving compliance with institutional policies, and finding time to reduce costs.
Let’s focus here on the features that matter most. Beyond standard purchasing capabilities, you need software that can handle the complexity of operations across multiple departments and campuses, grant compliance, supplier diversity, and more.
Start with:
The best educational procurement software eliminates manual steps in requisitioning, approval, purchase order creation, and payment processing.
Contract management in education is taking on a bigger role today. It’s easy to overlook savings opportunities, especially at renewals. Automatic renewals or escalation clauses can drive up costs quickly if you’re not on top of them.
The same goes for compliance. You want software that simplifies your compliance process to ensure contracts continue to line up with regulatory demands and internal goals.
Effective procurement software will include the tools you need for onboarding and managing suppliers, such as centralized supplier portals to streamline credentialing, maintain up-to-date certifications, and simplify communication.
You should also have an easy way to track performance against contracts to make sure you’re getting optimal value and that your supplies are living up to their side of agreements.
Data visualization and reporting tools are vital for transparency. Real-time dashboards allow you to analyze spend by department, supplier, or category.
Integration with ERP and Finance Systems
Most institutions have a patchwork of legacy systems. You can’t afford to add one more isolated system. Make sure any educational procurement software you consider can fully integrate with your existing ERP, finance, and eProcurement tools.
Scalability and User Experience
It’s also important to choose a solution that can scale to fit your needs and is easy to use. For example, you might want to launch with one department and then scale across your institutions or campuses.
You also can’t overlook the human component. Change is challenging for some, so if the system isn’t intuitive and simple, you might run into problems with adoption.
Determining the ROI for procurement software and contract management in education means looking beyond just the licensing costs and direct savings. You also need to consider the indirect savings, including efficiency and time saved. One way to do so is to apply the E&I Economic Benefit Model,TM which focuses on total overall value, including cost reduction, cost avoidance, incentives, and rebates.
This can help you calculate the real costs and ROI timeline.
Unless you’ve already budgeted for procurement software, you’ll need to gather support for upgrading your current system. When building your business case, you’ll want to quantify potential savings and how you can support institutional goals:
In short, procurement software is an operational strategy that aligns with institutional values and performance. It also provides the transparency that stands up to greater scrutiny.
When you evaluate educational procurement software, you want to think about future-proofing your institution. The system you choose will play a starring role in how you move forward.
E&I Cooperative Services provides competitively solicited cooperative agreements for leading procurement software and contract management in education. We aggregate demand across more than 6,000 member institutions to create significant volume discounts. We can help you save time and money and find the right solutions for your procurement team.
Explore hundreds of cooperative contracts and see how your institution can modernize procurement and achieve sustainable savings. E&I Cooperative Services also offers a free eProcurement platform, a no-cost P-card marketplace, catalog enablement services, and expertise with consulting and implementation.