Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust was founded in January 2018 and now encompasses 15 primary schools (nine of which have a nursery provision), three secondary schools, and an all-through school, supporting nearly 5,000 children and 850 staff members in their journey to thrive. A long-standing advocate of IMP Planner, the Trust implemented IMP Purchasing at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.
For Susanne Kiff, Deputy Trust Leader and Chief Finance and Operations Officer, the launch of Purchasing – at the heart of IMP Finance – which enables trusts to systemise its entire requisition-to-invoice management process and provide a more unified, efficient, and accurate way to manage financial data, is a welcome development. “This has been something that Will Jordan and the team have been talking about doing right from when they first started IMP – we were always interested in their ambition to introduce this as they progressed their product development,” Susanne said. “They have shared their journey with us throughout our time working together, in terms of how they are developing it and the features it was going to have, and it has always been something that myself and my finance team have thought would be really helpful and would really make a difference.”
Having received several demonstrations, the Trust was involved in beta testing culminating in ‘go live’ from September 2025. “There are three areas where we think Purchasing will add value to what we do,” Susanne explained. “Firstly, in terms of school level budget holders managing their budget and not overspending – that is going to be really powerful. Secondly, not having to remember nominals when you put in orders on the system, and there is a drop-down list of codes that only gives you the ones that are relevant to that budget. Again, for school-level users, that is going to be really helpful and avoid the posting of random mono-codes as we have now. Thirdly, the ability to see where the purchase order is in its journey through authorisation, bringing more in-depth oversight.”
With a unified approach to MAT purchasing and financial management across 19 schools, Susanne shared how the system supports Dartmoor’s trust-wide strategy. “All of our finances are centralised, so all processing of orders and payment of invoices is done centrally,” she said. “The only part that a school really does is pop the purchase order on the system. So, for us to have a system that brings it all together consistently, alongside IMP Planner for budgeting and forecasting, giving us everything in one place is actually going to make a huge difference and will deliver even more confidence in the numbers that we are producing.”
Susanne praised the “brilliant” support received from IMP through tailored implementation of Purchasing, and the agility they have demonstrated through the process. “IMP really want to work closely with us, listening to feedback and changing certain things, and then testing to make sure it is in line with what we were expecting,” she revealed. “They were very much building it to work for how we work. For example, they really listened to how many levels of authorisation we want in there, where we want it to go within that flow, and ensure that it does what we want it to. They have been there all the way through, in terms of regular calls and check-ins, and are always happy to jump on a call.”
She added that with Purchasing, the trust could manage workflows in the system directly: “It is really easy to do, whereas with our previous system we would have to raise a support ticket and often pay hundreds of pounds for any changes we wanted. This ownership is important because you never know when a budget holder is not going to be in work or be off sick, and you need to take them out of that flow to stop things getting stuck in the system. Or, for us to put a budget under the control of someone else. We have also introduced order windows, so two weeks on and two weeks off, where we can then process everything and that has been part of the discussion we had with IMP in enabling that.”
The punchout with Amazon, ESPO and YPO is another added benefit of Purchasing. “We have tens of thousands of orders every year across our schools, and practically the punchouts give school budget holders the ability to pop products in their basket from these suppliers and it then transfers that into IMP and creates the purchase order,” Susanne commented. “Ultimately, this is about the management of funds and making sure that we are not overspending, but also giving consistency with coding. Then, once you have got that consistency with coding, it is easier to analyse what you are spending your money on and to start picking out those areas we might do something with.”
Looking ahead, Susanne said she was “optimistic” about the on-the-ground impact of Purchasing. “Feedback from our end users is going to be important, and listening to find out how it is working, but I think the success will be in budget management,” she reflected. “Especially around those school-level budgets where you have got heads and departments looking after them and often some of them go overspent by April. So, we will monitor it through the year, and want to see those budgets managed better. This is important in a challenging funding environment, and for our three-year planning.”
Susanne concluded: “I love IMP, and it has made a difference to the way we work. We have already signed up to the Finance package that is due to launch in September 2026. Our current system is very limited and does not really reflect what is right for the sector, and having a system where it is all-in-one and integrated will make things much easier for us to manage. I am very excited about the potential of IMP Finance. There is confidence within my team that the product will do what we need it to do, but they also know IMP will listen, so if it is not doing what we need it to do they will adapt and change.”
Discover how you can empower your budget holders to make smarter spend decisions, eliminate purchasing faff, and make life easier for you and your finance team with IMP Purchasing.
