FOR FURTHER EDUCATION
IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that fits how your FE college works.
Requisition to invoice, built around FE colleges. Approvals follow your delegated authority. Budget holders know what they can spend, finance knows nothing overspends. Both sides win.
★★★★★ Excellent 4.9 out of 5, from 77+ reviews on ★ TrustPilot
FOR FURTHER EDUCATION
IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that fits how your FE college works.
Requisition to invoice, built around FE colleges. Approvals follow your delegated authority. Budget holders know what they can spend, finance knows nothing overspends. Both sides win.
★★★★★ Excellent 4.9 out of 5, from 77+ reviews on ★ TrustPilot
Why FE Colleges choose IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that finally fits your college.
Most purchasing tools weren’t built for the way colleges run. Generic enterprise systems where 80% is irrelevant and workflow changes mean consultancy fees, or basic tools that can’t reflect your college’s approval framework. Budget holders see budgets that ignore commitments, so they overspend. Finance teams spend hours recoding to force actuals back to where the budget sits.
IMP Purchasing was built around how FE colleges actually work. Workflows reflect your college’s approval framework, flexible enough to fit but focused enough to run without consultancy. Budget holders pick the budget item they recognise and the platform inherits the coding. Remaining budget includes commitments not yet ordered, so budget holders see what they really have left.
100%
Most providers treat purchasing as finance's poor relation. We made it the main event.
Purchasing is the highest-volume process most colleges run. Every order, every approval, every invoice flows through finance every week. Yet most providers treat it as an add-on, an afterthought, a bolt-on to a system designed for something else.
With IMP Purchasing, every order, every approval and every invoice flows through one platform built for the way colleges actually buy. No more bolted-on add-ons. No more workarounds in spreadsheets and inboxes.
WHAT YOU’LL GET
At a glance: Features that
drive control.
01. Budget-Led
No more code guessing.
Budget holders pick the budget item they recognise. The platform applies the coding from the budget itself. Actuals always land where they belong.
02. True Budget
Know what's really left.
No more spending against budget that wasn’t really there. Every committed item shows on the budget holder’s report, including ones not yet raised as a PO.
03. Approvals
Stop the workarounds.
End the paper sign-offs and off-system approvals. Approval routes reflect your scheme of delegation in full, and your team can change them in-house.
04. Automated Invoices
Faster and more accurate.
Invoices flow in directly from email or via upload. Every line scanned and read on arrival. Faster and more accurate than keying by hand.
05. Three-Way Match
Stop chasing goods receipts.
Most systems force the goods receipt to come before the invoice. IMP works either way. Whatever lands first, the platform chases the other. Payment is held until both are in.
06. E-Procurement
Supplier punchout, built in.
Budget holders shop directly on Amazon, Lyreco and more, with live prices and stock. Orders flow back into IMP with the same workflows and approvals applied.
REQUISITIONS AND APPROVALS
Control from the first click.
Pick the item, not the code
Budget holders pick from the budget items they recognise from their campus or curriculum area. The platform inherits the nominal and cost centre coding from that budget line. No more guessing from a list of hundreds of codes. Actuals always land exactly where the budget sits.
Your real policies, in the system
Build workflows that reflect your college's approval framework in full across every campus. Different thresholds, different approvers, different routing per campus or curriculum area. The platform is flexible enough to fit but focused enough that your team can manage workflows in-house. No paper sign-offs, no off-system approvals, no consultancy bills.
The true picture, every time
Budget holders across every campus see remaining budget that includes committed items still in the budget but not yet raised as orders. So when they raise the next requisition, they work from the true picture, not just what's been ordered so far. Overspends stop being a month-end surprise.
ORDERS AND INVOICES
Close the loop. From PO to payment.
Stop the bottleneck at receipt
Most platforms block the invoice until the goods receipt is done, so finance becomes a chasing machine. IMP works either way. Whichever lands first, across whichever campus, the platform notifies the right person for the missing piece. Payment is held until both are in.
Invoices captured, line by line
Invoices arrive from your supplier inbox automatically, or your team uploads them manually. Either way, the platform reads each line as it lands. Your team checks the match against the PO and the goods receipt, not the original supplier PDF. Faster than keying by hand and more accurate too. Finance moves from data entry to data review.
One trail, from request to payment
Every requisition, approval, goods receipt and invoice connected and timestamped. When auditors or funding bodies ask 'who approved this, when, and why', the answer is one click away. No reconstructing the paper trail in audit week.
CUSTOMER STORIES
Spend control, coming to colleges.
Finance leaders on IMP, in their own words. Your college could be next.
“IMP Purchasing exists because spending should start with the budget, not end with it. Budget-led purchasing changed how trusts control spend, and colleges face the same challenge. That is why we are bringing spend control to colleges now.”
Will Jordan
Co-founder and CEO, IMP Software
BUILT & SUPPORTED BY EXPERTS
Support from people who've lived it.
We know what it’s like to manage education finance, because we’ve lived it. When something needs answering, you get a support specialist who knows the platform inside out, backed by a team of former education finance professionals. Not a script, not a ticket queue. Specialists sit behind every conversation
SUPPORT ANSWERED IN
Under 30
seconds
Not 24 hours.
Not next week.
Most providers leave you lagging a ticket and waiting days. We answer in under 30 seconds on average, and that bar hasn’t moved in seven years.
BUILT & SUPPORTED BY EXPERTS
Support from people who've lived it.
We know what it’s like to manage education finance, because we’ve lived it. When something needs answering, you get a support specialist who knows the platform inside out, backed by a team of former education finance professionals. Not a script, not a ticket queue. Specialists sit behind every conversation.
SUPPORT ANSWERED IN
Under 30
seconds
Not 24 hours.
Not next week.
Most providers leave you lagging a ticket and waiting days. We answer in under 30 seconds on average, and that bar hasn’t moved in seven years.
Ready to see it in action?
See how IMP Purchasing helps FE college finance teams move from data entry to data review, with cleaner coding, fewer overspends and audit trails ready for funding bodies.
IMP PurchasingFAQs.
It's designed specifically for education finance teams, built around budget-led finance so every purchase starts with the budget, driving control, consistency, and better forecasting.
Yes. Purchasing can be used standalone without buying the Planner software, though there are added benefits when paired with it. The system remains agnostic and works with all budgeting systems.
It works with all finance systems — they recommend speaking directly with the team to talk through the specific integration.
Implementation time varies depending on the makeup of your school/college; they suggest speaking with the team for a tailored implementation plan.
Pricing is tailored to each organisation's needs, so the best way to get an accurate quote is to speak with the team directly.
Yes. Invoices arrive from the supplier inbox or can be uploaded manually, and every line is read automatically on arrival (no manual keying). Invoices can be processed ahead of the goods receipt, with the responsible person notified and payment held until both are matched.
The platform covers budget holder reports, transaction reports, and workflow tracking, plus a full audit history for complete oversight.
Yes — punchout works with Amazon, YPO, and ESPO, with more suppliers being added.