FOR INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that fits how your independent school works.
Requisition to invoice, built around independent schools. Approvals follow your scheme of delegation. 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 INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that fits how your independent school works.
Requisition to invoice, built around independent schools. Approvals follow your scheme of delegation. 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 Independent Schools choose IMP Purchasing
Purchasing that finally fits your school.
Most purchasing tools weren’t built for the way schools run. Generic enterprise systems where 80% is irrelevant and workflow changes mean consultancy fees, or basic tools that can’t reflect your school’s approval policies. 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 independent schools actually work. Workflows reflect your school’s approval policies, 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%
Supporting independent schools across the UK.
Supporting independent schools across the UK.
Most providers treat purchasing as finance's poor relation. We made it the main event.
Purchasing is the highest-volume process most schools 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 independent schools 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. A specific licence, a department supply, an annual subscription. 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 school's approval policies in full. Different thresholds, different approvers, different routing per department. The platform is flexible enough to fit your school 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 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, the platform notifies the right person for the missing piece. Payment is held until both are in. Control is intact and the queue keeps moving.
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 governors or auditors 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 independent schools.
Finance leaders on IMP, in their own words, including the first voices from the independent sector.
“Purchase-to-pay technology barely exists in the independent sector, so finance teams lose hours chasing spend requests scattered across the school. When budgets are tight you need full visibility and control over spend without it becoming a time sink, freeing your team to focus on where budget should go rather than on chasing paper and manual purchase orders. That is why we are bringing spend control to independent schools 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 independent school finance teams move from data entry to data review, with less re-coding, fewer overspends and cleaner audit trails.
IMP PurchasingFAQs.
It's built specifically for education finance teams around budget-led purchasing, so every purchase starts from the budget, supporting better control and forecasting.
Yes, Purchasing can be used standalone without buying Planner, and it works with any finance system, though pairing it with Planner offers extra benefits.
It works with all finance systems; they recommend speaking directly with the IMP team to discuss the specific integration.
Implementation time varies depending on the school's setup, so they suggest contacting them for a tailored plan.
Pricing is tailored to each organisation, so an accurate quote requires speaking with the team directly.
Yes. Invoices come in automatically from a supplier inbox or can be uploaded manually, with each line read on arrival. Invoices can also be processed before the goods receipt arrives, with payment held until both are matched.
The platform covers budget holder reports, transaction reports, workflow tracking, and a full audit history for complete oversight.
Yes, punchout currently supports Amazon, YPO, and ESPO, with more suppliers being added.