📆 10am 6th March 2025
IMP Finance is coming
Join us for the launch of our new Purchasing solution
Managing purchasing across a MAT is a headache, and many trusts are frustrated that purchasing systems are not a big enough focus from their finance system provider. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce our brand-new Purchasing module – a solution built to transform how your MAT manages the purchasing process and approval workflows.
What is Purchasing?
Purchasing – the first module of IMP Finance – enables trusts to systemise their entire requisition-to-invoice management process. For the first time, we’re making sure that the budget sets the direction to remove the “faff” completely from the process.
This approach ensures a more unified, efficient, and accurate way to manage your financial data. It also means that your actuals continually shape your forecast, increasing future budget accuracy and saving your finance team huge amounts of time.
Find out more by joining our launch webinar.
Changing the game for MAT Financial Management
Taking the ‘faff’ out of the requisition-to-invoice management process
Real-time budget alignment
Your budget holders will know exactly how much they have left to spend, empowering smarter decisions and reducing overspending.
Seamless integration
Purchasing syncs directly with your budget data, ensuring coding consistency and real-time tracking of spend vs budgets.
Built just for MATs
This isn’t an off-the-shelf solution. It’s tailored to the unique requirements and needs of MATs, saving time, increasing accuracy, and giving you complete oversight.
Ready to see the future of MAT Financial Management?
Join our launch webinar at be one of the first to see our MAT Purchasing solution at reveal!
IMP Finance: Purchasing
Purchasing enables your trust to systemise the entire requisition-to-invoice management process. Your budget sets the direction to remove the “faff” completely from the process, ensuring a more unified, efficient, and accurate way to manage your financial data.
Watch our animated explainer video
Taking the faff out of MAT Purchasing
Taking the ‘Faff out of MAT Finance’ is what we’re all about. So, we’ve been on a mission to fix it.
Here are some of the top challenges Purchasing eliminates.
Actuals vs Budget Inconsistency
Actuals exist in different places in your finance and budget system. This makes it difficult to track budget and spend accurately, leading to time-consuming processes, decisions based on inaccurate information and CFOs not trusting their numbers.
Budget holders overspending
Budget holder reporting doesn’t consider items that are committed against a budget pot but have yet to be raised. This leads to budget holders thinking they have more to spend than they actually do, leading to overspending.
Poor Purchase Approval Workflows
Current purchasing solutions don’t fit the specific needs of MATs and are either too limited or too complex. This results in poor, clunky, hard-to-maintain, time-consuming approval workflows that are full of holes and vulnerable to error.
What good Purchasing looks like with IMP Software
Real-time budget alignment
Purchasing syncs directly with your budget data, tying spend to specific budget lines to ensure the correct nominal and cost centre codes are applied from the start. This improves forecasting and budgeting accuracy, reduces manual errors, and ensures every penny is accounted for in line with the budget. This means:
- Automated nominal coding ensures accuracy and consistency and eliminates guesswork.
- Real-time budget information is more accurate as transactions have been recorded in the right place from the start.
Greater clarity to understand available spend
Purchasing increases budget holder visibility giving greater clarity on actual available spend. Purchasing includes committed budget rows from IMP that are yet to have a requisition or order raised (but should still be accounted for when assessing remaining budgets). This means:
- Budget holders get a ‘true’ picture of what they have left to spend.
- Budget holders will never see that they have more to spend than they actually do.
- Reduced overspending on budget pots.
MAT-specific workflows
This isn’t an off-the-shelf solution. Purchasing is tailored to the unique requirements, needs and workflows of MATs. Approval workflows are MAT-specific, flexible and comprehensive but not limitless. This means:
- Trusts can systemise their procurement policies in full without paper/manual work arounds to try and close any internal control gaps.
- Workflows can be created and managed by Trusts directly with no need to pay extortionate consultancy fees to build and redesign approval workflows.
Purchasing features that drive your MAT forward
From the start, Purchasing has been built in partnership with MATs. The result? A Purchasing platform packed with tools that drive your trust forward.
Automated nominal codes
Budget row detail is used to automatically apply the correct nominal and cost centre codes.
Granular forecasting
Forecast at a budget row level to drive a better understanding of what’s happening.
MAT Workflows designed by you
Create and manage workflows that meet your MAT’s needs.
Link with IMP Planner
Linking with IMP Planner drives better spend management, forecasting and budgeting.
Non-committed budget rows
Purchasing includes budget rows that are yet to have a requisition/order raised, giving you a true picture of available spend.
Granular forecasting
Forecast at a budget row level to drive a better understanding of what’s happening.
MAT Workflows designed by you
Create and manage workflows that meet your MAT’s needs.
Link with IMP Planner
Linking with IMP Planner drives better spend management, forecasting and budgeting.
Purchasing FAQs
How do I get all my existing school budget and establishment data into IMP?
We don’t just send you a spreadsheet for a system you don’t know how to use and ask you to populate it, our bespoke implementation process is run by our in-house team of MAT system experts. They’ll take your best available data in what ever format you have it and get to work, checking in regularly to make sure things like budget calculators and staffing calculations are working in the way you expect.
What makes this Purchasing different to the others?
Current finance system providers have traditionally not given enough attention to purchasing for MATs. This has led to MATs having to wedge themselves into generic systems that don't account for their unique challenges, approval workflows, and requirements.
Purchasing is a first-of-its-kind purchasing system that enables Trusts to systemise their entire requisition to invoice management process – but using the budget data to ensure consistency of coding and real-time tracking of spend vs budgets. With Purchasing, we're delivering on our promise of smarter, more efficient financial management, all while saving your MAT time, increasing data accuracy, eliminating errors, and giving you complete oversight and control.
Built just for MATs from the ground up, align your purchasing decisions and workflows with your budget, ensuring seamless integration between spending and financial planning. Purchasing ensures your budget holders know exactly how much they have left to spend, empowering them to make more informed buying decisions with a reduced chance of overspending!
To discover more ways that Purchasing is different to any other available purchasing tool, speak with one of our MAT Finance Experts.
Can I use Planner to monitor my budget and reforecast my full-year position?
Through an iterative approach, Planner utilises intelligent functionality to take away the manual and laborious task of monthly reforecasting. Notes are embedded into reports and actuals are pulled in at a transaction level from your finance system meaning all of your forecasting and reporting work takes place inside Planner. Each monthly forecast has its own dataset which can be used to demonstrate and explain how your position is changing month to month.
Will Planner facilitate our MATs approach to financial management and operating model?
We work with MATs of all different shapes and sizes. Some GAG pool, others top-slice. Some are centralised with others completely decentralised. No matter the approach Planner is completely flexible, handling your MATs reporting structures and evolving with you over time should your approach to financial management change.
What reports are available?
Including Trust-wide forecast oversight, granular staffing details, KPI’s, multi-year budget summaries and monthly forecast reports, we have a significant number that can be used to support with the preparation and analysis of budgets and forecasts. Every report is consolidated but can be run by hub, school type or for an individual school.
What do existing Purchasing customers say?
We’re proud to be rated ‘Excellent’ on Trustpilot by IMP Software customers, you can read the reviews in full here. We also have a host of great case studies which you can view here.
How much does Purchasing cost?
Our pricing is tailored to your trust, factoring in the number of schools and school types.
To get a personalised quote, visit our pricing page, where you can share your trust’s requirements with our team of MAT finance experts.
Can I use Purchasing without IMP Planner?
Yes, you can!
To find out how your Trust can get the most out of Purchasing, speak with with one of our MAT Finance Experts.
Why have IMP Software developed a Purchasing solution?
We understand that managing purchasing across a MAT is a headache. We've heard from many trusts about the frustration of purchasing systems not being a big enough focus of their finance system provider, leading to all kinds of unnecessary faff MATs simply don't deserve.
We've spent over two years developing our MAT Purchasing system alongside our customers which will transform how your MAT manages your purchasing process and approval workflows for the better.
