Granite School District
Salt Lake City, Utah district consolidates spending to one district-wide account.
Overview
Utilizing Amazon Business, Granite School District was able to consolidate individual procurement accounts and improve its operational efficiency. As a result, the district has increased account visibility, streamlined account management, and, most importantly, ensured educators receive their instructional materials when they need them using shipping from Business Prime.
Managing small accounts with time-sensitive transactions
With 68,000 students, the Granite School District of Salt Lake County, Utah is the third largest by enrollment in the state. From a purchasing capacity, the district serves around 100 different schools and support facilities.
Like most school districts, Granite has contracts with multiple vendors as well as a warehouse program to obtain its supplies. It also oversees a multitude of small dollar purchases of $500 or less, most of which are purchased through the district’s 1,100 P-Cards. In addition, the state of Utah provides each teacher with a purchasing account in the $200 range for necessary supplies. The P-Cards and teacher purchasing accounts together represent thousands of smaller, often time-sensitive transactions that procurement must fulfill.
Some teachers who use their P-Cards purchased school supplies through personal Amazon Prime accounts, which made purchases subject to sales tax, even though the district has a tax-exempt status. Some also struggled with differentiating personal Amazon purchases from work-related ones in their individual accounts.
“Business Prime makes everybody’s life so easy and reinforces good purchasing practices.”
— Jared Gardner, District Procurement Manager, Granite School District
Realizing the benefits of Amazon Business
An Amazon Business account solved several of the district’s problems with a unified, district-wide account that incorporates the district’s tax-exempt status. District employees with buying power now use the single business account, thus maintaining spend visibility and streamlining account management.
The district has also signed up for Business Prime, a paid annual membership program that allows district employees to benefit from free, Two-Day Shipping on millions of eligible items with no order minimum. “We get a very immediate and direct benefit by not having to pay for shipping on every purchase,” says District Procurement Manager Jared Gardner. “Business Prime allowed us to stop purchasing Prime memberships on individual Amazon accounts and keep everything organized under our Amazon Business account. That alone has saved our schools a lot of money.”
Free, Two-Day Shipping through Business Prime has been particularly valuable for teachers who need supplies for upcoming lessons or labs and can’t wait five days or more for the items to arrive. With Business Prime, they know the items will arrive in two days. This significantly increases their ability to teach their students with the right tools in hand. They also get the benefit of knowing that funds saved on shipping can be used for additional supplies to help educate students.
“Business Prime makes everybody’s life so easy and reinforces good purchasing practices,” says Gardner. “Teachers buy just what they need, without adding extras, because they’re getting free, Two-Day Shipping with any order. That saves a lot of money that can be put right back into the classroom.”
Connect with a customer advisor to get started
