Augusta, GA March 21, 2001 e2Procure Solutions Group, formerly e-schoolz.com, a Web-based procurement platform for the K-12 education market, and GE Capital Financial Inc. have signed an agreement that creates the e2Procure MasterCard Purchasing Card. This co-branding agreement augments the e2Procure "procure-to-pay" solution, enabling end-to-end order to settlement between school districts and their educational suppliers through Internet payment management tools.
e2Procure's InstaBuy and InstaBid suites for school procurement serve to compress the purchasing process. Procurement is streamlined with a paperless purchase order system, including GE Capital's MasterCard solution. In addition, through its agreement with GE Capital Financial Inc., e2Procure can now capture online and offline spending, reporting it directly to a school district's general ledger electronically.
"e2Procure is delighted to enter an agreement of this significance with GE Capital Financial Inc.," said e2Procure co-founder and president, Shankar Balan. "We view this alliance both as a validation of the education procurement industry and an extension of the customer benefits of the e2Procure 'procure-to-pay' solution."
"The e2Procure model for delivering a $25 procure-to-pay cost to the K-12 market is in line with results we have seen with Fortune 1000 and higher education purchasing card customers," said Jeffery Dye, president of GE Capital Financial Inc., the corporate card unit of GE Card Services. "With the e2Procure Purchasing Card, school districts can take advantage of online tools, and the wide acceptance of MasterCard, to drive cost and time out of their buying processes."
The e2Procure platform is an open standards trading network, and is browser-based. School districts log on to the system and have access to vertical markets, third-party sites and e-procurement proprietary products. Schools can either create a bid for a future purchase or make purchases by visiting contract supplier catalogs or searching content provider's generic catalogs. All desired items are placed on requisitions, forwarded through the appropriate approvals, converted to a purchase order and forwarded to the vendor. The purchase order includes payment details, including the purchasing card information.
