Thirty days. That was the average time it used to take for a teacher at San Marcos Unified School District (USD) to receive an order for school supplies, whether it was for simple #2 pencils or specialty science materials, says Director of Purchasing Nick Brizeno. Today, with Amazon Business, the average wait has plummeted to seven days, Brizeno says, positively impacting the learning experience while providing the entire California district with wide-ranging efficiencies.
“The main goal of our department is to serve students and teachers in the educational process,” Brizeno says. “How are we serving them if we’re taking 27 to 32 days to get them an item for their classroom? That was unacceptable. Now it’s a much cleaner and quicker process. It’s a big reason we looked for a strategic partner like Amazon Business. It gives teachers peace of mind.”
Pencils to car parts
San Marcos USD is located in San Diego County and serves about 20,000 students in 19 schools. The district uses Amazon Business to procure paper products, office supplies, school supplies such as pencils and iPad covers, and even for car parts and other maintenance items.
Before using Amazon Business, the district’s ordering process was paper-based, time-consuming and error-prone, Brizeno explains. Teachers typically would submit handwritten requests to their office manager, who would enter orders into the ERP system. Warehouse staff would fill the orders from inventory they maintained, then deliver to the various sites throughout the district.
Instead, teachers now order directly from Amazon Business and receive their supplies from district warehouse staff after they’ve processed the shipment, confirmed each order’s accuracy, and approved it for payment by Accounts Payable.
Soft cost savings
“The biggest difference is how quickly those items get to the classroom,” Brizeno says. “But there are also savings in soft costs, such as the extra time needed for staff to count inventory, pull orders off the shelf, and box items. All of that is done now by Amazon Business, allowing our warehouse staff to fulfill special service requests for moving items from site to site and better manage our total assets. Office managers now have more time to focus on maintaining budgets, review data, or run more reports for administrators.”
The change has allowed the district to greatly reduce the amount of time maintaining inventory or processing reimbursements, because teachers no longer need to purchase materials on their own when they need supplies quickly, he says. Perhaps more importantly, teachers have more agency.
“They have access to Amazon Business,” Brizeno adds. “Ultimately, they see this as a net positive.”
In the beginning
San Marcos started with a very early version of Amazon Business about eight years ago when Brizeno was a buyer with the district. At the time, the district used an Open Purchase Order system that required tedious reconciliations of each credit card bill with POs to determine which accounts were connected to each purchase. It wasn’t until Brizeno left for Escondido Union High School District in 2017 that he piloted Amazon Business Blanket Purchase Orders (BPO), Pay by Invoice and 3-Way Match, all of which he brought to San Marcos when he returned in 2022 as director of purchasing.
“Those three things were major game changers in the way we used Amazon and its functionality for us at San Marcos,” Brizeno says.
Blanket Purchase Orders
Blanket Purchase Orders (BPO) are part of Amazon Business’ Budget Management tool, giving flexibility and visibility when it comes to managing any organization’s blanket purchase orders. A BPO gets loaded onto Amazon Business with a set budget for a group—say, the English Department. “We can allocate funding down to a specific user,” Brizeno says. “If we have a PO for $1,000, we can allocate that each teacher has $200 to spend, or whichever amount we choose.”
A teacher then knows exactly how much they must spend in each period, and they can’t overspend their budget. They also can see where their order is in the workflow—if it’s been approved, ordered or on its way. “That was a major shift for them,” Brizeno says. “Before, they would submit their order to their office manager and hope and pray they’d get it within 30 days.”
Pay by Invoice
Pay by Invoice is a digital invoicing program that provides eligible Amazon Business customers with access to flexible payment options. With Pay by Invoice, the district’s Accounts Payable office no longer needs to figure out which credit card line item goes with which purchase order. When an order is shipped, Amazon Business immediately creates an invoice that shows when the order was created and shipped, and which PO or budget it’s associated with.
“Our Accounts Payable team can easily link it to the PO, and it pays out of that budget instantly versus having to go back and do all that legwork, so that’s been a huge help,” Brizeno says.
3-Way Match
Brizeno has long been concerned with the link between the warehouse, which processes deliveries, and Accounts Payable. 3-Way Match, which shows when
something is delivered and received, was his answer.
“Something could be delivered but damaged, or there could be an errant delivery,” Brizeno explains. “That will show in 3-Way Match, so Accounts Payable will see it wasn’t fully delivered and they will know how to pay, based on that. About 98-99% of the time everything is fine. Accounts Payable will see it was fully received, and they will pay the invoice.
“One check we send could have 130 invoices linked to it, but it’s very simple to submit the list within the Amazon Business system.”
Direct impact on learning
Using Amazon Business has benefited San Marcos far beyond ordering school supplies, Brizeno says.
“We’re often seen at the district office as a hindrance, causing backlogs. What this has done is show teachers we are not stuck in our ways as a district or department. We’re always looking for ways to innovate and modify process to help them, and so it has created a relationship where teachers see we are looking to better their lives.”
Ultimately, working with Amazon Business is about finding a better way to order school supplies, and that has a direct impact on academics, he adds.
“Knowing supplies will come in within seven days allows a learning experience to be more fluid. If a teacher is pursuing a topic and has a great idea, they don’t have to wait 30 days to teach about it after they make a purchase. It can fit within the natural flow of what students are learning,” Brizeno says. “It has been a big improvement compared to what we’d been doing in the past.”
