Stationary Ordering

[cms]

Hi, 

I was wondering how other schools manage stationary ordering portals. Do you have to go through an approval process, and how does this work if so? How does your school manage ordering their stationary?

Many thanks!

[psydii]

No PO,  not order.  POs can only be raised against approved suppliers. If a staff member can do the due diligence and demonstrate a new supplier would be advantageous to have approved, then they get approved. If they can't then quite frankly the extra work wasn't worth the potential benefit. We do have a healthy churn of suppliers available on the system.

Generally the admin team do ordering of these things through a small selection of approved portals. The admin team understand each departments needs and preferences and the current procurement/budgetary environment, and work to keep everyone as happy as reasonably possible given the constraints.  Sometimes orders are in bulk, sometimes the are somewhat more add hoc based on emerging needs of a department or team.

[itskdog]

We have a dedicated member of staff who buys all the stationary in the school, and staff contact them for whatever they need from the stationary cupboard. Class teachers get a book to fill in, admin staff contact directly as it's usually smaller requests.

 

When stock is low in the stationary cupboard, the person responsible places an order for more through the school office.

Edited May 1 by itskdog

[cms]

Thank you for your answers so far. To clarify from my original question, we actually have a person in this role presently, but they are retiring shortly. Whether it's temporary or not, the I.T. team will be taking on this role in our school when they've gone.

As this is new to us, does anyone has a recommendation for a stationary ordering website/portal/company with approval processes for ordering and the ability to only show certain products?

[Gongalong]

We use county supplies (https://www.countyofficesupplies.co.uk/) for lots of things. I thought they were originally stationery etc. supplies for Hants CC, but as they're based in Sussex perhaps it was Sussex CC. Anyway, now they're UK wide. They're a bit limited in what they have, so everything else we supplement with places like Amazon etc. We don't have a central stationery budget, it will come from the department's budget. Likewise, each department will store their own stationery.

[Fazza]

On 01/05/2026 at 13:23, cms said:

Thank you for your answers so far. To clarify from my original question, we actually have a person in this role presently, but they are retiring shortly. Whether it's temporary or not, the I.T. team will be taking on this role in our school when they've gone.

As this is new to us, does anyone has a recommendation for a stationary ordering website/portal/company with approval processes for ordering and the ability to only show certain products?

 

Stationery ordering is decentralised where we are.  Most departments tend to use ESPO but I'm not aware of any ability to only show certain products - I guess you could block certain parts of their website on a page by page basis.