Why is NC E-Procurement beneficial to the State of North Carolina?
What entities participate in NC E-Procurement?
How does the present budget situation affect NC E-Procurment?
How is E-Procurement good for business?
What benefits will vendors see?
Are vendors required to pay any fees?
Are other states implementing E-Procurement?
NC E-Procurement is a single, enterprise-wide, web-based E-Procurement system that offers electronic purchase order processing and enhanced administrative functions to buyers and suppliers, resulting in operational efficiencies, cost savings, and strategic procurement information.
Why is NC E-Procurement beneficial to the State of North Carolina?
NC E-Procurement provides an innovative, cost-saving, and efficient method of purchasing. NC E-Procurement allows over 200 government entities to aggregate their purchases to obtain better prices from suppliers. Electronic state term contract catalogs reduce the time to create a requisition by automatically pre-populating required information, including price. Additionally, NC E-Procurement allows greater visibility into statewide procurement information, allowing the State to negotiate better term contract savings.
What entities participate in NC E-Procurement?
State agencies, K-12 schools, community colleges, the university system, and local governments, including counties and municipalities, are able to participate. This provides great opportunities for leveraged purchasing and will enable small entities to obtain savings.
How does the present budget situation affect NC E-Procurement?
Given current budget constraints, NC E-Procurement is an effective way to bring cost-effective e-government to citizens and businesses. Local governments and educational institutions can participate, providing tremendous opportunities for small government and public entities to obtain savings through participating with larger State entities. NC E-Procurement is a savings tool that helps to reduce costs during a tight economic period.
How is NC E-Procurement good for business?
NC E-Procurement offers the opportunity to electronically market a company's products and services to a statewide audience of public sector buyers, including state agencies, public schools, institutions and hospitals, local governments, community colleges, and most recently East Carolina University. NC E-Procurement also provides suppliers with access to an electronic informal quoting tool, eQuote, so they can respond to solicitations for quotes from buying organizations.
What benefits will vendors see?
NC E-Procurement provides vendors with increased access to markets without additional supplier marketing efforts, a single point of access for North Carolina government organizations, a faster and more efficient method for quoting (eQuote), and increased order accuracy through receipt of electronic orders with a consistent purchase order format. Overall, NC E-Procurement can help vendors realize processing, marketing, and administrative cost savings.
Are vendors required to pay any fees?
There is a transaction fee of 1.75% on purchase orders for goods only. This fee is applied once the supplier receives payment from a buying entity on an order issued. There is no registration fee or annual fee to participate.
Please see Billing FAQs for more information.
Are other states implementing E-Procurement?
Many states have established E-Procurement initiatives and several more are in the process of undertaking them. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, and Virginia all have functioning E-Procurement systems. More information is available at NASPO.org.
In a collaborative effort, North Carolina's Department of Administration, the Office of the State Controller, and the Office of Information Technology Services sponsored the implementation of the NC E-Procurement purchasing system.