Government Procurement Card

Benefits

1. Benefits for the Organisation

Most organisations purchase goods and services in support of their day-to-day business operations. As buying goods and services involves spending the organisation's money, then there clearly have to be checks and controls in those spending processes. Anything that reduces administration costs, releases money which can be used for improvements in the public service and produces a range of benefits for an organisation, these can all represent significant business benefits. GPC benefits include:

• Contribution to delivering procurement strategy
• Collaboration and aggregation of procurement
• Significant reduction in purchase order and invoice processing transactions
• Significant reduction in transaction processing costs
• Regular availability of high quality management information which your purchasing staff can analyse and use to negotiate better prices
• Prompt payment to suppliers provides opportunities for negotiating price reductions or early settlement discounts
• One single consolidated payment to the GPC Visa Bank each month yields major reduction in administration
• Opportunities for negotiating reduced banking charges reflecting the lower numbers of transactions
• Improved accounting and budget management
• Improved accuracy of transactions (purchaser and supplier in direct contact) and easier reconciliation
• A range of standard and bespoke management information
• Reduction in "maverick" and "off contract" expenditure
• Reduction in disputes with suppliers - consumers deal direct with suppliers
• Reduction in petty cash transactions
• Reduction in inventory and stockholdings - more "just in time" supply
• Clear and concise audit trails
• A simple component which compliments the drive to e-business within an organisation
• Card spend limits can be tailored to individual Cardholders

The National Audit Office has accepted that public sector bodies using a GPC Visa as opposed to a conventional purchasing cycle can typically save £28 per transaction. To set this in context, if an organisation is raising only 10 orders each day then the GPC Visa would save you £72,800 in a full year.

2. Benefits for Staff

People are a valuable asset for any organisation. Anything that can be done to reduce administrative bureaucracy and spend more time on core activities provides both hard and soft benefits for an organisation. These may include: -

• Staff empowered to procure goods and services more efficiently
• Virtual elimination of process delays and backlogs - staff can obtain the goods and services when they need them
• Staff are more focused on productive work than administration
• Major reduction in paperwork and bureaucracy
• Greater visibility of expenditure in relation to budget
• Staff do not need to fund and reclaim expense claim purchases such as travel
• Releasing mobile staff (maintenance/building engineers, administrators, etc.) from the physical restrictions of  formal paperwork procedures

3. Benefits for Suppliers

The GPC Visa provides a win win result for organisations and their suppliers in reducing administration costs, improving cash flow, and increasing customer satisfaction.
These include:

• GPC Visa "billing" is only effective on the day of the transaction for each transaction
• Suppliers receive payment typically within 4 working days (the norm is 2/3 days)
• Suppliers have a direct relationship with the end users of the goods and services involved
• Suppliers invoicing administration burden is reduced and cash flow significantly improved because late payment and unpaid invoices are virtually eliminated
• The GPC Visa can help stimulate the SME marketplace to do more business with more public sector bodies locally.

4. Benefits for the Environment

Buying goods and services has some obvious, and some less than obvious impacts on the environment. Anything that can reduce the environmental impact and improve sustainability and save money are benefits that buyers and suppliers cannot afford to ignore. Using the GPC Visa as opposed to conventional paper based transactions can help in the following ways: -

• Paperless transaction processing literally saves tons of paper every year (the average is ten pieces of paper per transaction).
• Linking the GPC Visa with Internet based purchasing promotes efficiencies and obviates the proliferation of paper catalogues cluttering up office space.
• Management Information can be translated into purchasing intelligence and lead to smarter buying, less waste, and reduced impact on the environment.