Schools can streamline procurement for teachers and admin staff by removing supply ordering from teachers’ responsibilities entirely through a consolidated, business-managed purchasing account; creating an approved product list in an online portal that teachers can request from without placing direct orders; configuring standing orders for classroom consumables so they arrive automatically at the start of each term; and giving the school business manager a single supplier relationship with a dedicated account manager who handles product queries, substitutions, and delivery issues. The goal is to remove supply management from teacher workload entirely, not to make it slightly less cumbersome.
Australian teachers are among the most administratively burdened in the world. The OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024 found that Australian lower secondary teachers spend 4.7 hours per week on administrative tasks, the fourth highest in the OECD, and that 69% consider administrative work a source of stress. This sits within a broader workload profile in which Australian teachers work an average of 46.4 hours per week during term time, the third longest teaching week in the OECD.
The AITSL Australian Teacher Workforce Survey (In Brief: Teacher Duties, August 2025) found that more than half of primary and secondary classroom teachers spend 5 or more hours per week on general administrative work, with around one in five spending 10 or more hours. Procurement, supply ordering, and resource management sit within this administrative category. When a teacher spends time researching which paper to order, placing an online order with a supplier, chasing a delivery, or waiting for the business manager to process a supply request, that time is not spent on lesson planning, student feedback, or professional development.
The NSW Department of Education’s 2024 audit of teachers’ administrative tasks identified 105 tasks with processes considered frustrating, cumbersome, or overly complex with high workload impact. The audit was commissioned following the NSW Government’s 2023 commitment to reduce teacher administrative workload by at least five hours per week. Supply-related tasks sit squarely within this category.
The Core Principle: Remove Procurement From Teacher Workload Entirely
The goal of streamlining school procurement is not to make it slightly easier for teachers to order supplies. It is to remove supply ordering from teacher responsibilities entirely. This distinction matters because it determines whether the school makes a marginal improvement or a structural one.
When a teacher has to navigate a supplier portal, research product specifications, wait for approval, and follow up on a delayed delivery, they are performing a procurement function that requires no teaching expertise and could be managed centrally. When those same teachers have a term’s worth of classroom supplies waiting for them on the first day, ordered automatically and delivered before school starts, they never enter the procurement function at all.
The five approaches below are all oriented toward this goal: getting supply management entirely out of teacher hands and into a streamlined, business-managed function that teachers interact with only through a simple request process.
5 Ways to Streamline School Procurement for Teachers and Admin Staff
1. Centralise All Supply Ordering Through the Business Manager
The most structurally important change a school can make is to centralise all supply ordering through the business manager or a designated administrative staff member, and to stop individual teachers placing orders directly with suppliers. This sounds simple, but it requires two things to work in practice: a genuinely simple process through which teachers can request supplies, and a business manager with the tools to fulfil those requests efficiently.
The request process for teachers should be frictionless. A shared form, a simple email request, or a request channel in the school’s communication platform takes a teacher less than two minutes per request. The business manager then fulfils from the approved product list in the ordering portal, placing one consolidated order rather than multiple individual ones.
This centralisation removes the procurement burden from teachers entirely while giving the business manager the visibility needed to manage supply spending across the school. It also eliminates the risk of teachers ordering from non-preferred suppliers, outside contracted pricing arrangements, or at quantities that create unnecessary cost.
2. Build a Classroom-Ready Approved Product List in the Ordering Portal
An approved product list is a pre-configured catalogue of every product the school purchases, at contracted prices, accessible through the ordering portal. It replaces the open-catalogue ordering that currently requires staff to search, compare, and decide from thousands of options, and instead presents a curated list of the products the school actually uses.
For school procurement, the approved product list should be organised by department or curriculum area: a classroom supplies section, an art and craft section, a science consumables section, a staffroom and kitchen section, a cleaning and hygiene section, and an office and administrative section. When a teacher submits a supply request, the business manager can find the required items quickly and order from contracted prices rather than conducting a fresh product search each time.
The approved product list also enforces consistency. Rather than different teachers ordering different brands of whiteboard markers at different prices, the list specifies the contracted product and price for each category, applying the school’s bulk purchasing volume to every order regardless of who submitted the request.
COS tip: Your COS account manager can build your school’s approved product list during account setup, drawing on your historical order data or your current supply requirements by curriculum area. Products are configured at contracted prices so the portal reflects exactly what the school has agreed to pay.
3. Configure Standing Orders Aligned to the School Calendar
Classroom consumables follow a predictable pattern: high demand at the start of each term, steady consumption through the term, and a predictable set of items that are needed in quantity by every classroom at the beginning of every school year. Copy paper, whiteboard markers and cleaner, pens and pencils, art and craft basics, and staffroom consumables such as coffee, tea, and cleaning supplies are all high-volume, predictable items that should be on standing orders rather than ordered reactively.
Standing orders configured to the school calendar eliminate the start-of-term rush that currently generates a wave of urgent supply requests from teachers and a corresponding spike in business manager workload. When supplies are already in the stockroom on day one of each term, teachers can begin the term focused on students rather than supplies.
Standing orders should be reviewed and adjusted at the end of each term and at the start of each year to reflect changes in enrolments, curriculum focus areas, or subject requirements. A business manager who reviews and confirms standing order quantities once per term handles the entire replenishment function for predictable consumables in under an hour.
4. Use Consolidated Monthly Invoicing to Reduce Accounts Payable Burden
In many schools, supply procurement generates a disproportionate accounts payable burden: multiple invoices per week from multiple suppliers, each requiring processing, coding, and approval before payment. This is not a teaching function, but it falls to administrative staff who could be spending their time on higher-value tasks.
Consolidating supply purchasing to a single preferred supplier with monthly invoicing reduces this burden to a single invoice per month, covering all supply categories, at contracted prices that match purchase orders exactly. The reconciliation task that currently takes hours across multiple invoices from multiple suppliers becomes a straightforward single-invoice check.
For schools operating under state education department financial reporting requirements, consolidated monthly invoicing also simplifies cost coding and reporting. All non-care supply expenditure flows through one account with one record, making end-of-year budget reconciliation and supply budget planning for the following year significantly more straightforward.
5. Work With a Dedicated Account Manager Who Knows Your School’s Needs
The administrative burden that currently falls on teachers and business managers around supply procurement is not just about ordering. It includes researching whether a product is suitable, chasing a delivery that has not arrived, requesting a credit for an incorrectly delivered item, and finding alternatives when a product is unavailable. Each of these tasks absorbs time from staff who have other priorities.
A dedicated account manager absorbs all of this. They know the school’s approved product list, understand which products are required for which curriculum areas, proactively flag alternatives when a product is discontinued or temporarily unavailable, and resolve delivery and invoice issues without requiring the business manager to spend time on supplier query management.
The AITSL data makes clear that administrative work has generally increased for Australian teachers over the period from 2021 to 2023, and that it is a major source of stress. Every task removed from teacher and admin staff workload through a better supplier relationship structure is a genuine contribution to the school’s operational wellbeing. A dedicated account manager makes that reduction durable rather than dependent on staff knowing the right person to call each time an issue arises.
COS for schools: Every COS school account includes a named, dedicated account manager with experience in school procurement. They manage standing orders, handle product queries for curriculum-specific items, coordinate urgent deliveries before term starts, and resolve supply issues without the business manager having to get involved.
A Term-by-Term Implementation Plan
Most schools can make the transition to streamlined, teacher-free procurement within a single term using this approach.
Audit current procurement and set up account
Identify all current suppliers for school supplies. List all product categories purchased across the school. Set up a consolidated business account with a preferred supplier, confirm contracted pricing, and begin building the approved product list.
Build the approved product list and configure standing orders
Complete the approved product list organised by curriculum area. Identify the 10 to 15 highest-volume regular consumables and configure standing orders at quantities calibrated to current enrolments and term start requirements.
Communicate the new process to teaching staff
Brief all teachers on the new request process: how to submit a supply request, what the turnaround time is, and what to do if they need something urgently that is not on the approved list. Confirm that direct orders to suppliers are no longer required or permitted.
Review, adjust, and deactivate old accounts
Review standing order quantities based on first-term consumption. Adjust for any curriculum changes or enrolment movements. Deactivate old supplier accounts for categories now covered by the consolidated arrangement. Brief new staff at the start of next term.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much time do Australian teachers spend on administrative tasks?
The OECD TALIS 2024 survey found that Australian lower secondary teachers spend 4.7 hours per week on administrative tasks, the fourth highest in the OECD. The AITSL Australian Teacher Workforce Survey (In Brief: Teacher Duties, August 2025) found that more than half of primary and secondary teachers spend 5 or more hours per week on general administrative work, with around one in five spending 10 or more hours. Administrative work has generally increased from 2021 to 2023 and 69% of lower secondary teachers consider it a source of stress.
What is the fastest way for a school to reduce teacher procurement workload?
The fastest change is to stop teachers placing supply orders directly with suppliers and centralise all ordering through the school business manager using a single supplier account with a pre-configured approved product list. This removes the procurement function from teacher workload entirely rather than making each step slightly easier. Configuring standing orders for term-start consumables in the same step means the first delivery arrives before term begins, which eliminates the early-term supply request surge that currently hits business managers in week one.
What did the NSW Department of Education's 2024 administrative audit find?
The NSW Department of Education’s 2024 Audit of Teachers’ Administrative Tasks identified 105 tasks with processes considered frustrating, painful, cumbersome, or overly complex and causing high or very high workload. The audit was commissioned following the NSW Government’s 2023 commitment to reduce teacher administrative workload by at least five hours per week. It found that policy is the main driver of operational tasks in schools, and identified opportunities to remove, simplify, or digitise high-burden tasks to allow teachers to focus on quality teaching.
How should a school handle urgent supply requests from teachers mid-term?
A consolidated supplier account with a dedicated account manager handles urgent requests more effectively than a fragmented multi-supplier arrangement. The business manager submits an urgent order through the portal or directly to the account manager, and the account manager coordinates priority delivery. When all purchasing is consolidated to one account, urgent requests do not require the business manager to navigate multiple supplier contacts, which is where most of the time currently disappears in mid-term supply situations.
How can schools manage supply procurement across multiple campuses or departments?
A single consolidated supplier account can support multiple delivery addresses under one account, with different approved product list configurations for different campuses or departments. All spending flows through one account and one monthly invoice, with spend data accessible by delivery address or department for budget reporting purposes. The business manager at each campus or the central business manager can manage their site’s orders without needing separate supplier accounts or contracts.
Can COS supply everything an Australian school needs and reduce procurement workload?
COS supplies Australian schools with 40,000+ products across every classroom and administrative supply category, from a single business account with contracted pricing. Every COS school account includes a dedicated account manager, a pre-configured approved product list, standing order capability aligned to the school calendar, and consolidated monthly invoicing. The account manager handles product queries, delivery issues, and substitutions so the business manager does not need to manage these interactions. The goal is to reduce school supply procurement to a review-and-adjust function rather than an active weekly task.
COS school accounts include contracted pricing, an approved product list, term-aligned standing orders, consolidated monthly invoicing, and a dedicated account manager who handles everything your business manager currently manages across multiple suppliers.
