How Ramp became KIPP Nashville’s biggest financial win
“There was no fire drill for the beginning of the school year this year, because the schools had a process. Ramp will ingest the line items automatically, so no more manual import. It's made the process so much easier.”
CFO, KIPP Nashville Public Schools
Every purchasing decision at KIPP Nashville supports a classroom, a teacher, or a student. By bringing procurement, bills, reimbursements, and cards into one system, the school network reduced the manual work that held finance back—so the team could spend more time planning ahead and helping schools get what they need.
Too many systems were slowing down a growing school network
With nine schools and approximately 500 employees—50 of whom can make purchasing decisions—KIPP Nashville had financial pressure points across its organization. Collecting and coding credit-card receipts took significant time each month and delayed the month-end close. Reimbursements flowed through payroll and could take more than six weeks to reach employees’ accounts. Invoices did not sync reliably with the organization’s accounting system or purchase-order process.
“Our process was just clunky in a lot of ways,” says CFO Carey Peek. “We were often late on payments, users were confused by so many different systems, and we were continually answering questions about how to do things.”
Each segment of KIPP Nashville’s overall financial management system was time-intensive and frustrating. Paying bills required manually coding and selecting approval workflows, as well as manual data uploads. “We were often late on bills, and we had lots of vendors complaining that they weren’t being paid in a timely manner,” says Carey. Purchases were frequently coded incorrectly, and approvals didn’t come through in a timely manner. “If a bill came through, we didn’t have it syncing in real-time,” says Carey. “It might sit with an approver for way too long, so it wasn’t being captured.”
Procurement was similarly tedious. “Creating a PO could be really painful,” says Carey. “It got really granular, and there would be a lot of line items that would come through in a quote that we’d then have to manually put into the PO to send back. This was not only taking up our team’s time, it was also delaying the curriculum and supplies schools needed.”
Each of these manual, time-intensive processes led to a lengthy and disjointed monthly close process. “We were spending a lot of time working with employees directly to track things down,” says Carey. “We held office hours and answered questions constantly, and we spent time moving information from various systems to our accounting system through different types of exports and uploads. We could rarely close on time, and there were some months when it would take the entire month to close the books.”
KIPP Nashville needed a system that could reduce tedious manual work, improve accuracy and visibility in its financials, and free up time for an overextended finance team.
One connected system for POs, bill pay, reimbursements, and cards
KIPP Nashville consolidated its fragmented expense-management vendors with Ramp, deploying one system across procurement, bill pay, reimbursements, and cards. The team now uses Ramp Bill to pay vendors and quickly check payment status. Managers can approve from their phones, which helps move approvals more consistently. What once took close to a month can now take only a few days.
“Each area has been a big improvement. Ramp makes things so much easier to stay on top of our spend. We haven’t had any complaints about not getting paid in months.” — Carey Peek, CFO
Ramp has also streamlined the approval process by enabling managers to grant approval on their phones. “We now get daily approvals,” Carry explains, “which is helpful because it used to take close to a month to make a payment, and now it can take just a few days.”
On the procurement side, KIPP Nashville established a clearer process. Schools can create their own POs, and Ramp automatically ingests line items—eliminating manual imports. “There was no fire drill for the beginning of the school year this year, because the schools had a process,” says Carey. “They could create their own POs, Ramp will ingest the line items automatically, so no more manual import. It’s made the process so much easier, and now each school has what it needs, which is great.”
Ramp also helps enforce the team’s process: it prompts employees for receipts and coding, reminds approvers of outstanding work, and syncs with the accounting system in real time. That leaves the finance team with more time for higher-value work.
“Ramp monitors and controls our people for us. It locks cards on a rolling basis if they haven’t loaded receipts or coding, it reminds people of approvals needed, and it syncs in real-time with our accounting system.” — Carey Peek, CFO
More confidence in the numbers—and more time for strategy
Since implementing Ramp, KIPP Nashville has improved visibility and control over organizational spend. Clearer, more objective rules make it easier for employees to follow the process, for finance to do its job, and for the organization to rely on its financial data.
“I’m much more confident presenting our financials, especially since now our invoices come in and are coded appropriately and captured appropriately in our financial systems from the beginning. Plus, now we have our PO system that goes with it, so we know when the expenses are coming.” — Carey Peek, CFO
Now that Carey and her team aren’t constantly chasing non-compliant employees, manually moving data between systems, or continually assisting with purchasing questions, they can expedite formerly cumbersome processes and focus on more value-additive activities.
“I no longer have to focus so intently on monthly close. It’s smoother with Ramp. We can review the financials and the implications. I can troubleshoot issues, and then I can spend much more time on strategy and other long-term modeling.” — Carey Peek, CFO
Because these systems are so easy and clear, the finance team has enjoyed the added benefit of an improved image within the organization. “An unexpected consequence is that the finance team is no longer the ‘bad guy,’” says Carey. “Instead, we hear mostly positive feedback from others outside of our team, which has had a huge impact on team morale.”
For employees across the organization, simplifying these formerly frustrating processes has been a net positive. “Now the users are able to focus on what they need to do to serve our mission. We don’t want faculty and staff worried about invoices and expense reports. We want them focused on our amazing students and our exceptional programs” says Carey.
Ramp’s ability to consolidate multiple systems and improve the user experience has been a major asset to KIPP. In fact, Carey says it’s been on of her greatest accomplishments:
“Implementing Ramp has been my biggest win in two years as CFO. Employees love it and often go out of their way to tell me so.” — Carey Peek, CFO
