Automating Venue Booking for CIPS
Exam venue booking tool that accurately calculates the cost of every booking around the world
Education providers can find it an uphill challenge when trying to overcome different prices models and venue contracts when forecasting and booking venues or exams.
That's exactly what CIPS were trying to overcome when they approached PSP for a way to automate this process. They wanted a solution that would:
- Automatically calculate the cost of every venue booking and produce an automated order form
- Convert currencies into the currency of the country each venue is located
- Improve their cost forecasting so they know exactly what they'll be spending before any exam is even sat
Requirements
CIPS wanted to the tool to be integrated with their current CMS and be able to automatically send out purchase order forms to every venue.
The specifically-built algorithm needed to take into the different pricing models of each venue, such as:
- Minimum order quantity
- Cost per seat
- Fixed cost of hiring the venue
Solution
The integrated tool eliminated the headache of booking exam venues across 15 countries. This was something that proved a challenge when having to overcome different currencies, time zones and forecasting.
Once the exam booking window closes, CIPS know exactly how many students will be in each venue, and the date and time of their exams.
By combining the amount of bookings, plus the venues’ contract and pricing models, the system’s algorithm calculates the order value for every venue and collates into the specific orders for the venue suppliers. Therefore, they’ll know precisely what they’ll be spending so reliable revenue and cost forecasting can be done well in advance before the exams are sat.
The system generates an order requisition for every venue which goes straight into CIPS’ Sage system and gets sent out as an order to all the exam centres.
Benefits
With almost all of the process being automated, the workload of CIPS' staff was massively reduced. The system automatically tallied up the total cost of the entire venue purchasing for their exams across the world, meaning they will know precisely what they'll be spending.
In previous years, they would make a blanket order based on their predictions. These would often be wrong compared to the final invoice, meaning there were discrepancies in their budget and forecasted spend.
Where to find us
We'd love to welcome you into our office! We're only 20 miles north of Peterborough, conveniently just off the A16.
Carver House
Apex Court, Elsoms Way
Pinchbeck
Lincolnshire
PE11 3UL
