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Pearson Education Technologies Announces Concert Procurement

Mesa, AZ - November 13, 2002 - Pearson Education Technologies (formerly NCS Learn) today announced the delivery of Concert™ Procurement, a module that is part of Concert™ Business, a comprehensive, Web-based suite of integrated applications designed for the K-12 business office. Concert Business comprises three application suites — Concert Finance, Concert Procurement, and Concert Human Resources. The first component, Concert Finance, was released this spring.

Concert Procurement is designed to help K-12 district and school offices manage the purchasing function more effectively by empowering more users, streamlining processes, and helping reduce overall procurement costs. With integrated purchasing applications and strategies, Concert Procurement can help maximize administrative control while saving valuable resources, encouraging adherence to purchasing policies, and improving inventory and bidding practices.

“Concert Procurement provides K-12 business offices with easy access to information in real-time to help improve accountability and encourage data-driven decision making,” said Allison Duquette, vice president of product management and marketing. “Concert Procurement’s analysis and reporting capabilities are intended to provide administrators with the critical information they need to help make better purchasing decisions, while streamlined, automated purchasing processes will help increase efficiency and productivity among staff.”

Concert Procurement Applications

Concert Procurement applications include Purchasing, Payables Management/Invoice Matching, Requisitions and Electronic Requisitions, Inventory Control, Bids Management, and Warehouse Management.

• The Purchasing application helps schools and districts to improve order accuracy and reduce paperwork with automated purchasing and receiving. It allows users to maintain an item catalog with pricing, availability and vendor agreements, as well as request, create, and transmit purchase orders.
• The Payables Management/Invoice Matching application simplifies reconciliation, discrepancy management, and check processing to help improve the management of invoices and cash flow.
• The Requisitions and Electronic Requisitions application automates paper and electronic requisitions to minimize duplications and ensure accurate fulfillment.
• The Inventory Control application efficiently monitors and manages inventory throughout the district. It allows users to track inventory movement, reconcile and report inventory, and replenish inventory as needed.
• The Bids Management application allows users to easily create bids, process vendor responses, analyze vendor responses, and create contracts.
• The Warehouse Management application enables users to efficiently fulfill orders received in the warehouse, as well as print pick lists, perform shipping feedback, and release shipments.

Concert Business

With its easy-to-use browser interface, full-time remote access, and automated processes, Concert Business helps K-12 districts improve business process management and operations, resulting in decreased administrative tasks and greater productivity. In addition, Concert Business offers easy data gathering with the distinctive Drill Around® feature. The Drill Around feature allows users to navigate directly to detailed information with a click of the mouse or to move through Concert Business in any direction to access data in any module of the Finance, Procurement, or Human Resources applications.

Concert Business applications are scalable for deployment in large and small school districts, without compromising security, reliability, or performance. Concert Business uses Extensible Markup Language (XML), the universal format for data on the Web.

Services and Support

Pearson Education Technologies offers a full range of services and support for Concert Business, including implementation services, application training, data conversion and installation assistance, and technical support.

System Requirements

Concert Business is available on the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 platform. System requirements are Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server™ database. The Web interface is supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer™ 5.5 browser.

About Pearson Education Technologies

With more than 40 years of experience in developing, delivering, and supporting curriculum, assessment, and enterprise data management products, Pearson Education Technologies is the leader in offering comprehensive solutions for preK-12 education. Reaching more than 10 million students annually, our products include the SASIxp™ student information system, SuccessMaker® Enterprise and NovaNET® comprehensive courseware systems, and Concert™ Instruction & Assessment, the online education community. Pearson Education Technologies is part of Pearson Education (NYSE: PSO), the world's leading integrated education company.

For more information about Pearson Education Technologies, call 1.877.EdTech1.