St James School was told about Pelican by a visiting auditor, who was using them at the school where she was a governor.

Price audit findings

I have contacted Pelican and an appointment was made for a rep to visit me. As a school that has in house catering Pelican's first step was that they took copies of some of our invoices. I was not sure what would happen, but was very pleasantly surprised when they returned with savings on many of the products. At that point it seemed silly not to join, no fees, no contract and a cost savings on the products we used.

Helpful support and advice

After that Pelican introduced us to other companies that could save the school money, they also listened to the problems we were having in the canteen and, because of the Pelican purchasing advisers' back ground in school catering, provided suggestion and solutions. For example they help us introduced new ranges of products for the school to sell to students.

Simple Payment Service

Eventually I signed up to central billing payment service, paying by Direct Debit once a month to Pelican for the invoices the school were getting. No more cheques and postage, a monthly statement by e-mail a couple of weeks before the Direct Debit came out of the schools bank account so that it could be checked. And, the icing on the cake was when in March this year the school received the first annual 'cash back' of over £200 by using Central Billing, considering that I did not start this until September 2009 I cannot wait for a full year's cash back.

Easy process

The transition to the new suppliers prices was painless, there was no hard sale by the rep, and it was done at my pace (slowly but surely).

So impressed with their service (something I could not say about the many other companies the school uses) I have recommended them to other Finance Managers many of whom have signed up to Pelican.

In summary Pelican do the work and the school saves money.

"Pelican do the work and the school saves money."

Bryan Alcock, Finance Manager
St James RC High School