What to Review in Your Procurement Process Before Q3 Ends

As the new fiscal year kicks off for many public agencies, August and September present a timely opportunity to reflect, reassess, and realign your procurement strategy. With budgets refreshed and projects already in motion, this is the moment to step back and ask: Is our procurement process helping us move faster, stay compliant, and deliver value, or is it slowing us down?

Mid-year reviews aren’t just a bureaucratic formality or a box to check off. Procurement inefficiencies often creep in unnoticed, hidden by manual workarounds, delayed approvals, or unclear ownership of tasks. Left unaddressed, these issues compound. Think of mid-year reviews, then, as a strategic checkpoint. With six months still ahead, a few smart adjustments now can dramatically impact your performance before year-end.

So How Do You Get Started?

Begin by evaluating your internal workflows. Look out for cross-departmental delays, redundant review steps, unclear routing, or fragmented communication channels, all of which can delay procurement cycles. Mapping your current workflow from requisition to award can reveal where time is being lost and where automation or clarification might help.

Next, take a hard look at vendor engagement. Analyze how many of your registered vendors are actually responding to bids, and how many submissions are complete, timely, and compliant. If you’re unhappy with the results, it might not be your vendors’ fault. Confusing solicitation documents, disjointed communication, and complicated submission rules and processes are all red flags that could be causing you to get fewer advantageous bids. Review how you’re reaching out to suppliers, how they’re responding, and whether your submission processes are vendor-friendly.

Next, consider auditing data visibility, like how easily you can report on procurement activity. If you can’t say how many active bids are currently out, track spending trends, or view historic vendor responses, your manual processes are holding you back. Better data leads to better strategic decisions and saves hours come audit season.

Compliance is one of the most critical considerations. As regulations evolve and public scrutiny intensifies, ensuring you have the right controls in place is non-negotiable. Mid-year is a perfect time to make sure bid records are complete and accessible, addenda and vendor certifications are properly tracked, and that your system can create a reliable audit trail. Conducting a quick compliance health check helps you close gaps before they turn into liabilities.

Rounding Out Process Efficiency

Finally, think about integration and long-term efficiency. Is your procurement system operating in a silo, or is it connected with your finance, budgeting, and contract management platforms? Every manual data handoff is a potential delay and a source of errors. Identifying and addressing friction points now can prevent headaches during year-end reporting and set your agency up for smoother collaboration across departments.

A mid-year procurement process review doesn’t require a full system overhaul. Often, small refinements, like updating templates, automating reminders, or streamlining approvals can yield outsized results. The goal is to optimize what you already have, reduce friction, and realign your process with your agency’s goals for the rest of the year.

By addressing inefficiencies now, you position your team to deliver better outcomes, faster turnarounds, and greater transparency before the next cycle begins. And if you’re ready to dive deeper, our Budget Adjustment Strategies Toolkit offers templates, planning guides, and reallocation tools built specifically for public sector procurement teams looking to finish the fiscal year strong.