How a lean subcontractor team built a scalable procurement workflow system—without an ERP platform

Person reviewing procurement data dashboards on a laptop to track contract performance and cost savings.

When a federal Prime contractor drops raw data in your lap—unformatted, inconsistent, and urgent—you’ve got two options: scramble to survive or build the systems that help you scale.

At Bee Social Solutions, we partnered with Industrial Management Services (IMS) to do the latter. With a growing federal subcontract valued at $17M, we transformed a tangle of quote requests, invoice confusion, and scattered shipping data into one centralized workflow that worked for everyone—using Excel, OneDrive, and one $19/month Zapier subscription.

No ERP system. No $1,000/month project tracker. Just practical tools, smart workflows, and buy-in from the people doing the work.

The Before: Scattered Files, Missed Payments, Vendor Confusion

When IMS was first awarded the contract, the volume of work felt manageable—until the scope doubled. At that point, we weren’t just handling procurement for one federal funding round; we were tracking hundreds of items across multiple timelines, vendors, and approval layers.

Our systems were lean, but not efficient. Some files were saved locally, others in the cloud, some lost in inboxes. There were payment delays. One vendor was paid twice. Shipping coordination lagged behind because information wasn’t shared consistently. Everyone had the same goal—but not the same process.

The Solution: A Workflow System That Worked (and Still Does)

We built a centralized Excel-based procurement hub with real-time dashboards and automation triggers that supported:

Vendor quote requests via email zaps triggered by spreadsheet checkmarks
Approval routing for invoice and funding flows
Prepayment-only policy to simplify accounting and increase vendor negotiation power
Shipping coordination automated through a shared data field and email triggers
Real-time savings ledger to show the Prime contractor exactly how much we were cutting costs

We paired this with crystal-clear SOPs, weekly check-ins, naming conventions, and a shared understanding that accounting, purchasing, and logistics all needed the same information—but not in the same way.

We didn’t force a system. We built one around how people actually worked.

What We Used (and What We Didn’t)

No ERP platform. No bloated software stack. We used:

Excel (with formulas, not macros)
OneDrive for version control and shared storage
Zapier (free at first, then $19/month once we scaled)
Outlook + Teams for communication

That’s it.

Results: Fewer Headaches, Real-Time Insights, and Long-Term Scalability

In the first three months of implementation:

Duplicate payments stopped
Shipping handoffs improved overnight
Status updates for the Prime became plug-and-play
Internal trust between teams increased
The savings ledger made value clear without guesswork

We now use the same system—with minor adjustments—for multiple funding rounds and other contracts. The result? A lean machine that works at scale, without bloat or burnout.

Final Thoughts: Systems Make or Break the Project

In today’s economy, lean doesn’t mean limited. The difference between burnout and bandwidth is often in the workflow.

If you’re a subcontractor supporting a federal Prime and feel like you're drowning in data, don’t assume a software purchase is the solution. Sometimes what you need is a system—built around your team, with the tools you already have.

We're proof it works.

This post is part of our ongoing Lessons from the Field series. Stay tuned for more real-world examples of subcontractor wins, scalable systems, and back-end brilliance that actually gets the job done.

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