Booking onsite Office training for a municipality, school board, or public agency takes four things from the vendor. A written quote with a figure someone can sign against. A certificate of insurance. An invoice your accounts payable team can process. Confirmation that nothing commits the organization past the session. This page states what Lakeview Training can put in writing for each, plus the one thing it cannot claim.
A corporate office manager can decide on Tuesday and book on Wednesday. A public-sector coordinator has to defend the purchase to procurement, to finance, and sometimes to a council or board. The training is the same. The paperwork is not.
The thing I am not going to pretend about
Lakeview Training is a new business. It is not on any vendor list, standing offer, or pre-qualified supplier roster, municipal, provincial, or federal. If your procurement policy requires a listed vendor for this category of spend, I am not eligible yet, and I would rather you learn that here than three emails in.
Check your threshold before anything else
School boards, colleges, universities, and hospitals follow Ontario's Broader Public Sector Procurement Directive. The version in effect since April 13, 2026 sets out a threshold table for goods and non-consulting services. A purchase order is the recommended method from $3,000 up to $10,000, and invitational competitive procurement from $10,000 up to $139,000. An open competitive process is required at $139,000 or more. Your organization can set stricter rules than the directive, so read your own policy alongside it.
A municipality works from its own procurement policy, with its own direct-purchase limit, which is why I cannot tell you what yours is. Purchasing or finance can, and it is a one-line question.
| Your organization | What governs the purchase | Where to find your limit |
|---|---|---|
| School board, college, university, or hospital | Broader Public Sector Procurement Directive, plus your own policy | Your procurement or finance office, and the directive's threshold table |
| Municipality or local board | Your municipality's own procurement policy | Purchasing or the clerk's office |
| Provincial agency or ministry | The procurement rules your agency is bound by | Your procurement office |
The written quote
You get one on request, before anything is scheduled, as a document rather than a number in an email body. It states:
- the course or courses and the level
- the delivery date, the location, and the session length
- the maximum group size
- the total in Canadian dollars and what it includes
- a not-to-exceed figure, if you need one for a requisition before the group size is settled
Training is delivered at your site, so there is no venue cost and no separate setup or materials charge under the number. Additional costs for travel vary by location and are stated in the written quote. Prices are published: the Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint foundation days at $750 to $1,495 CAD plus HST per session, and the Excel levels at $1,495 to $2,990 CAD plus HST per session. These are group prices, not per-seat fees, so you can hold the number against your policy before we talk.
Insurance, WSIB, and accessibility
A certificate of commercial general liability insurance is available on request, naming your organization as required, before the session date, with the coverage limits stated on the certificate itself.
Lakeview Training does not currently carry a WSIB (Workplace Safety and Insurance Board) clearance. The WSIB's policy describes a clearance as relieving the principal, which is you as the buyer, of liability for payment obligations to the WSIB that the contractor may incur during the certificate's validity period, and says a clearance is valid for up to 90 calendar days and renewable. If your policy requires one for every onsite contractor, say so early and I will tell you plainly whether that rules me out, rather than let it surface after a date is picked.
Ontario's accessibility rules for businesses require an organization to provide, on request, accessible formats and communication supports for people with disabilities, and not to charge more for them than for other formats. I hold a one-person business to that standard. If a participant needs the workbook in large print or as a screen-reader-friendly file, or needs a different pace, tell me when you book and the session is built around it.
Documents, workbooks, and files your staff work from during the session stay on your own machines. Nothing is copied, retained, or reused afterward.
Invoicing and terms
Invoicing is per session, after delivery, in Canadian dollars, with the purchase order or requisition number on the invoice where you need one. Net 30 is standard. Net 45 or net 60 to match your payment cycle is fine, and a public-sector payment cycle is expected rather than treated as late.
A session shared by two departments can be invoiced in two parts, against two cost centres, on the same delivery. If the session falls near a fiscal year end and you need the invoice in a particular year, say so. We pick the delivery date to suit, rather than trying to solve it afterward with accounting.
No contract past the session
There is no retainer, no annual commitment, no seat licence, and no auto-renewal. You book a session, it gets delivered, and you pay the invoice. If the department wants a second session next quarter, that is a new quote.
A multi-year commitment is exactly the thing that pushes a simple purchase into a procurement process nobody wanted to run.
A multi-year commitment is exactly the thing that pushes a simple purchase into a procurement process nobody wanted to run.
Lakeview Training is a one-person business, which is worth being direct about too. If illness or an emergency makes the booked date impossible, the session is rescheduled promptly at no additional cost. That is the honest answer for a business this size, rather than a promise of a backup instructor I do not have.
What the session itself looks like
Each course runs as a single full day of six hours at your site, or as two half-days across a week for a counter that has to stay open to the public. The day is built in four blocks, and each block ends with a file your staff can use. A report whose table of contents updates itself. A workbook whose totals are formulas. An inbox with rules that sort it. The next morning, a participant opens the same document on the same computer and carries on from where the session left it.
Public-sector work has a specific kind of document pain that generic training misses. The agenda package that runs to ninety pages and loses its numbering. The budget workbook inherited with no documentation. The shared mailbox nobody set rules on. Onsite training works on those, because those are the files in the room. Onsite training or a webinar sets the two formats side by side, and the PD day guide covers the school-board version of the same booking.
Why onsite is the simpler public-sector buy
Sending eight staff to an external class means eight registrations, eight days away, and mileage claims if the class runs in another city. Every one of those is a separate line somebody has to approve. Bringing one instructor to your building collapses all of it into a single purchase, a single date, and a single invoice. You do not ship eight machines to a service depot for maintenance; the technician comes to the site, because the machines are where the work is.
The four foundation courses
- Microsoft Word training 101: Styles, sections, and a table of contents that updates itself, for anyone producing reports, agendas, bylaws, or policy documents.
- Microsoft Outlook training 101: a triage routine and a calendar that protects focus, for staff whose inbox currently runs their day.
- Microsoft PowerPoint training 101: decks a council chamber or a public meeting can actually read.
- Microsoft Excel training 101: real formulas and clean printing, for staff who inherited a spreadsheet and have been guessing ever since. Which Excel level to book helps you pick.
Common questions
Can a date be held before the purchase order is issued?
Yes. A date is held on your emailed confirmation, and the purchase order number can follow later. It goes on the invoice, so it only has to exist before the invoice does.
Can two organizations share one session?
Yes, if they can share a room. Two small municipalities can book one session, and the invoice is split in two parts against two organizations.
What if fewer people attend than the quote allowed for?
The price is per group up to the maximum on the quote, not per seat, so the invoice does not change when two people are pulled away on the day.
How to start
Email a short description: which department, roughly how many staff, which tools, and any date constraints. You will get back a written quote, the insurance certificate if you need it, and a recommended course level.
Checked against Ontario government and WSIB pages on September 21, 2026: Accessibility rules for businesses and non-profits, Broader Public Sector Procurement Directive (PDF), Broader public sector accountability, WSIB clearance certificate policy
