5 Tips to Streamline School Finances

Ever think ‘there has to be a better way to manage cash in schools’; our founders did, and we’ve committed the last 20+ years to answering just that question for school district after school district.

Through our experience with over 550 school districts, we have come up with 5 tips that will help you streamline school finances.

1. Develop policies and procedures: Understand what hits your bookkeeper’s desk daily and use technology to help, not hinder the process.

Look for a system that collects, tracks, and moves cash regularly and also enables teachers to better manage, and minimize the cash they are still collecting in the classroom.

2. Utilize student level tracking: Integrate your Student Information System with your cash management and online payments software to assign fees to students and track the associated payment status at the individual student level on-demand.

Look for a solution that integrates and updates based on your SIS and allows for fees to be assigned to students in multiple ways.

3. Offer online payments: Collect student fees online to automate and minimize the online cash and check collection. This added convenience for parents also results in less late payments being managed by the school.

Look for a solution that notifies agents of fees, collects payments, provides receipts, and posts to the proper account to remove the manual processes.

4. Automate where you can: Take the headache out of receipting, check writing, bank deposits, bank reconciliations, vendor tracking, and financial reporting with online tools that not only automate but also increase visibility for the district staff.

Look for a robust, feature-rich solution that is also user-friendly. You shouldn’t have to rely on your bookkeepers having specific accounting backgrounds for a system to be usable.

5. Manage and support your team through change: The best technical solutions out there are only as good as their users.

Look for a solution that supports your team in the setup process and the adoption phase for your district staff, school staff, and parents. Keep an eye out for a solution that continues to provide district-level support throughout your time as a client to help smooth over any bumps in the road.

Enable your team to shift away from mundane tasks, such as counting cash, to more meaningful work such as posting and marketing items for sale online, creating the conditions for transparency, facilitating internal controls and preparing reporting to serve your school district.