Cashless school dinners – benefits of cashless catering beyond the canteen
In March, we were pleased to announce that My School Portal, our parent communication and engagement software, was integrated with a specialist platform to help manage online payments in schools.
Our ambition is always to create a seamless system that helps our customers, the schools, to offer a truly seamless experience for their clients - their pupils and importantly, their parents.
Users will notice the benefits in a number of our existing features, such as the clubs and trips booking capabilities and paying for additional tutoring. But they’ll also now be able to take advantage of a new feature - online payments, allowing parents to make both ad hoc and regular payments and putting them in control of their children’s spending. They can also access a full breakdown of what their child has ordered, and top-up the account as and when is necessary.
Why are schools going cashless?
Before we explain the benefits of cashless payments for schools, it’s important to look beyond the education sector. The world has been moving towards a new norm of digital payments for many years, but the Covid-19 pandemic made this new reality emerge closer than anyone could have expected.
According to UK Finance, an industry trade association, in 2010 over half of all payments in the UK were made using cash with around one in six payments that year made using debit cards. By the end of 2017 however, the rising use of contactless payments had helped debit cards to overtake cash as the most frequently used payment method in the UK, accounting for over a third of all payments. By 2020 cash was now used for just one in six payments (17 per cent) in the UK in 2020, while one in four people used cash just once a month or less frequently.
Consumers are now expecting to pay for goods and services digitally, and it’s affecting all sectors. Take the charities sector, for example, where data gathered by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found that cash donations decreased from around a third to just 13 per cent between March and April 2020. However, donations made through a charity’s website or app rose from 13 per cent to 24 per cent.
In the midst of Covid-19, the move towards cashless spending was driven by hygiene. However, it’s now the first-choice for many people as it’s a convenient and transparent way to spend. Transactions are logged and it’s easy to budget using banking apps, as well as view historic transactions.
There’s also the insurance implications that schools need to consider, with strict limits applied to the amount of cash schools can keep on site. With a cashless system in place, this worry is removed.
Consider, then - are the parents of your pupils still using cash? Do they have to make a weekly trip to the cashpoint just to fund that week’s school meals? Whether you’re already using a cashless catering system, or if you’re still operating with notes and change, we’re excited to see the benefits that this new functionality will bring to schools across the UK.
How will cashless schools work?
Counting out coins to decide what to buy for lunch each day is fast becoming a distant memory for today’s school children. And for good reason - schools finance managers will understand all too well the struggles of correcting any mistakes from inputted lunch figures, and the time spent processing large streams of daily cash payments.
Finding an effective system for processing school dinner payments means much more than simply collecting funds. Enhanced full meal planning functionality enables parents to choose their children’s school meal and top up their catering account, as well as giving access to a full record of transactions.
Depending on the software package chosen, primary school children can also either select their own meal during morning registration or have their parents pre-select the meal via the platform - making the whole process much more convenient for all involved.
Benefits of cashless school payments
We know that schools collect payments from pupils and parents for a number of reasons and our upgraded functionality means that parents can also buy school uniforms or book school trips via the platform. With one enhanced system, the school and its users can expect numerous advantages.
Busy, on-the-go parents will also notice many benefits, with the system able to save card information for next time, set-up an auto top-up for meals and pay for multiple activities in one go.
Better parent-school relationships
A robust online payment solution gives schools the chance to meet their parent’s expectations. Many other daily activities, from ordering groceries to banking have transformed and by incorporating this into your school’s system, you’ll offer the experience they expect.
Healthier diet and mind
Cashless schools promote healthy lifestyles – less money means less opportunity for students to purchase junk food. Individuals become less of a target for bullies if they’re not carrying any money around.
More time for value-added tasks
The hours spent by school staff when processing cash payments or managing spreadsheets can now be spent on strategic tasks that add value to your school and ensure better planning.
Flexibility and convenience
Ad-hoc and automated payments make it easy for busy parents to manage not just school meals, but also clubs, trips, events and much more. Cashless catering streamlines school kitchens by allowing students to select their own meals in advance.
Enhanced reporting
As well as giving parents transparency over where their funds are being spent, digital traceability is transformative for school and financial reporting - particularly when dealing with multi-school sites.
Find out more about how online school payment systems can help your school with school dinner payments and other cashless transactions
