How implementing the right school finance software can help create a positive working culture

The problem with under-investment

Under-investment in finance software for schools can have a detrimental impact on the smooth running of the finance department, school and wider trust. Not only will tasks take much longer to complete, teams will be forced to duplicate work and struggle to easily share key data and information with other departments.

Following the recent controversy surrounding Education Software Solutions (ESS) and the announcement that it would soon be extending its contracts from one year to three years, giving schools just five months to sign up or find an alternative, finance teams up and down the country are now reviewing their own contracts with software providers.

Not only will reviewing current contracts prove due diligence checks have taken place, it will also ensure that schools and trusts are continuing to get a high quality level of service at a reasonable price.

Reviewing your school finance software

Over a period of time, the chronic under-investment in the development of the CAPITA SIMS (ESS) product - adopted by the majority of schools, hindered productivity and it’s clear that this has been causing inefficiencies, which will only add pressure to already stretched workloads.

When news came that ESS were seeking to lock schools into three-year contracts at renewal, the school business manager community reacted with anger - and rightfully so.

This saga forced many to review their finance, accounting and budgeting software and presented an opportunity for schools to reconsider their procurement processes, other systems currently on the market, and whether or not they were really getting value for money.

Going fully cloud-based

Pre-pandemic the use of on-site servers was still relatively common in schools, however this created an array of challenges when remote working became the norm back in March 2020. The Access Education finance software has been designed - and constantly developed - to ensure that teams can effectively manage school finances from any location. Unlike other providers, the software has been configured with the user-journey in mind, taking into account the fact that teams are increasingly working remotely and managing the finances of multiple schools across trusts.

The intuitive and live information dashboards can provide an up-to-date picture of a single school or the entire trust’s financial performance, while detailed reports can facilitate more thorough analysis, revealing critical trends before they turn into problems. Via our Access education software, all key stakeholders can access the data they need efficiently, without having to trawl through archaic systems in search of information.

Integrating your education systems

The ability to fully integrate systems can save a significant amount of time over the course of the academic year, freeing staff up to focus on more value-added activity. For central finance teams, this is even more important, as they are often responsible for multiple schools across a trust.

One of the most common issues we see is finance teams struggling to integrate legacy software systems into their current processes. Access' Finance software can seamlessly integrate with our Education Budgets software, allowing teams to accurately track real-time spending against planned expenditure. Armed with the full picture, finance departments can easily create cash flow forecasts to obtain a full picture of past, present and future performance on an individual or trust level.

For finance teams to operate effectively, the software in place needs to offer the best possible functionality, with support on-hand to guide users through any issues they may encounter. Unlike other providers, the Access Education finance software is in constant development, ensuring that the system continues to promote efficiency and smarter ways of working.