Success Story: Independent Boys College.
NSW Secondary School Wins Back 2,000hrs of Effort Per Year, Unlocks Digital Transformation
Background.
A New South Wales high school for boys, with over 100 staff and 1000 students, wanted to accelerate their digital transformation and lower the effort associated with administration and planning. Since crucial, labour-intensive activities such as enrolment and fee management intersected at their Finance department, they placed their focusthere. Their mandates: raise efficiency by automating enrolment and accounting-related processes; achieve real time visibility and governmental compliance along the way.
Solution.
The school quickly realised that unifying their enrolment and fee management on one system would end manual data handling and streamline the work the finance team was doing. Online payment options would accelerate invoice payment and communication with parents could be largely automated. Payment schedules, transactions and reconciliations would be easier to manage and their internal procurement approvals could be digitised.
The school replaced their “small business” finance and accounting software with Feoda, leaving their school management software in place. “We realised the capabilities we wanted would only be found in software dedicated to finance management and enrolment.”,said their Business Manager. “The best solution wasn’t an all-in-one solution.” With the new system in place, they enabled automatic fee collection, leveraging the information captured during each student's enrolment. They also took advantage of Feoda's payroll and purchasing features to reduce their team's administrative overhead. Finally, they used Feoda’s real time dashboard reports and integrated budgeting and forecasting tools to accelerate their
Results.
The school achieved a transformative outcome, most notably
saving 2,000 hours of administrative effort per year
from the implementation of fee management automation alone.
Feoda’s user-friendly design allowed for easy adoption by their Finance team: a one-hour training session wall all that was needed. Their new paperless enrolment and fee management delighted parents and staff, enabling “…seamless administration, from when the student first enters the School to the day they graduate”, according to the school’s Business Manager. In fact, 20% of the entire first semester’s tuition fees were collected within 5hrs of Feoda generating and sending the invoices. Less effort was being spent managing vendors and purchase orders, thanks to paperless workflows, and the payroll journal now took only a single hour to process. Finally, the real time view of their financial status allowed them to plan and react quickly to changing demands, such as remote learning requirements and its potential impact on fee structure.
With effort to spare and total financial visibility, the Finance team focused on the future: ongoing funding, long term planning and the construction of the new “Master Building” on their beautiful NSW campus.
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