Financial software for school - advice please

[famudala]

I am requesting software advice / information on behalf of an Australian school board - K-12.

We are in the process of changing business manager. Our manager has been in place for almost 2 decades and has done a wonderful job, but budgets and finances in general have been inaccurate for a few years. Reviewing data suggests this is due to

- use of excel documents for calculations that have been edited and re-edited with altering formulae for many years so that errors have been compounding

- inaccurate budgets that were based almost entirely on this gentleman's spreadsheets

- a lack of forecasting software

We require software or a suite of software that can do the following...

- "talk to" our school management system LMS (SEQTA/school pro)

- "talk to" and/or replace our current excel documents and formulae for student fees, HR related wages calculations, cost of consumables etc

- "talk to" our accounting software MYOB (that could be changed if an appropriate suite covered the services provided by MYOB)

- develop budgets

- develop short and long term forecasts

- provide a dash board for reports (specifically strong in the area of KPI reporting)

I am very keen to find a cloud based solution but we are open to advice. We can work with current systems, but the appointment of a new business manager means a unique opportunity has arisen where we can utilise a chance to move to cutting edge technological solutions.

[keyboards]

We use PSF/Edufin

[famudala]

Thanks Keyboards. Sadly neither of those options are available in Australia. Do you, or anyone else, know of people with Zoho experience?

[AlanD]

I am pretty certain the software you looking for does not exist. I despair at the "cluckyness" of our system - which if you read is specifications might well seem to offer - well at least some of the things you are looking for.

 

30 years ago - we had a manual system and employed two staff to salaries and fees when our school was twice its current size. Today we employ 4 staff - and pay an eye-watering sum for the computer system they operate. And yes - regulations and controls today might be more demanding today...but largely the problem is that computer systems replicate the manual system. I watched with some interest one day when one of them exported data into a spreadsheet and then wrote formula to forecast various things - which they then re-imported back into the software package. Details of invoices that arrive are entered into the system - and then passed to department heads - who in turn enter details into their own and separately maintained spreadsheets from which authorisation to pay is passed back to the accounts office.

 

And does everything tally - absolutely not, Largely because - and despite of every one's best intentions - no one tells accounts that some things end up costing more than they were originally informed - and were still purchased...and then they get the blame because the spending exceeded the budget...which they had no control over. Computers and software won't stop this....although it might flag it up earlier.

 

I was particularly struck by my son (working for a trendy IT company) scanning a meal expense on his phone - highlighting the restaurant name, date and amount - and the getting the expense automatically paid into his bank account within 15 minutes all automatically. Large commercial systems are a long way from this with budgets drawn up on one system, transferred - often manually - to an accounting system - and invoice details often entered in to multiple systems, and almost no integration between personnel systems, bookeeping and other management systems.

Edited November 26, 2017 by AlanD

[famudala]

Hi AlanD

 

I agree. These issues are jolly frustrating.

 

Have you had any experience with Zoho One?

[keyboards]

No experience of Zoho bar their remote desktop application which is quite nifty, I reckon they are worth a shot.

[DGardiner]

Our trust uses infor SunSystems for finance department management/analysis with proactis tied in for order proccessing/spend control - the CFO is extremely happy with it.

 

We previously ran sage 200 for a few years but found it lacking