PAY360 Access Paysuite / Access Group is closing

[sunny88]

Hello, as pay360 is expiring in JULY 2023. Does anyone know of any alternatives to do the writeback back to FMS and also do the sims dinner mney parts that pay360 does.

[David44]

Pay360 is expiring in July 2023?

 

Do you just mean your school's contract or have you heard something else?

[sunny88]

Our schools have been told the whole thing is going. So no use anymore

[TIOAOA]

We had a marketing email from Schoolcoms the other day

We've been made aware that Access Paysuite Limited (a division of Access Group) is removing Pay360 (formerly known as SIMS Pay) from the market on 31 July 2023. Meaning that a number of schools are now looking for a new solution in time for the new academic year.

If this has impacted your school don't worry we can help. We have a great replacement for you - Schoolcomms, part of the ParentPay Group. It's a cashless payments system that integrates with SIMS and SIMS Dinner Money and where applicable, SIMS writeback is also available.

Is this what's causing you to think it maybe ending? We haven't heard anything from our SIMS team.

 

[David44]

I've had something of a confirmation from The Access Group that Pay360 is closing. I emailed them asking if it was closing, they invited me to a webinar "to give schools an overview of our offering". I said "At this stage I was just after confirmation that Pay360 and/or Pay360 Education Payments is closing." they responded with "Yes I can confirm that is the case".

 

Access would obviously prefer that all schools using Pay360 Education Payments move over to their 'My School Portal' product and maybe they hope that schools don't have time to shop around once they hear that Pay360 is closing. It's in their interest for schools to have as little time as possible to look for alternatives. The fact they aren't announcing it, in as much as there seems to be nothing about the closure on their website or the Pay360 Education Payments website (which still has Capita branding, 5 months later) must work in their favour. This is obviously speculation on my part though, other than the email exchange described above, I have had no dealings with this company.

 

Maybe one of the mods would like to change the title of this thread to 'Pay360 Education Payments is closing' or similar? It currently suggests that one school is planning to move away from Pay360 but it's actually the case that every school will be moving away from Pay360 within the next few months.

 

I'd be interested in hearing what other schools have planned. Did you know Pay360 was closing? Has Access' handling of the announcement put you off them as a company?

[vikpaw]

Thread title updated and made sticky.

[sunny88]

So does anyone know of a replacement. Something that syncs with FMS,

I know parentpay and Studybugs MIS Sync will do dinner money

[David44]

Here is a list I prepared some time ago, I know nothing about any of these companies or products though.

 

SQuid

 

https://www.squidcard.com/

 

iPayimpact - CRBCunninghams

 

https://www.schools.ipayimpact.co.uk/

 

WisePay

 

https://www.wisepay.co.uk/

 

Parent Pay

 

https://www.parentpay.com/

 

SchoolMoney

 

https://eduspot.co.uk/product/schoolmoney/

 

Pay360 Education Payments

 

https://www.pay360educationpayments.com/

 

School Gateway - Schoolcomms

 

https://schoolgateway.co.uk/

 

My School Portal

 

https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/education/software/parent-engagement/

[David44]

Has anyone who was using Pay360 Education Payments moved to another product yet? Which one? How is it going? Anything you wished you knew before moving?