Third party unfair charges

[Aftab_Ahmed]

Dear All

 

Having moved to a new MIS system recently, I have seen some huge benefits in transitioning to BromCom. Not only have we established financial efficiencies but also operational processes with initial application savings of £20K per annum as a start.

My issue resides in third party companies - where most are fine with the transition but I was slapped an additional £999 from Cunninghams and only yesterday found out that we are being charged another £150 from Inventry. Other companies have done the transition with no charge and I just wonder what others are seeing out there as it is clear markets are turning within the MIS space and some companies are now seeing this as an opportunity to take advantage on already tight budgets across schools.

I'm just glad that BromCom did a buy-back scheme which helped us greatly and I know other schools will, but theses additional third party charges are totally unfair in my eyes.

 

Any thoughts, comments, experiences welcome.

[MYK-IT]

InVentry - £150

ParentPay - £600

CIVICA (if changing from existing payment provider) - £616

[FN-GM]

Have you checked your contracts and SLA? It should indicate what’s included and what isn’t. Might help weed anything that wasn’t set out when the school made the purchase.

[MrEprise]

Most of these companies do see it as an opportunity to get extra revenue out of us, regardless of whether you're a poor school or a fortune 500 company. The Cunninghams one is rather annoying given we're paying up to £6k for service and support per year for example but as @FN-GM suggests, they've probably written a clause into their contracts that allows them to charge when a MIS change is happening.

 

I've paid out almost £3k in these costs having changed MIS recently and it has helped make one budget overspent as a result!

[PotNoodleTech]

I guess all we can do is just note these companies down and vote with your feet.

[NegativeKillDeath]

These charges are painful to absorb but a good Business/Finance manager should have been looking for this sort of thing during the tender process for a new MIS. I worked for one who absolutely would have this costed who was replaced by one who I'm not sure knew the difference between coins and notes.

[FragglePete]

Noted the same last year when we migrated to Arbor and went live in Jan '24.

 

Cunninghams was the only company that charged for the migration - and it only took them a couple of hours to complete it.

 

Whereas, companies such as Locker did it for free and they spent a good half a day doing the migration.

 

Pete

[leegcvcc]

Our 3rd parties ,12 of them, are doing the change for no extra cost except Cunninghams and Inventry.