Cashless Catering Implementation

[robknowles]

Hello,

 

We are a secondary school with almost 1400 students looking to roll out cashless catering over the next 2-4 months.

 

I've been looking through Edugeek and have come across some threads about different suppliers of software/hardware etc but I'm interested in how you rolled it to to Staff/Students/Parents and how the system impacts the school?

 

Namely:

 

1) Did you support a two way system to begin with, i.e. use both Cash-based registers and Cashless Catering System, or did you migrate from cash to cashless in one go?

 

2) How did you inform parents? Simple letter home or something else?

 

3) How did you show students to use it and register them on the system? Did this take time?

 

4) Do any schools here integrate it with their VLE or provide Parental Logins so they can view what their child(ren) has been eating? Does anybody have Frog which they have integrated with? Did you launch this at the same time as you moved to Cashless Catering? Do parents look at this?

 

5) How do you accept payments of parents/students? Online payment (i.e. Credit Cards), or Cheques? Do you have machines that accept cash and register it to their account automatically? Anything else?

 

6) In the use of paying for their food, do students use Cards, Pin Numbers or Biometrics or a mixture? We are looking at Biometrics but just wondered whether any schools use this and have had parents who have refused their child to be fingerprinted? In which case what did you do to resolve this?

 

7) When students leave, whether at the end of the year or part way through how do you re-imburse students/parents with any access funds? Or do they lose it? If you return them does it add a considerable work load to Finance staff?

 

8) How did the first few days go when you implemented the system? What pitfalls did you find and what went well? I'm guessing that some students may have struggled but how about catering staff?

 

9) What contigencies have you got in place if the cashless catering system goes down?

 

10) Again looking through the forums I've noticed that there has been issues with parents paying, whether issues with online payment systems or something else. Do you allow students to go into a low negative balance by a few pounds just so they can have their lunch? If so how much?

 

11) And finally any particular systems we should look at or avoid?

 

I know there are a few questions here but any advice/information would be extremely useful and I would like to thank you for your time now. If you have anything else to add that i've missed please do so.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[glennda]

1. My school jumped straight to cashless.

2. I letters home and also during special parents evening setup to talk it through to those that wanted to attend.

3. We did year groups at a time - yes it does take a while as we use biometric but we do have 1600 students.

4. Reporting is done through parentpay.

5. Payments through parentpay/Paypoint

6.Biometrics unless refused in which they given a card (1 student).

7. its a case if refunding through the website i beleive although not entirely sure.

8. always teething troubles but there is more problems 2/3rd year with parentpay/cunninghams messing up.

9. pen and paper!

10. no

11. I use cunninghams and have to say its been good until this year when they messed up the year end and lost a load of money and tried to blaim parentpay.

 

i never got to look at other systems as it was agreed on being cunninghams when i arrived.

[robknowles]

Hi Glennda, thanks for the info very useful.

 

If anybody else has anything to add that would be great.

[notalot]

We have been using Cashless for just over a year now

 

1) 1 day we were cash, the next we were cashless.

2) Letters home, parents evening and an open evening to cover it, infomation also given out in tutor

3) same as Glennda, we went for a year group at a time in form order, it took 2 hours or so 1200 students (several extra pc's for the day)

4) we use Squid, this give all of the access to add cash via card and allows perents to see what the kids have ate

5) as above for credit cards, we also have 2 reval units, which allows cash to be added to an account instently

6) primarly we use Biometrics but we do have a few that refused and they use cards

7) No refunds, this is the fault of squid

8) as allways had a few problems but with Cunninghams on site for the first 3 days they resolved most problems

9) pen and paper like glennda

10) Yes, £2.30 the cost of a meal

11) only ever seen cunninghams system with Squid so cant comment, however Cunninghams originaly installed 10 systems and 1 server (a tower pc with no redundencys and no ups), we eventuly got this changed, not sure if this is the spec that was wrong as it was orgnised by the LA.

 

However the support by cunninghams is good, we have had a few issues, 1 or 2 major problems but everything is running well currently (touch wood)

[rad]

Secondary school - 2000 on role (7-13)

 

1) Did you support a two way system to begin with, i.e. use both Cash-based registers and Cashless Catering System, or did you migrate from cash to cashless in one go?

We changed after October HT, so 1st November we were cashless

2) How did you inform parents? Simple letter home or something else?

Letter home, and consent to take finger impression

3) How did you show students to use it and register them on the system? Did this take time?

I registered them, we had a back office from June - September to register current and then new students. took time to get all years done due to mixed timetables

4) Do any schools here integrate it with their VLE or provide Parental Logins so they can view what their child(ren) has been eating? Does anybody have Frog which they have integrated with? Did you launch this at the same time as you moved to Cashless Catering? Do parents look at this?

not integrated with VLE

5) How do you accept payments of parents/students? Online payment (i.e. Credit Cards), or Cheques? Do you have machines that accept cash and register it to their account automatically? Anything else?

We have Parentpay as online and have reval units in school. Started with Cash and notes, now it is just notes

6) In the use of paying for their food, do students use Cards, Pin Numbers or Biometrics or a mixture? We are looking at Biometrics but just wondered whether any schools use this and have had parents who have refused their child to be fingerprinted? In which case what did you do to resolve this?

We have biometrics, and yes parents have refused so pin has been implemented. With the year 7's just in, only one student has a pin entry. This no doubt will phase out.

7) When students leave, whether at the end of the year or part way through how do you re-imburse students/parents with any access funds? Or do they lose it? If you return them does it add a considerable work load to Finance staff?

We refund on XX amount at end of year. Its a refund via ParentPay

 

8) How did the first few days go when you implemented the system? What pitfalls did you find and what went well? I'm guessing that some students may have struggled but how about catering staff?

Its called CHANGE, it works, but you have to get over the hurdles. Give staff lots of support and encoragement. Was hard work but now paying off, literally

9) What contigencies have you got in place if the cashless catering system goes down?

Err we had that 1st week of term. It involved Admin staff manually writing transactions.

10) Again looking through the forums I've noticed that there has been issues with parents paying, whether issues with online payment systems or something else. Do you allow students to go into a low negative balance by a few pounds just so they can have their lunch? If so how much?

Yes we did when we had issues, but now we dont, it works better that they dont go into a negative balance. Makes them think more

 

11) And finally any particular systems we should look at or avoid?

We use NRS and Parentopay, happy but like all systems it will have pitfalls. It works for us.

[trolley01]

1. We were cash before Oct half term, and then cashless the first day back. Gave half term to get all install done and any last minute problems ironed out.

2. Letters home, emails home, reminder texts a few days before to top up accounts. Advertised in parents evenings and offered 1-1 sessions for any parents with any concerns (3 in total).

3. We did classes over a day. Biggest problem was getting staff to bring down their class at the allocated time. Did a catch-up period on the first day of implementation too.

4. No VLE access, but all information available to parents through ParentPay

5. ParentPay is preferred method. No cheques accepted at all for dinner money. Cash can be put on through the two cash reval units, although we are going down to one unit in January.

6. All students use biometrics. 1 student refused bio, but they didn't have school meals either! Only 1 in 1400 though.

7. At end of year we offered refunds on balances over £5. Any balance could be transferred to a sibling. Anything less that £5 was donated to the college's charities for the year. (I think we donated around £40 is total, but only did 15 refunds)

8. First few days were fine. We made sure we had staff at key locations who knew what they were doing. People checking before they entered the hall that they had already put the cash on the machine, someone to re-register fingers for missed students and someone with a laptop to check up things on ParentPay. Biggest issue was parents not allowing enough time for a ParentPay transaction to be processed and update the tills.

9. Plan involves a pre-printed list of all students which the student then signs for the value of the food that is taken. Transactions are then recorded afterwards on the syste.

10. Students are not generally allowed to go into a negative balances. The kitchen staff make exceptions where students claim to have paid online and it not go through, or claim to have FSM but the paperwork has not been processed. Only happens for 2 days though as they check up afterwards.

11. We went with NRS and ParentPay. NRS also integrates with our Eclipse library system, which meant we could ditch library cards as they kept being lost.

 

We looked at Cunninghams and Vericool, but preferred NRS.

 

NRS will try and say that you need one of their 'servers', which is just a desktop PC with different software on. Had I known I would have pushed harder to put this as a virtual machine on an existing server. We also pushed and got them to use our exisitng network cabling instead of running a separate network around the buildings.

 

Hope this helps.

[rad]

Forgot to add, we (well I actully) run scanning sessions for those whose Thumbs are not working on early closure evenings. We close early for Parents Evening etc, so during whole school Form time, I allow students to come to the canteen. It is the only time that all students are together and not in games/tech etc. Scanning can only be done out of service time, so not at break or lunch time.

[robknowles]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the info. All very useful.

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

[Sylv3r]

Answers below:

 

 

1) Did you support a two way system to begin with, i.e. use both Cash-based registers and Cashless Catering System, or did you migrate from cash to cashless in one go?

 

No, we moved cashless throughout in one go.

 

2) How did you inform parents? Simple letter home or something else?

 

We informed parents via letter, school website and our newsletter. We also invited parents in to an hour session after school if they had any questions / issues with regards to the recording of biometric data.

 

3) How did you show students to use it and register them on the system? Did this take time?

 

It's relatively straight forward and students did not require any training - dinner took slightly longer to get everybody through initially, but now we can get 1,400 students through and fed in 50 minutes.

 

4) Do any schools here integrate it with their VLE or provide Parental Logins so they can view what their child(ren) has been eating? Does anybody have Frog which they have integrated with? Did you launch this at the same time as you moved to Cashless Catering? Do parents look at this?

 

We are yet to implement, but we will be configuring parent payment system via a company called sQuid.

 

5) How do you accept payments of parents/students? Online payment (i.e. Credit Cards), or Cheques? Do you have machines that accept cash and register it to their account automatically? Anything else?

 

Currently parents can pay via their students with cash or cheque. Cash in the revalv machines and cheque in a deposit box near reception. Once we launch the sQuid system - parents will be able to pay online via credit / debit card.

 

6) In the use of paying for their food, do students use Cards, Pin Numbers or Biometrics or a mixture? We are looking at Biometrics but just wondered whether any schools use this and have had parents who have refused their child to be fingerprinted? In which case what did you do to resolve this?

 

We use Biometrics for all students - some parents were a little wary at first but all students now use the biometric method.

 

7) When students leave, whether at the end of the year or part way through how do you re-imburse students/parents with any access funds? Or do they lose it? If you return them does it add a considerable work load to Finance staff?

 

We offer a refund of all remaining balance on request only. We tend to remind students a few weeks before they leave, to ensure they spend as much of their account as possible. For the very few cheques we have to write for refunds it doesn't take too long.

 

8) How did the first few days go when you implemented the system? What pitfalls did you find and what went well? I'm guessing that some students may have struggled but how about catering staff?

 

Went pretty well - we had a CRB / Cunninghams install and they insist on having engineers on site during the first day or two to ensure the system works without any problems. The catering staff find the tills easier to use than the previous tills they used.

 

9) What contigencies have you got in place if the cashless catering system goes down?

 

Nothing - I asked this question on here a month or two back if you do a search - I come up with a plan of printing a stock image of the till where the students name could be written at the top of the page and each item ticked off incase of a powercut etc - I haven't done anything with it yet, but will be suggesting this is what we do.

 

10) Again looking through the forums I've noticed that there has been issues with parents paying, whether issues with online payment systems or something else. Do you allow students to go into a low negative balance by a few pounds just so they can have their lunch? If so how much?

 

We have a negative limit of £5 for each student, for those who forget to bring in dinner money. This is where the major administration takes place through having to send out letters or telephone calls to parents to remind them that their son / daughter is in arrears. If we were to launch the system again - we would probably think twice about doing it this way.

 

11) And finally any particular systems we should look at or avoid?

 

I've only really seen the CRB / Cunninghams system and can't think of anything negative to say about it.

[soapyfish]

Hi,

 

I am also looking at cashless catering and I am a Frog user, are you planning on using cards, biometrics or near field coms ?

[FragglePete]

We have Vericool, been in place for 2 years now.

 

1. Straight to Cashless

2. Letters home and info on the website

3. Vericool have an 'enrolment' team - about 5 people with laptops and scanners that enrolled the school en-mass during one day. - We do it ourselves at the start of each year now; I've built four laptops and 'borrow' the scanners of the tills to enroll all the Year 7's in the morning.

4. Does have a Portal website where Students can see what their balance is and what they've spent their money on - bit flaky though.

5. No On-line payment yet, students can hand cheque to catering manager or top up account using cashboxes.

6. Purchases are made using biometrics, or the till operator can find them using a surname search; shows a photo of the student on the till to verify correct person.

7. Don't think we've refunded anything at the end of year as far as I know.

8. It was a PITA, and still is.

9. If it goes down, which it has, the catering staff write down names and purchases and type it all in when its back up again.

10. Again, no online system and we do a sort of 'loan' scheme if there is not enough money on the account; no child is allowed to go hungry.

11. Avoid VeriCool.

 

Answer most of your questions I think, but I hate our system with a passion. I don't like the way Vericool is entrenched on our SIMS Server, it's clunky, the biometrics don't work too well (especially on cold days), there are always queues at the cashboxes where students load their accounts. Catering staff find it slow, and very unresponsive, mainly due to the biometrics not working well. The Vericool tills themselves have broken very easily, the cashbox touch screens are not very responsive. I hate having to 'reload' the fingertip files on all the cashboxes and tills whenever we add new users as they don't automatically get populated. The admin software for Vericool is clunky, and there is no easy way of adding non-sims users (can be done using a CSV file). I find their support not very helpful, and to be honest; quite rude. The warranty on hardware is only a year, and it's fragile at best. Vericool appear to be a part of another company that is in the process of being taken over by another company and are trying to palm off the Vericool part of the operation as a 'going-concern'. (I believe, could be wrong but we've had some intersting letters recently).

 

Biggest nightmare is the enrolment; try explaining to a new Year 7 at the start of the year when they are nervous about the whole secondary school thing that for some reason their fingertip is not giving a decent enough reading to be accepted on the system. Also, as I mentioned, on cold days it just doesn't work too well as everybodies hands are cold and dry which doesn't help give a good reading. Hot and sweaty days where the ridges are raised it works so much better. Having to deal with students and explain to them why it was working last week but not now and really there is not a lot I can do about it. Some of our staff are keen gardeners who as a result have very smooth fingertips, so it just won't work for them at all!!!

 

Overall; I hate it, the catering staff hate it, the students don't like it and the staff overall aren't too impressed. It takes up a lot of our time dealing with little issues when I've got more important things to do. I wasn't involved in the decision making process and I wished I was. Would have gone with something different totally.

 

The plus side; the parents do like being able to phone the catering manager and see what their little sprog has had for dinner. It does dealing with free school meals quite nicely, so the kids who have FSM don't feel alienated by having to explain their on FSM.

 

I think I've ranted enough.

 

Pete.

[peepsw]

Hi,

 

I am also looking at cashless catering and I am a Frog user, are you planning on using cards, biometrics or near field coms ?

 

Trust-e from NRS has a link to Frog, so if you want information from the cashless to be presented to Forg, i.e account balances and what the pupil has chosen from the menu this is possible.

[mathewdowns]

Hi

 

Just a quick one if anyone can help - we are thinking about going for cashless catering. We are 1400 students in size and normally use three tills.

Anyone any idea on a very rough cost? Need for budget setting only really.

 

Cheers

Mat

[rad]

Hi

 

Just a quick one if anyone can help - we are thinking about going for cashless catering. We are 1400 students in size and normally use three tills.

Anyone any idea on a very rough cost? Need for budget setting only really.

 

Cheers

Mat

All depends on which system you want to go with, how you are going to operate. Are you going biometric or card. Are you using online payment only or Reval units or both? Give a few companies a call.