A recent report by Deloitte found that by digitising manual payment processes, Australian schools could redirect more than 2,000 hours of teacher and admin time towards learning outcomes per school.
Deloitte’s Payments Practice Leader, Richard Miller said that, “If schools in Australia digitised the estimated $2.6 billion worth of payments a year, they could realise efficiencies averaging $84,000 a year per school. More importantly, they could save teachers and admin staff 2,145 hours on average a year to refocus on learning outcomes.”
As more schools embrace digital technologies to bring classroom learning into the 21st century, the same can’t be said about their administrative functions, which involve onerous day-to-day tasks, like payment processing.
Schools receive payments from parents for a range of expenses, these can include:
- excursions
- school fees
- uniforms
- school supplies
- events
Moving towards a cashless ecosystem can improve your school’s operational efficiencies in the following five key areas.
Teacher time
Your teachers are your most important resource, give them more time to focus on students, and less time on administrative tasks. Take parents’ payments out of the classroom and save teachers’ time. The right technology allows them not to worry about collecting, handling, processing and tracking payments.
Administrator time
Remove the need for pen and paper processing, and receiving, handling, and banking cash, with digital payment technology. It will save you valuable admin time moving away from manual processes.
Cash flow
Electronic payments allow for more flexibility, allowing payments to be paid at any time, therefore improving the cash flow. Payments can be easily recorded directly into the system, which in turn, frees up the time spent by admin staff.
Record keeping, transactional management and security
Digital payments allow you to track and monitor all incoming payments. This also negates the need to produce a paper receipt/invoice which could be easily misplaced or lost by the school or parents and reduces the risk associated with children carrying money to school to pay for items.
User experience and convenience
Allow for parents to make payments in their own time. We live in a time poor, digital age, where a lot of families have two working parents. Parents don’t have the time to visit banks or ATMs to withdraw cash for payments. People are now more comfortable than ever at making payments online, which gives them more flexibility and allows them to make payments on time.
Although it may be impossible to totally eliminate the use of cash within a school, empowering your staff and parents by digitising payment is just one way your school can move towards a cashless ecosystem.
If you would like more information on how SchoolEdge can improve your school’s operational efficiencies by enabling a digital payment system, please contact hello@tribalgroup.com
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