Choosing the right software for your school or district is an important task. From tracking and managing student data to communicating with parents and faculty to simplifying day-to-day responsibilities for staff, your software will be the foundation for your operations. To spend more time focusing on students and less time behind a desk, look for these seven must-have features in your school administration software package:
Streamline class and activity registration for added convenience
To both students and administrators with online registration and credit card processing. Through online registration, you can achieve quantifiable time savings and remove teachers from the money collection process, while making it more convenient than ever for parents and students to register for camps, sports activities, school functions and more. Online registration modules securely process, track and report the flow of money as it enters the school management system and empowers parents and students to set up online accounts to view, track and update personal information, alleviating the need to call the school with questions of balances due, payment histories and class registration statuses.
Simplify and automate bookkeeping processes and reporting with student
Choose a software vendor that provides an iron clad audit trail of revenue, expenditures, transfers and adjustments for all student activity accounts. From receipts to reports, your student fund accounting module will safeguard the collection, use and reporting of internal funds, while reducing time spent on duplicate data entry, alleviating lost receipts or accounting fraud, eliminating overdrawn accounts and improving bank reconciliations.
Utilize customized reporting for financials, account analysis,
Banking, vendors, purchase orders and encumbrance. School administration software with customized reports is essential in finding the information your school needs and wants to accurately assess numbers, without having to dig through irrelevant information to get to the bottom line. Your software should allow you to export data into all types of files, including Crystal Reports, Microsoft Excel, Lotus and more, to ensure compatibility with all operating systems.
Manage, track and distribute student and teacher textbooks from one central location with a robust textbook tracking module. Collect textbook debts, track sales and purchase histories, and record and monitor damaged inventory with one centralized program. A textbook tracking module will save your staff time and ease the fall registration process by efficiently monitoring the lifecycle of a textbook.
Simplify donations and fee payment collection and extend
your fundraising reach with an online fundraising and donations module. Raise more money by offering faculty, parents, students and community members the opportunity to contribute to your school through convenient and secure online donation tools. From class or team fundraiser web pages to automated tax-deductible receipts, donating to your school will only be a click away. Make sure your school administration software program offers broadcast e-mail tools with its online fundraising and donations module to help your school connect and re-connect with potential donors and keep them coming back to your website for more information.
A centralized student database will protect students’
Information and store data at one central location, ensuring up-to-date records, authorized access and complete control over information. Centralized data improves reporting capabilities, information access, security and oversight into financials and accounts.
Increase school revenues using point of sale with inventory management to sell books, supplies, merchandise and other school-related items. A point of sale module will enable your staff to quickly and securely process transactions on the phone or over the counter. Your point of sale should integrate with inventory management to automatically alert staff members when stocks are running low. Access to a point of sale solution will increase your revenues through the sale of merchandise and tickets.
Most important to the features of a school administration
software program is the ability to integrate each module to share information from one central location, improve oversight and control, and increase communication among faculty, staff, parents and students. Your school administration software should automate your operations to alleviate time-consuming, paper-based processes. By choosing a school management software package with these seven must-have features, your staff will spend more time focusing on its most important job: educating students.
I sincerely hope this article makes your choice of school administration software easier.