The education sector’s transformation continues as schools look for ways to become nimbler and more resourceful within the business office without sacrificing resources to teachers, students, and staff.
1. Why upgrade your accounting technology?
Administrators often overlook technology spending and investments when it comes to the finance and accounting functions, which holds great potential for schools to earn back resources to benefit students. Many schools use multiple pieces of individual technology for administrative functions like payroll, human resources, purchase orders and requisitions. These separate systems for various workflows add up in dollars spent through things like licenses, infrastructure, and upkeep.
When your school invests in a multipurpose accounting system, you have the opportunity to identify the ineffective systems and workflows and redirect resources to more pressing areas. One area ripe for optimization is accounting software.
According to the Accounting Trends Report, 33% of schools use Microsoft Excel as their primary accounting management tool, and 75% rely on general small business solutions that aren’t purpose built for school budgeting and reporting needs.
In an upcoming 2023 Research Study, we surveyed 100 education leaders who said they plan to adopt more cloud-based technology in 2023. In fact, 58% of respondents who do not have cloud-based accounting software plan to invest in one, and 69% who do not have payroll software plan to invest in it in 2023.
It’s not only administrative leaders, either. According to Ed Tech Magazine, 57% of IT staff believe their school should prioritize updating its technology.
2. How will new accounting technology help my school?
Technology is a vital part of any school, and properly integrating that technology is at the forefront in this uncertain economic climate as you continue to do everything you can for your students. You can expect lower operational costs when your school adopts a cloud-based solution for accounting software. By centralizing information into one platform, your finance and accounting teams can realize workflow and reporting efficiencies and reduce labor costs, in addition to having quicker and better access to school data to generate robust reporting that includes tuition and admissions data.
Additionally, having all your school’s financial information in one system allows for more accurate forecasting which leads to better decision making. Single-source data makes it easier to create financial forecasts and produces more precise results than having your data split between multiple systems.
According to softwarepath, 90% of organizations who used cloud-based accounting software reduced manual data entry errors.
3. How will cloud accounting technology make our data safer?
Cloud-based accounting software provides increased security and makes telling your financial story easier, and ultimately, getting more resources to direct towards students and staff. When it comes to security, your information is safe in the cloud. Cloud-based accounting software provides
- Total financial transparency to meet compliance demands when audited
- Offsite data storage and backups to keep your organization safe from natural disaster
- Multiple security layers, including limited user access and permissions, encrypted data and communications, and SOC compliance endorsed by AICPA
When you have a school accounting system in place, you’ll have the controls needed to quickly identify data-entry errors and potentially fraudulent requests while simultaneously meeting standards for compliance. You can enforce existing policies, leading to more successful audit outcomes and yielding fewer rejections of your expense reports.
While cloud-based accounting software keeps you safe, it also makes telling your story easier. With cloud software, you can gain real-time insight into your school’s finances and with a platform that gives you the ability to make unlimited budgets and projections, and account easily by department, by location, or by classroom, you can ensure your school controls its finances in a transparent way. With easy-to-use dashboards and reports, you can improve communication between department heads and between teams, and speed up decision-making with real-time reporting.
Want to learn more about accounting for your school? Track unlimited funds, manage your financial books with ease, and leverage your tuition and admissions data for reporting with MIP Fund Accounting by Community Brands. Find out more today.
Rewarding resources for your school. Looking for more information on digital transformation? Read our e-Book to take a complete look at digital transformation in education.
