The challenges of using separate systems
When schools are using separate software for finance and budgeting, the siloed approach can lead to a number of avoidable issues. These are some of the common challenges you may face:
- Tasks can be manual and duplicative. Tasks and data input may need to be duplicated across platforms, eating into teams’ valuable time and increasing the risk of data inaccuracies.
- Higher risk of human error. Mistakes can and do happen. When staff need to complete repetitive and manual tasks across separate systems, schools should expect an elevated risk of inaccuracy. And when discrepancies occur, it can be harder to identify a reliable source of truth.
- A lack of cohesion between departments. When different teams are maintaining their own systems and databases, schools lose out on the valuable opportunity to share information and collaborate. Essentially, different stories are being told using multiple datasets, which can lead to confusion and mixed messages.
- Switching between platforms. Staff who work on budgeting and finance will need separate logins, and it can take time to switch between systems. Comparing data across different interfaces makes it harder to draw conclusions and if data is exported, extra admin is needed to merge and sort it. This also makes additional work for system administrators who will need to allocate and monitor appropriate system access.
- Audits can take extra work. Both platforms will need to be audited in line with school and local authority requirements, creating extra steps during an already challenging time for your teams.
- No top-level view. It’s important for finance managers and budget holders to have an overall view of the school’s financial position for reporting purposes, to answer questions, to model different scenarios and to run the school effectively. This becomes increasingly challenging when data is stored in different systems that don’t speak to each other.
Why opt for integrated budget and finance software?
According to a survey of over 10,000 office workers, British staff spent more than five hours each week duplicating work. By moving away from disparate systems, a major source of duplication instantly goes away. These are the key benefits of integrated budget and finance software:
- Increased efficiency. Processes become more streamlined, administration time is reduced and manual tasks can be decreased significantly. What could your team do with the extra hours they gain back?
- A single source of truth. By eliminating data siloes, you arrive at one trustworthy dataset that can be consulted at any time, without the need for duplication or additional processing that could result in human error. This data becomes your source of truth and it can be relied on when completing payroll, creating budgets, calculating costs, modelling different financial scenarios and more.
- Holistic financial insights. Is school spending in line with your budget? What are total staff costs for the academic year? How could staff changes impact costs over a five-year period? With your data in one place, you have the overarching insights needed to answer all the questions that come your way. You can see school performance at a glance and understand the complete picture.
- Scalability. As your school changes and grows over time, integrated software can scale with you and support processes through their evolution. The larger the institution, the less practical it becomes to switch between systems and ensure accuracy. Scalability takes on even more significance for growing multi-academy trusts (MATs), where processes apply at school and trust level.
- Informed decision making. Unified data with top-level and in-depth views lends itself to informed, efficient decision making. The decision makers have access to everything they need in real time and reports can be run to give complete visibility of everything that’s required.
- Expedited auditing. When systems are integrated, there will only be one dataset to monitor, maintain and audit, helping to streamline compliance obligations.
- Cost savings. By reducing admin time, increasing collaboration, supporting scalability and helping to keep budgeting on track, integrated systems can help cut costs.
Finding the ideal integration
Integrated budget and finance software from the same provider is more likely to offer the cohesive experience you need to manage day-to-day tasks effectively. Features and reporting will be designed to support one another and integrated interfaces will offer enhanced usability and navigation.
Access Education Budgets and Finance offer:
- An all-in-one platform for budgets and finance.
- Software that’s tailored to the needs of the education sector.
- Real-time data synchronisation between the two systems.
- Compliance with educational standards and reporting requirements.
Explore Access Education Finance to see how it can work for your school in collaboration with Access Education Budgets.
Choosing integrated software designed specifically for schools and learning institutions is a cost-effective way to ensure your needs are fully met. With one contract, one platform and one price, you can benefit from simple billing as well as optimum user experience. The Financial Focus bundle prioritises value, incorporating tools for budgeting and finance all in one, along with a complementary staff voucher scheme and school policy manager app.
Resources to explore
Explore a range of hand-picked resources from Access Education to learn more about finance and budgeting software, plus how to choose the right options for your school or educational institution.
Download the financial management brochure to discover how Access Education Budgets and Access Education Finance work together. You’ll get a comprehensive overview of the tools that are included to:
- Streamline budget and cash flow management.
- Plan different budget scenarios to future-proof decision-making.
- Create comprehensive reports and make statutory returns easy.
- Guide smarter financial strategies with advanced analytics.
Watch a webinar:
- Explore the benefits of integrated budgets and finance, aimed at schools and local authorities.
- Find out what academies and MATs need to know before switching finance systems.
Real-world success: achieving more with integrated software
Priestley Academy Trust is a group of five schools in Bradford with a commitment to creating opportunity and aspiration for every child. The trust previously used Access Education Budgets as their school budgeting software, alongside accounting software from another provider. But they were struggling to get the support they needed with their accounting package, so they began to explore Access Education Finance.
"After some research, the benefits of implementing the Access Finance software became clear," said Michael Horrocks, business manager and academy finance director. "Not only was the software far more cost effective, the ability to integrate it with our existing budgeting software would save hours of staff time in the long run."
Using an integrated solution has benefited Priestly Academy Trust by reducing administrative burdens, especially during busy times. This has helped free up staff members' time to focus more on school financial management and improving outcomes. In addition, it's easier for teams to monitor expenditure and data, identifying potential causes for concern before they manifest in wider problems.
"The level of support we received throughout the implementation really was second to none. Also, we’ve noticed the number of queries coming into the central team from individual schools has reduced significantly, as the new system is far more intuitive and much easier to navigate."
Take the first step towards an integrated experience
Find out what integrated budget and finance software can mean for your school — explore the Access Education Financial Management solution.
