Customer Story: Woodbrook Vale School

I’m responsible for the site, finance and all non-teaching activities.

Clearly, it is a very difficult time in education and having a decent piece of software that allows me to identify variances in the budget is essential.

Budgets are very complex issues and we also need to manage budgets over a long time now.  Medium-term financial planning is generally 4-5 years and we need a piece of software that will allow us to do that.

Before the software, managing decision making around what if scenarios, in line with teaching staff, commitments, it was very difficult. With the software, it is very easy to adjust and project forward.

The impact of not having the software meant that I spent a lot of time inputting into spreadsheets and then rechecking data with the software it allows us to very easily project forward changes and save them as separate scenarios.

The software has allowed us to project forward and project significant complex financial calculations. It has allowed us to put some of our resources into match funding bids that have allowed us to build and develop our school. We have used the software since conversion and with an increase in students, we have developed ten classrooms, a million pound sports hall and a dining hall expansion which is being done at the moment. The software allowed us to project forward on these investments and give governors confidence that we can finance these projects.

Over the years when I’ve dealt with them [Access Education], they’ve developed their products and their software very efficiently. They have got a good support mechanism, there’s a phone call or a chat box where you can talk to them and I would recommend Access Education to anyone.