How to improve operational efficiency with your school management software
We've attended lots of educational events this year and have spoken to countless leaders within the sector. And one thing that comes up time and time again is the term, 'operational efficiency'. There seems to be a real hunger for schools, academies and MATs to simplify their office admin/operations and many are looking at software as a vehicle to achieve this. The challenges schools currently face include, increased workloads, budget constraints, and data management issues at the forefront. Teachers and staff face growing demands due to expanded curricula, heightened accountability standards, and additional administrative tasks, often leading to stress and burnout.
Budget constraints exacerbate these problems, limiting the resources for essential programs, materials, and staff which affects the quality of education. Effective data management is another issue, as schools must handle vast amounts of information securely and efficiently, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations while utilising data to inform teaching strategies and track student progress.
These challenges collectively strain the educational system, impacting both educators and students. Within this article, we’ll be exploring how HR and financial management software can significantly improve operational efficiency.
Is software the answer?
Software is widely used in all parts of life to replace manual processes and generally make our lives easier. School Management Software is becoming more widely used with new solutions being introduced such as HR, finance, Payroll and Budgeting to support the ever-changing challenges schools face..
What do we mean by School Management Software?
School Management Software is a suite of tools used for operational management, engaging curriculum content and robust people and parent engagement solutions.
Schools and MATS use these platforms to support the day-to-day running of a school, handling HR management, payroll, finance, budgeting, parent engagement and to support students and teachers with learning. Whilst MATs have more flexibility with the software they use, some LAs and Maintained schools may have the software selected for them, but ultimately, the outcome is the same.
What challenges do schools face with their school management software?
Whilst there are many benefits to using school management software, they still present challenges. A lack of integration between systems being one of the main challenges. There are systems for the differing parts of school management, these systems are often fragmented and require the same data, resulting in staff spending wasted time inputting data more than once into several systems.
How can schools simplify their tech stack with school management software?
There’s a wide variety of school management software in the market, but you can simplify your chosen tech stack by implementing systems from one provider that integrate with one another, for not only an improved user experience, but better efficiency and simplified processes.
Having systems in place that talk to one another helps create centralisation and a single source of truth which is valuable to any school for making data-driven decisions and remaining compliant with regulatory standards.
Access Education HR & Payroll and Access Education Budgets & Finance
Access Education provides an operational suite for managing HR, Payroll, Finances and Budgeting. HR software is still relatively new in education, but the benefits are revolutionary. Designed to manage the employee life cycle and automate people management, taking pressure off internal staff.
Here at Access, our managed payroll solution integrates with our HR system, meaning that you can easily input multiple contracts and shift patterns into the HR system, and it automatically works with payroll, automating this process entirely.
Access Education Finance and Budgets
Our Finance system helps you to confidently manage your education finances with supporting features such as DfE automation, streamlined reporting and has a seamless integration with our budgets system. Our budgets system helps you create accurate, balanced school budgets and forecasts for up to 5 years. Our software is delivered through our cloud-based platform, Access Workspace. From implementing the 4 systems, Access Workspace generates analytics from each product, enabling optimal efficiency, productivity and allows you to make more informed decisions, driven by data.
What is Access Workspace?
Access Workspace brings your selected school management software together in one place, using single sign-on technology. It connects your products and enables you to create dashboards to gain a quick overview of performance and easily transition between systems. The single sign on removes the need to log in to various products, making the experience more user friendly and efficient.
How can school management software help MATs achieve centralisation?
For a Multi-Academy Trust, one of the key requirements with software is centralised operational processes. Centralisation yields numerous advantages that extend beyond individual academies. School Management Software is key to achieving this. Having the right software suite in place enables MATs to share workload, manage and assess performance, improve financial visibility and easily view data from all trusts in one place.
By leveraging school management software, MATs can overcome challenges, improve communication and most of all, enhance staff and student engagement.
How can school management software help LA-maintained schools with local authority reporting?
Traditionally, local authority-maintained schools have relied on LA provided systems for reporting, managing finances and their general growth direction. However, a growing number of maintained schools are seeking alternative solutions for greater flexibility, control and functionality in their software.
Like MATs, school management software collates data and brings everything together. School management software gives maintained schools the ability to create accurate, balanced school budget forecasts, procure payroll that is unique for the education sector and support better outcomes for staff and students.
Our software functionalities allow maintained schools to create custom reports, to meet LAs specific needs. Find out more here.
Conclusion
School management software significantly enhances the quality of education and operational efficiency. By automating routine administrative tasks and improving the process of managing finances and budgets for more accuracy and data driven decision making, it allows staff to focus on what’s important, delivering quality education.
Additionally, the seamless integration of products ensures that data is easily accessible and in real time, facilitating better decision making and simplified communication among staff, students and parents.
School management software is no longer a trend but rather a vital necessity in any school and it’s only going to get better. School Management software is designed to automate manual processes, integrate for a holistic view, achieve centralisation, be flexible, scalable and improve overall efficiency. It’s expected that school management software is heading into the world of AI to further automate administrative processes. This intelligence not only enhances efficiency, but it also opens new avenues for personalised learning experiences, stronger data processes capabilities and removes limitations of time and space.