Poorly integrated education finance software doesn’t just disrupt finance workflow — it affects all college staff members who use digital tools to perform their role. In almost all cases, this means that 100% of a college’s workforce is affected.
Data from Pleo indicates that an average finance team uses seven different business systems, 40% of which are poorly integrated or completely siloed from other systems. [1] This is extremely detrimental to further education institutions that rely on robust integrations for compliant data handling and cost oversight. So what are the benefits of connecting your education accounting software with other business systems?
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Integrating finance and the Student Information System (SIS) or the Management Information Software (MIS) provides complete transparency across key areas of college management. For example, a robust CRM and finance integration sends data, like supplier records and invoices, back to the CRM to ensure real-time payment statuses.
Not only does this allow the CRM to reflect what is in Xledger, but it also improves transparency across all transactions, primarily because the integration’s automation reduces human error.
Additionally, every transaction, such as invoice creation, approval, and payment, is automatically recorded in an audit trail, giving college finance departments greater confidence to meet complex reporting requirements at period-end.
Integrating your finance systems with education management systems creates a central hub of accurate, real-time data for oversight and control. This allows finance teams to monitor admissions, funding, tuition (where necessary), and all areas of spending across the college or academy trust.
Self-serve dashboards also give department leads more oversight into their budgets. A robust integration between finance and Power BI, for example, provides department or account managers with a comprehensive set of data visualisation tools to help them keep track of their day-to-day spending.
Meanwhile, finance still controls overall spending and monitors the spending of each cost centre, which improves budget allocation, forecasting, decision-making, and communication with potential donors.
Cloud-based accounting integrations allow finance teams to aggregate data in multiple ways, across projects, departments, job roles, dates, and many more. With this insight, finance leaders facilitate better communication with school business managers, trustees, bursars, and boards of directors to support reporting and compliance.
College and school finance software also face stringent reporting requirements from regulators and auditors, and rely on integrated systems to automatically trace every transaction from its source to the audit package. Integrating user-friendly finance software with student information systems (SIS), colleges can handle data with the utmost security and compliance, and easily follow data protocols to ensure appropriate access to confidential information.
Colleges, schools, and academies should consider software providers that automate bank reconciliation, save money, and improve the daily management of education finances.
If you’re a multi-academy trust or college finance leader looking to digitally transform your finance functions’ workflow with system integrations, get in touch with our dedicated team.
Speak to one of our dedicated team members for more information on how Xledger can support your business.
Why stop at EdTech? When it comes to talking about how we can digitally transform schools, colleges and universities, for many people, the natural tendency is to think about new innovation within the classroom.
Download our guide to discover:
Why integrations matter for CFOs and how to build an effective integration strategy.
The benefits of integrated accounting software versus the risks of disconnected systems.
Practical steps and examples – from team roles to visual maps to checklists, our guide provides you with useful tips to understand the integration process.
Founded in 1843, Swindon College prepares students for employment or further study with a wide range of full- and part-time courses.
Stretched budgets are a common challenge facing organisations in the Education sector, therefore timely and accurate financial information is crucial in order to prioritise expenditure and to plan effectively.
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