ParentPay case study
Phase: Primary
MAT: Stamp Education Trust
Thomson House School on going cashless
Cathy Tilley, School Business Manager at the school explains why they made the move to cashless:
“To save time! We wanted to reduce the need to take cash and cheques to the bank and avoid having money and cheques laying around on desks. We also knew enabling online payments would make it easier for the teachers, as they would no longer have to collect cheques and envelopes full of change, when they could be using that time more effectively in the classroom.”
Selecting a provider
Cathy outlines the process Thomson House School followed when making a decision:
“We wanted to be sure we explored the systems available to us, so we looked at all the major packages on the market, by doing this, we could establish how each of the systems operated and decide which would best suit the requirements of the school.
ParentPay stood out for us for a number of reasons; it was quick and easy for parents to register and required minimal effort from the school. The funds are also settled on a weekly basis, rather than daily, which makes for easier bank reconciliation.” Cathy adds: “Compared to the other packages we looked at, following up with parents to chase money for trips is much quicker and easier for us.”
Realising the benefits
Cathy explains how collecting payments online has helped their school:
“Auditors like the new process as we are not handling cash, so there is no possibility of fraud. We have also found that everyone in the school office has more time, which has now been directed to other more important tasks. In addition to this, ParentPay has made it easy for us to see who has paid and who has a payment outstanding. Another big plus for us is that there is no more banking.”
Encouraging parents
Cathy explains:
“We made the decision not to enable PayPoint, although this option is available to us. We did this to encourage as many parents as possible to activate their accounts and pay online as we intended. Very occasionally, we will take cash, and enter this into ParentPay, but the majority of our parents pay online.”
Thomson House School offers their advice
“Think of all the benefits to the school, as well as the parents” says Cathy. “Most parents prefer to pay online because of the convenience it offers, not having to find the correct change or write a cheque and send this into school in their child’s backpack. In turn the school saves time by no longer having to collect, count and bank those funds on a regular basis, and reconciliation is easy. Valuable time is freed up to put to better use on other tasks, and we all wish we had more of that!”
