Bexley Grammar School

Phase: Secondary

Local Authority: Bexley

Aim

To bring the canteen under school management with a cashless payments provider.

Solution

A trusted payments solution that integrates with biometrics and provides comprehensive reporting.

Impact

More efficient finance office and canteen. Improved safeguarding.

Reclaiming the canteen

When the School Business Manager at Bexley Grammar School, decided to take over the canteen from an external company she knew that investing in the right cashless system would be imperative to the success of the project: “I wanted to streamline the current way we did things to make the running of the canteen as smooth as possible.”

Why ParentPay?

Removing any barriers to going cashless was key and the School Business Manager was particularly keen to remove card-based meal top-ups in the canteen: “The main feature I wanted was biometrics. I didn’t want cards that could be easily lost or have to be topped up by cash in school, so any cashless system would have to integrate well with a biomentric company.”

As market leader, ParentPay works with key industry partners to provide schools and parents with a seamless experience. Managing cash is expensive, both in man hours and in collection fees: “The finance office was processing a huge amount of cash and cheques requiring weekly cash collection from G4S. The school also became an Academy, with much more auditing required.”

Schools often cite ParentPay’s comprehensive reporting as being amongst their favourite features, as it makes auditing and reducing parent debt far easier.

How has ParentPay been a success?

The School Business Manager feels that ParentPay has been massively successful for staff, parents and students. From a parent perspective it is now far easier to pay for food, trips and other school items: “Parents can keep track of what their children are eating and so can the school which is useful for vulnerable pupils. Free school meal pupils are not recognised by other pupils as they have to use biometrics to get their allowance.”

Although ParentPay was originally introduced to manage meal payments, it is now being used right across the school, the School Business Manager added: “Everything is paid for via ParentPay including food, trips, exam fees, purchase of goods and donations. The school is entirely cashless apart from charity days. We run 20 overseas trips and over 50 day trips which take a lot of administration. Using ParentPay offers parents an easy way to pay and reduces admin costs for the school.“

In summary, the School Business Manager at Bexley Grammar School said:

Download the PDF version of Bexley Grammar School’s journey with ParentPay.