In this technological world, it’s important to make the move from cash collection to online payments and keep up with their demand, but don’t look at it as a scary step: there are many benefits to keeping your school cashless. Making the switch seems daunting for schools at first – however, you can make it a seamless experience for your whole school community in a few simple steps.
Benefits of online school payments
Think about it: parents and guardians might have to make multiple payments to school every month. Whether it’s lunch money, stationery, a school trip, or afternoon clubs: they all require families to go to their nearest ATM and retrieve cash, give it to their children, and trust them with delivering it to school staff. Online payments are a much quicker process that most families are now used to: take advantage of it!
Digital payments are especially a revolution for your school staff. Think about all the time they would normally spend collecting cash, manually counting it, storing it in school, and then moving it to the bank, and the responsibility that entails. Online payments would get rid of this long process, allowing staff to focus on other tasks and strengthen their relationships with families. If you choose SchoolMoney as your online payments provider you are also guaranteed your transactions to be handled securely, as we are the only platform in the market that is Level 1 PCI compliant; find out more about our PCI compliance and what it means here.
Onboarding parents and guardians
When you implement a system of the sort for your school community to interact with, it’s essential to provide some guidance on the onboarding process: you should ensure everyone has the appropriate clear instructions. SchoolMoney supports you with this, our team will provide you with helpful collateral to share with your staff and families as guides for installation and creating accounts: downloadable guides, quick video tutorials, in-depth webinars. Our free self-help support website will also be your staff’s go-to resource.
Take cash payments while keeping your school cashless
Being cashless doesn’t mean you must completely let go of cash. Remember not all families might have access to online payments and digital devices, so it’s important to provide a way for them to still send payments to your school. Our PayPoint feature on SchoolMoney was designed specifically for these families: they are able to deposit cash to their local PayPoint (with over 28,000 locations in the UK) to top up their children’s accounts, which still maintains your school cashless.
Everything in one place
Having to manage multiple information at once, such as payments and communications, is way easier when it’s all kept in one centralised place. SchoolMoney’s direct integration with Teachers2Parents means that your accounts are consolidated and easy to manage, and parents and guardians can use our handy app for quick access when having to complete payments and stay in touch. Choosing a single provider for multiple school tasks is more convenient and cost effective, and you won’t need to jump from one platform to another to collect scattered pieces of information. Find out more about our integration here.
Are you ready for your move to digital payments?
Making the switch will feel like a breeze if you choose SchoolMoney as your online payments provider and you take advantage of the support we provide. Let us guide you through your school’s cashless journey and save your staff time so they can focus on what they do best: educating your students. Book a free demo and learn more about SchoolMoney today!
Have you heard of Teachers2Parents?
On our school communications platform Teachers2Parents, we have developed a new feature that allows for ad-hoc payments to be added to digital forms: FormsPay. FormsPay is changing the way schools are collecting payments and consent at the same time, and is reducing school debt. Find out more about FormsPay here.
