School Accounting Software

What is school accounting software?

School accounting software helps schools and other educational institutions manage their financial and accounting operations, including expense tracking, financial reporting, billing and invoicing, and budgeting and forecasting. The tool helps automate financial management by eliminating paper-based accounting with digital balance sheets and ledgers. School accounting tools also include reporting and analytics that enable real-time analysis of the institution’s finances. It also integrates with other school management software, such as a student information system, to provide a comprehensive solution for managing all aspects of a school's operations.

Which software is used for school accounting?

Most schools use dedicated accounting software to manage their financial accounts and track their income and expenses. The key features of a school accounting tool include fee management, general ledger, billing and invoicing, and financial management.

Considering the wide variety of accounting software tools available on the market, it can be difficult to select the right school accounting software solution for your institution. To help narrow down your search and find the best solution based on user reviews, you can look at GetApp’s Category Leaders report for school accounting software. This report features top-ranking school accounting software having the highest ratings for ease of use, functionality, customer support, value for money, and the likelihood of a recommendation.

Why use accounting software for small schools?

• Automates financial record keeping: School accounting software helps automate repetitive tasks such as manual billing and journal reconciliation. It allows users to store their documents in a central repository, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information. The tool also allows finance teams to automate their workflow, which assists them in tracking pending tasks, due dates, and any additional requirements.

• Enhances data security and compliance: To provide data security, school accounting software includes data encryption, end-user authentication, multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and role-based permissions, among other features. This ensures your financial data is protected from unauthorized access or accidental deletion. It also helps maintain compliance with data storage, management, and processing regulations such as Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by maintaining an audit trail and document version history.

• Reduces manual paperwork: A school accounting tool automatically tracks and records accounting transactions. This process eliminates errors such as missing entries, duplicate entries, or incorrect calculations. Additionally, it automatically tracks changes and updates all the related financial statements. Many school accounting software programs offer electronic signature capabilities, which can further reduce the need for physical paperwork.

How to choose school accounting software?

• Consider features specific to your requirements: When it comes to online accounting software for schools, some of the most important features to consider include the ability to manage budgets, track expenses and revenue, and generate reports. Other useful features might include the ability to manage student records, generate invoices, and integrate with other school management software. Ultimately, the specific features you need will depend on the unique needs and requirements of your school. It's important to consider what you need from your accounting software in order to choose the right solution for your school.

• Check automation capabilities: Small schools primarily invest in an accounting tool to reduce the inaccuracies that come with manual entry and to automate more of their processes. Therefore, pay particular attention to the degree of automation a system provides while evaluating school accounting software. Your shortlisted solution should be able to verify entries for accuracy, auto-detect wrong or duplicate entries, correct errors or incorrect calculations, and automate recurring functions.

• Evaluate integration with your existing tech stack: When choosing accounting software for your school, you should consider whether it can integrate with your existing tech stack. This is especially important if you use specialized software, such as a payroll or POS system, that needs to be integrated with your accounting software.

How does school accounting software improve productivity?

School accounting software can improve productivity by automating many routine tasks associated with managing an educational institution’s finances, such as tracking accounts receivable and accounts payable, payroll management, generating financial reports, and managing budgets.

By automating day-to-day operations, an online school accounting software solution can help save time and reduce the risk of errors, freeing up staff to focus on other important tasks. Additionally, many school accounting software programs offer features such as collaboration tools and real-time data updates, which can help improve communication and coordination within the school’s accounting department.

How much does school accounting software cost?

The cost of a school accounting system falls in the following price ranges*:

• $10 - $15

• $16 - $39

• $40+

Most school accounting software solutions in the market are priced on a per-user, per-month basis and can be divided into the three above-mentioned pricing tiers based on their starting price.

Sources

Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from GetApp’s school accounting software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the GetApp’s directory that offer them.

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offerings found on vendor websites as of December 15, 2022. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.

The above list includes pricing for the base plans of most school accounting software. An enterprise or premium product that is priced higher may include additional features such as multiple integrations, fund accounting management, advanced multi-currency handling, real-time dashboards, customized bank reconciliation reports, and cash flow forecasting reports.