K–12 finance departments are facing numerous challenges with staff shortages, tighter audit scrutiny, and rising parent expectations. To simplify day-to-day tasks, many schools are choosing to modernize payments using a School Commerce Platform that enables unified online and in-person payment acceptance. A system like this also helps districts  centralize financial reporting, support SIS and ERP integrations, automate reconciliation, and enforce strong controls and compliance.
Not sure if your district needs to modernize their school payments? Here’s 10 quick signs it might be time to consider an upgrade: 

1. Cash and checks are still the go-to method for payments

   If cash boxes appear at every event, teachers are collecting envelopes of cash from students, and bookkeepers are still making bank runs, you’re carrying loss and theft risk on a daily basis. Not to mention, delayed deposits can have a serious impact on accurate reporting.
   
   Instead, modernize by adopting a districtwide payment system that supports contactless card readers and centralized receipting that help reduce cash/check handling and shorten payment settlement times.
   
   

2. Families have to manage multiple payment portals

   When families have to use separate sites or programs to pay for things like class fees, meals, athletics, and events it can create confusion. This decentralized experience also makes it difficult to keep parents informed on where and how to pay their all their student’s fees. In turn this can lower collection rates, if the payments are collected at all. You’ll also likely see an increase in the number of support-related questions from parents.
   
   Districts can consolidate to a single checkout experience with a unified School Commerce Platform, allowing parents to pay for all types of fees within one system. A singular payment platform can also provide more convenience to parents with mobile-first payment options, multi-lingual support, and quick access from other key district systems (e.g. SIS) with single sign-on. This convenience helps to improve adoption by families and, in turn, speed up payment collection.
   
   

3. Month-end reconciliation requires long days and spreadsheets

   When districts have to manually track finances and use manual spreadsheets and reports, as well as hand-code journal entries, inaccuracies become inevitable. Instead, use a system that offers integrations to the ERP and SIS systems, General Ledger (GL) code tracking, and automated audit trails. With these processes in place, your district will have more reliable data tracking and financial reporting.
   
   

4. Unpaid fees and write-offs are rising

   Manual outreach and school-by-school follow-up lead to inconsistent results often with fees going untracked and unpaid for long periods of time. Consider a modernized system that will automate reminders, offer payment plans, and apply fee-waivers to increase collections while providing ease of use for families.
   
   

5. Refunds take weeks and rely on paper checks

   Canceled field trips or unexpected device returns shouldn’t cause hours of work to refund families manually throughout the school year. Alternatively, use an automated system to process refunds to the original payment method using bulk workflows and clear audit trails. This will support your district in reducing staff workload and minimizing reconciliation headaches.
   
   

6. Event ticketing depends on cash and paper tickets

   Cash drawers, day-of ticket sales, and manual ticket redemption during school events create a poor experience for attendees and headaches for event staff. People don’t want to wait in long lines, and many don’t even carry cash anymore. This will lead to lost revenue for your school.  Instead, adopt e-ticketing with QR scanning and a mobile, contactless point-of-sale tied to central reporting to speed entry at the gate and capture more sales.
   
   

7. You can’t accept modern forms of payment or meet families where they are

   Does your district offer Apple Pay and/or Google Pay options for in-person payments? Traditional forms of payment such as mag-swipe credit cards result in slower checkout and are less secure. In some instances, parents may also not have a credit card available to use at the time of purchase.
   
   To modernize, use a system with the latest card reader technology that supports in-person payments using a chip/RFID credit card and contactless digital wallets. This not only helps improve payment conversion, but also security.
   
   

8. PCI, PII, and audit readiness keep you up at night

   If your district stores card numbers or shares them internally for any reason, it puts parents (cardholders) at risk. The ability for staff, or others, to gain unauthorized access to this personally identifiable information (PII), means sensitive data could end up in the wrong hands. Not to mention, it carries major compliance risk for the district.
   
   Reduce your PCI scope by working with a reputable payment system that adheres to the latest security standards and includes features that support strong compliance, like role-based access with SSO and Multi-Factor Identification (MFA).
   
   

9. Data is siloed across different departments

   Without a centralized platform, staff must manage and track payments across multiple systems based on department and fee type. This can lead to extra time spent chasing down information across departments. It may also result in incorrect data entry and inconsistent processes, which can end up in increased errors and delays.
   
   With a modern payments platform that includes centralized financial reporting, business administrators will be able to see a singular view of all student fees (e.g. meal payments, transportation, student activities) and payments regardless of where they originated.
   
   

10. Fee creation processes are inconsistent across school sites

    When each school uses its own process to set up new fees it can often lead to duplicates and errors, like miscoded GL codes. This slows down the collection process and can create downstream impact for those responsible for reconciling payments.
    
    Instead, standardize with a central fee catalog tied to the GL, implement SIS integration to assign fees to each student, and create clear change logs through an updated payment software. These changes simplify the entire fee process for staff and reduce errors or oversights from multiple overlapping school policies.

If some or all of these signs stand out to you and your district, here’s a few suggestions on how to take the next steps to modernize your payments:

• Map your district’s current payment flows by department and/or school by measuring your cash and check volume, refund workload, and reconciliation time.
• Align your finance, IT, and school site leaders on requirements: SIS/ERP integration, GL mapping, controls, and PCI scope.
• Consider piloting a high-visibility use case and measure results, then scale districtwide with training and change management.
• Establish what success would look like to your district with measurable KPIs. This may include metrics such as online payment adoption, days-to-deposit, write-offs, reconciliation time, refund cycle time, PCI scope, and number of parent inquiries.

By modernizing school payments districts can begin to see increased cash flow, improved compliance, and family satisfaction all while saving staff hours in their work day to focus on other important tasks. Get in touch with our team to learn more about how MySchoolBucks can support you on the journey to a modernized payment system and help your district grow.