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- How to Fail at the Business of School
- Financial Management Tools for Schools
- Mastering AP Audits: How Automation Ensures You're Always Audit-Ready
- Introducing Expert Consulting Services for Your School
- Meet Julie Dagger – Our Payroll Specialist
- 7 Ways FACTS Simplifies School Payments for Families - FACTS Management
- Preserving the Ritual: The role of Transparency, Technology and Trust in School Fee Payments
- The Future of Tech in the Business of Schools
- Recover Debt and Improve Your School’s Financial Stability (and Staff Efficiency)
The ultimate guide to creating an unorganised, unprofitable and confused school community — in one year or less
Running a school is easy, right? You simply buy a building, fill it with desks, hire a few teachers, and open your doors to a flood of excited new students. We talk to enough caring, engaged and talented school staff members to know that running a successful school is a walk in the park.
Here’s the hard bit: running it into the ground.
Our secret weapons? Automation and leveraging best practices.
At Cole School Experts, we felt there was a gap in the market for some clear, no-nonsense advice about destroying your school community, one step at a time. In our experience, we know that it can be done… you just need to take a strategic approach. Here is our six-step guide to failing at the business of school.
Revolutionising School Finance: discover how Feoda, led by innovator Ravi Ramanujam, is bringing Oracle NetSuite to the education sector. Originally from a finance and accounting background, Ravi's passion for technology inevitably led him to leadership roles in the ERP and cloud services space. An innovator at heart, the next logical step was founding his own technology company, where he'd be able to create solutions and see the difference they made firsthand. Since then, he's been solving business problems and enabling lasting change for multinational organisations. Feoda is a technology platform that brings Orcale Netsuite into the education sector to meet innovatively the financial needs of schools.
Follow the links below to find more episodes and listen to The Business of School podcast on your favourite podcast channel.
Audit season can be a stressful time for finance teams, especially when dealing with manual processes, missing documentation, and last-minute reconciliations. But what if you could be audit-ready all year round? In our latest blog, we explore how accounts payable (AP) automation empowers schools to achieve real-time financial oversight, enforce compliance, and eliminate the risk of lost invoices. With digital audit trails, seamless approval workflows, and automated reporting, finance teams can confidently meet audit requirements without the last-minute scramble.
Alii is committed to helping schools streamline their financial processes with AP automation, ensuring compliance and efficiency at every step.
For more information, visit www.myalii.cloud or email info@myalii.cloud.
Are you looking for ways to improve your school's operations, finances, or technology? Cole School Experts is excited to announce the expansion of our consulting services, with the addition of two highly experienced consultants from NSW and VIC!
Our expert team can help you with:
- Software professional services: from selection and implementation to training and support, we'll ensure you're getting the most out of your school's software.
- Payroll & finance health checks: identify areas for improvement, ensure compliance, and optimise your financial processes.
- Project management & system implementations: we'll guide you through complex projects, ensuring they're completed on time and within budget.
- Data migrations: securely and accurately transfer your data to new systems.
- Best practice process & policy reviews: ensure your school is operating efficiently and effectively.
- EA implementations: navigate Enterprise Agreement implementations with expert guidance.
Ready to take your school to the next level?
Visit our website to learn more about our consulting services:
With over 30 years of experience in Finance and Administration, Julie is a highly regarded payroll expert with extensive software knowledge. Her sharp eye for detail, exceptional communication skills, and positive, friendly nature make her an invaluable part of the Cole School Experts team. This week, Julie is sharing her insights on payroll in a Q&A session—covering tips, challenges, and advice for schools. Stay tuned for her expert answers!
A great payment software doesn’t just make life easier for schools—it supports families, too. FACTS Tuition Management is designed to simplify financial planning for families with features like simple reporting and autopay. These tools help families stay on top of tuition payments effortlessly while empowering schools to operate more efficiently.
For many families, paying school fees is a routine, you might even call it a ritual—one that aligns with the regular cadence of life. Just as people pay their mortgage or utilities, school fees fit into a structured financial rhythm.
When the process is simple, predictable, and transparent, parents feel in control and confident in their investment. However, complexity—whether through unexpected changes, hidden costs, or cumbersome payment systems—disrupts this ritual, leading to frustration, delays, and even a reassessment of trust.
So how can schools preserve the payment ritual while staying up to date with technology and delivering a great payment experience? Here’s some thinking to stir your strategies and maybe help pull your school out of a comfortable rut that is unknowingly impacting parents and your school operations.
The education technology landscape is rapidly evolving, reshaping how schools manage their operations, streamline administration, and drive efficiency. As we look to the next 5 to 10 years, how can schools strategically leverage technology for long-term success?
Join Cole School Experts for an insightful event where we’ll:
- Explore key trends shaping the future of education technology.
- Reflect on recent edtech transformations and their impact on operational efficiency.
- Understand why schools are adopting modern solutions and how partnering with your provider drives success.
Through expert insights and interactive discussions, we’ll uncover what it takes to build a tech-driven, future-ready school.
Date: Thursday, 27th March 2025
Time: 10:00 AM - 3:30 PM ACDT
Location: The Royal Coach Adelaide, Adelaide Room
This free event includes lunch and morning tea.
Connect with our strategic partners:
- Alii
- Employment Hero
- Veracross
Register now to secure your spot!
There are few responsibilities as demanding and stressful as the collection of outstanding fees. It’s a task that often takes a toll on finance teams, diverting their focus from where their efforts and expertise are best utilised. Although following up on outstanding fees is an unpleasant and tedious task, it must be done.
For schools, the timely collection of fees is not just a necessity, it’s the cornerstone of financial stability. However, even in this critical area, challenges like outstanding debts and payment coordination are persistent and don’t seem to be getting easier.