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Author: Hemant Mahajan

EdTech Partnerships to enhance the Future of Education

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

EdTech Partnerships to enhance the Future of Education

The world has started to restore order after a long battle with the pandemic. The education industry is also reanalyzing the choices they have made with respect to choosing the education technologies that were implemented in haste to counter the immediate challenge. 

All in all, education technology has made a massive difference in the lives of students and teachers. The best edtech entrepreneurs understand this and are constantly realigning their products to the changing needs of the institutes. But only the best ones. 

It gets people thinking, in the post-pandemic world, would all the brands that mushroomed and thrived in the pandemic have any chance to survive now? 

However, this is very clear. The education industry is not looking back and will undoubtedly undergo digital transformation. If you want to leverage this opportunity by becoming a partner with good brands, you have to be very choosy and also accurate while making a decision. Here is how you can identify a good partner. 

  • Is the brand building long-term relationships with the customers? 

Good brands are all about building long-term relationships with their clients. This impacts how they provide service to their existing customers and constantly improve the product to attract new clients. Their primary focus is to retain customers, which is the best tactic to survive in a competitive environment and build a strong base for the future. Check out the company portfolio and identify how many new customers they have added after the pandemic and how many they have retained. 

  • How flexible is the brand to meet the changing needs of customers? 

Building a product and implementing it is only the beginning. The world has long moved from legacy software that didn’t provide the flexibility to accommodate the changing needs of the customer. But with modern systems, it is easier to constantly innovate and develop solutions relevant to the customer’s needs of today and tomorrow. Hence, brands that provide education institutes these benefits are likely to have a better chance of survival. And the brands are still not ready to evolve and have a cloudy future in the market. 

  • How are stakeholders using the product? 

The usability of the product is a reality check for every product. It is important to know what benefits the product provides to the customers and how useful the product is in everyday institutional activities. A brand that has a focus on transforming the lives of its stakeholders would constantly be seen improving the product’s core functionalities. And hence improving the user experience constantly to nurture customer loyalty. 

Way Forward

These are the three parameters on which you can analyze a brand’s future in the education industry. If you are looking for a partner with all these qualities, you might be interested in partnering with us. We have an award-winning education ERP with 320+ customers in 22 countries. We are innovative and reliable and have transformed the lives of 800,000+ educators and learners. If you want to learn about our partner program, drop a ‘Hi’ here, and we will get back to you within 2-3 business days. 

Education in Indonesia vs. the Philippines

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

In 2021, ASEAN reported that covid-related school foreclosures had affected the quality of education for more than 152 million children in the member countries. To confirm the impact, Gallup — a public poll specialist, estimated education satisfaction in Southeast Asia has dropped to 63% from 85%. 

Looking eye-to-eye with these massive challenges, the Cambridge-ASEAN policy was a mandate which provided a direction to ministers of education in the member country and provided tangible actions to reverse the effects of Covid-19. Although the impact of the pandemic was not that dire in all the member countries — Indonesia and the Philippines were not that lucky enough. According to a Unicef report, the education of 80 million children in Indonesia was impacted by Covid-19. Similarly, in another Unicef report, 27 million Filipino students are impacted by Covid-19. 

Summarizing the policy Cambridge-ASEAN policy, the team highlighted the importance of going digital and establishing a robust digital infrastructure to ensure students have access to learning resources. Mental health and well-being should take center stage when building new education policies and countering learning loss. Governments and organizations need to prioritize learning losses for younger students, vulnerable students, and people on vocational pathways. 

But before any nation delves into these suggestions, it becomes imperative that they address the long-standing issues in their education system. The two ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations ) countries (Indonesia and the Philippines) have some shortcomings in the sector that has, time after time, affected the students in many ways. 

Three significant issues on which we would be comparing the education system of both Indonesia & Philippines are — quality, affordability, and budget. 

  • Quality of education: 
  • Philippines

The Philippines has recently revised its education system, making education compulsory for 12 years. With this comes some significant challenges in curriculum, wherein language, literature, natural science, social sciences, arts, and humanities will be taught from grade 1 to 12, except chemistry which is only taught after the 9th grade. 

However, the change in the curriculum per se is not an indication of the quality. Facts disagree and show a sharp decline in the quality of education in the Philippines. In a standard test among the students and the National College Entrance Examination for college students, the scores were below the target mean score. Also, the attributed decline in quality may be due to the shortage of teachers in public schools. 

  • Indonesia

Indonesia has the fourth-largest education system in the world. However, in an education quality assessment done for 50 nations, it landed the last position. Although the country is making ample efforts towards improving the quality of education, the youth seems to be not benefitting from it — which is more or less a common phenomenon amongst middle-income countries. 

  • Affordability of Education
  • Philippines

In the Philippines, there is a significant disparity between educational achievements across social groups. Students from socially and economically weaker sections seem to drop out more often, especially at an elementary level. And most of the freshman students at the tertiary level come from families with affluent backgrounds. Also, public-funded schools are underfunded. 

  • Indonesia

Only one-third of 57 million school-going students finish their primary education. Although, unlike the Philippines, Indonesia does provide excellent access to primary and secondary education to its students resulting in a spike in enrollment rates from 21% to 77% between 1978 to 2015.  The system evades the needs of the students, leaving millions becoming marginalized and forgotten in the classroom. 

Furthermore, many education authorities responsible for running the national education system have been caught in corruption scandals that use loopholes in the system for political gains and personal wealth creation. There is a need for reform where teachers and students are empowered. Hence, the government has to work towards making education more affordable for the students hailing from the middle class.

  • Budget
  • Philippines 

The budget allotted for education by the government is not enough to sustain. This contrasts with the Philippine constitution, as it mandates the government to allocate the highest proportion of the budget to education. Also, according to a report, amongst the ASEAN countries, the Philippines has the lowest budget allocations. Low budget directly affects the public school infrastructure, resulting in underpaid teachers, insufficient reading material, poor facilities, and more. 

  • Indonesia

Similar to the Philippines, the education sector in Indonesia too is fighting inadequacy of the budget. Because of this, experts say less than half of the country’s teachers that are hired do not fulfill the qualification for the position. Also, absenteeism is on a high rise, well above 20%. Teachers are found to work outside the classroom to improve their incomes. Corruption is to blame for it. 

Conclusion

In both countries, there is an educational employment mismatch. For both countries to shorten the divide, they must work on skill development and make significant changes in their curriculum to meet the needs of the evolving job market. This is likely to help both countries to reduce the growing number of educated, unemployed, and underemployed populations. 

Suppose you are looking for a digital transformation for any educational institution in Indonesia, Phillippines, or any other Southeast Asia country. Academia ERP is there to help and rejuvenate your institutions’ digital fluency. Request a live demo of how Academia ERP is a problem solver for your education institutes.

How is Academia ERP uprooting the challenges of Higher Education institutes in Zimbabwe?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

How is Academia ERP uprooting the challenges of Higher Education institutes in Zimbabwe? 

Countries in the African continent need to diversify their economies, develop skills, strengthen the education system, and provide professional training to their population. Since the growth of any country is highly dependent on the contribution of human capital, a government must make ample attempts to keep the population abreast with the new trends in the job market and meet the skill needs of the burgeoning industry sectors. For this, every government uses education as a tool to weave the very fabric of the future. And the first step requires it to address the long-standing challenges in its education system to strengthen it and derive desired results.

Talking of Zimbabwe, the country has some huge obstacles to conquer. The investment is limited, there is a shortage of teachers, and soaring high dropout rates. To top this, it is required to make education equitable and reduce the socio-economic divide in the country. Here are a few biggest challenges of higher education institutes in Zimbabwe and how Academia ERP is uprooting them. 

Challenge#1: Expansion of Universities 

At independence, Zimbabwe had only one state university, but the number now has grown to 13. There are eight state universities and four church-run universities. The expansion of the university system in Zimbabwe is mainly in response to the expansion of the primary and secondary education segment in the country. There is a sudden surge in enrollment rates. However, there aren’t many regional universities and academies to support the demand. Hence, the existing facilities are overstretching their facilities and resources — causing a big dent in the student experience at their universities. 

Approximately 300,000 students each year graduate from the secondary education segment and only 18% of students are admitted into higher education institutes. This means around 80% of students are still deprived of higher education and training — reducing their chance of landing a skill-based job and improving their quality of life. 

Academia ERP Solution:

  • Multi-centre Capability

The software comes with multi-center capabilities which allow you to manage multiple academies of your organization well. It helps you in setting up the digital infrastructure of newly planned academies. It also provides robust programs and course management, student performance analysis and management, teacher management, resource planning and management, and more. Multi-center capability is one characteristic that would help monitor and manage all the institutes, colleges, and academies in your organization remotely from a single dashboard. Hence, planning and managing your expansion is more profitable and successful.  

  • Efficient Management of Admission Phase

Although the enrollment rate in the higher education segment in Zimbabwe is rising, dropout rates also have elevated. Enrolling in a college requires a student to be emotionally, socially, and academically involved in university activities. And since each student is unique and has different aspirations, their innate abilities and expectations must be aligned with the college curriculum and culture. Hence, even though higher education institutes are seeing high enrollments, they are also parallelly fighting dropout rates.

To counter this, you need efficient management of the admission phase. With Academia ERP, you get dedicated features for the pre-admission and admission phases. Using them, you can run marketing campaigns, manage inquiries, track leads, close admissions, generate reports, and so much more. 

It also helps you in assisting a student in making academic choices. This would help you bond with the student better and know them well. This gives you a wider scope to understand if the applicant is the right fit for your campus academically, culturally, and emotionally. These informed choices allow you to choose the right applicant and retain them throughout the student lifecycle. And hence, reduce your big losses due to dropouts.

Challenge#2: Quality Education

The government of Zimbabwe has become very proactive about the quality of education. They sanctioned Council for Higher Education Act in 2006 to monitor the quality of education in higher education institutes. But only some of the universities in the country have a set structure or the tools to provide reports and audit requirements. This makes quality analysis difficult and leaves no scope for the universities to know their pain points and work on them. 

Furthermore, the country has 15.1 million people, but the GDP is only $20.5 billion. It is surprising that a country such as Zimbabwe, with a literacy rate of 90%, has such low GDP and is amongst the poorest countries in the world. One possible reason for this is that the population is not skilled and not ready to meet the changing demands of the global job market. Hence, the education sector is expected to help the nation fight this problem. 

Academia ERP Solution: 

  • Programs and Courses Management

For higher education institutes to offer students the skills that are highly demanded in the job market, it is very important to manage the programs and courses in their institute. It is important that they carefully evaluate the curriculum of the courses and make it richer through timely improvements. This would help you evaluate the curriculum better in light of the growing market demand and achieve student success easily. 

  • Student Performance Analysis and Management 

One of the ways to evaluate if the quality of education in your institute is high and up to the standards or not is through student performance analysis. Student outcomes, student success, student retention, and other important metrics help you understand if you have a quality-driven curriculum at your institute. Academia ERP offers you granular reports and efficient student performance record management. 

Also, a student’s performance analysis would help you predict if the student is on the verge of dropping out. Hence, before making a decision, you can help them make the right choice and rekindle their interest in skill development and education. 

  • Reports and Dashboards

Academia ERP offers a variety of reports and dashboards to provide quantitative and qualitative analysis to regulatory bodies. This would make reporting easy and hence get you a higher accreditation to attract more students to the provided course and programs. 

Challenge#3: Funding 

Most universities in Zimbabwe rely on government funding. However, many higher education institutes in Zimbabwe are underfunded. The salary of academic and non-academic staff is less than other universities when compared in the African continent. Many students from impoverished backgrounds are required to pay their fees. Somewhere, education is becoming reserved for the elite. Government is unable to provide scholarships. Basic resources such as computers, labs, laboratories, etc., are not available in higher education institutions. 

Academia ERP Solution: 

  • Reduced operational cost 

All the higher education institutes in Zimbabwe are focusing on reducing their expenses. This can only be done through efficient resource management and implementation. With Academia ERP, you would be able to allocate resources better. It provides you with accurate reports on resources that are free, under maintenance, occupied, etc. This allows you to manage the resources efficiently for them to be utilized better. 

  • Financial Management

Most higher education institutions are operating on traditional models. This means a lot of paper-bound operations and manual processing. Many staff and faculty expenses go unnoticed, causing budget mismanagement. Through Academia ERP, you can automate financial management and generate more transparency in operations. You would be able to track transactions and bring down your expenses. 

Way Forward

Although the education sector in Zimbabwe is facing some of the biggest challenges, we must remember that technology has the answer to most of them. If you are looking for a solution that can help you combat some of your institute’s biggest challenges, you can consider Academia ERP. It is an app suite with 30+ modules that helps monitor and manage institute operations. It automates tasks and has helped many institutes reduce their expenses by 33%. We have a presence in 21 countries and 320+ clients — of which Africa University, Zimbabwe is one. If you want to know how we can help you digitally transform, drop us a ‘Hi!’ here.

Education technology trends in Australia and ways to adopt

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The education sector in every country plays a defining role in preparing future generations for upcoming opportunities and challenges. It provides a framework for people to equip knowledge and skills to contribute to the society and economy of the country. It prepares people to make their place in the global workforce and helps them align their skills with the demand in the global job market. It helps people to break boundaries and explore things that are beyond geographical limits. It improves their personal lives and gives them a shot at fulfillment.

Education has a massive impact on the life of people, and hence it becomes important that each trend and step taken towards elevating its effect is well investigated. Hence, we are discussing the upcoming trends in the Australian education system.

1.Parent Engagement

In the last two years, 2 in 5 parents have become more attentive towards their child’s participation in school. Of these, 60% of parents said they expect weekly communication from the school, and 7% of parents demanded daily communication.

At the same time, school management and teachers feel pressured to meet this growing demand of the parents. They need the tools to keep the parents of the students engaged.

In this context, schools can use school management software with student and parent mobile applications. Through these handy applications, parents can log in anytime and get real-time information about their child’s classroom participation, attendance, examination, assessment reports, day-to-day activities, etc. Also, these apps are equipped with omnichannel communication tools which can be used to connect with the school administration and faculty through SMS, calls, WhatsApp, mail, chat, etc.

2.Student Well-being

In the last 5 years, the Australian education system has shifted its focus from results to well-being. And this has happened to meet the demands of parents. Almost 50% of parents expected schools to support child’s well-being.

Individualized attention, personalized learning, holistic development, individualized career guidance, and other demands have taken the forefront.

To meet this demand of the parents, schools must choose education ERP solutions that come with in-built student lifecycle management and student performance management systems. These efficient tools would allow the faculty and administrative staff to assist a student all throughout the student lifecycle and analyze their performance in real-time to increase their participation to ensure a higher student success rate.

3.Lifelong Learning

Lifelong learning is not just a goal of the Australian education system; rather it is a shared goal. Every country is making policy changes to make education accessible and equitable to ensure students have access to the knowledge resources for lifelong learning and skill development.

4.Complexity in Education

Australian education system is one of the most complicated education systems. For it to realize its true potential, policy changes are needed, and this needs massive participation from government bodies. Challenges such as growing compliance requirements, complex teacher accreditation, and the rise of alternate pathways to university and workforce are some long-standing issues in the Australian education system.

Also, with the increased attention on student well-being, mental health, and student success, it is becoming hard for teachers to meet these growing demands while upholding the strict norms set by the Australian education system.

Modern education technology provides solutions to automate everyday tasks and increases the productivity and accountability of the staff to focus on the immediate challenges in the institute. It gives them time to work on their core responsibilities — thus improving student experience across the organization while ensuring well-being.

5.Attracting and retaining teachers

Recently, there has been a growing concern about the increased drop rates of teachers. It is essential for educational institutions to engage teachers and increase flexibility in their everyday work and tasks. Australian teachers are very moved by the notion of bringing a change in students’ lives. Most teachers dropped out because they felt they were not contributing to that idea. Some other dominating reasons were losing the work-life balance, increased administrative and documentation responsibility, pressure to manage the well-being of multiple students simultaneously, and more.

Technology can help in improving the teacher experience in many ways. Technology can help increase collaboration, improve teamwork, efficient reporting, reduce workload with automation, and more.

Wrapping Up

These were some key challenges of the Australian education system and how upcoming technology trends in the country can solve them. If you are wondering to find a solution that can positively impact the lives of students, teachers, and parents to achieve better results, try Academia ERP. We are a leading education ERP solution provider in 22 countries. Learn more about our product in a live demo with our ERP expert, and learn how we can help you uproot these challenges from your institution.

What are the factors that show an ERP needs to be updated?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Change is an inevitable part of human life. And even though you are dead set on using traditional methods of working, you cannot deny they are making your operations sluggish.

How do we know? If you would have been so satisfied with your current system you would not have been browsing this web page. Hence, accounting for the first factor that shows your ERP needs an update.

If you believe you need new software, we understand you have already started to see how inefficient your current system is. But to support your decisions, that one factor alone is not enough. So, here we are giving you 5 reasons to update your education ERP solution.

1. Increasing workload and no help from the existing system

One of the biggest reasons to implement an education ERP solution was to free up your workforce from the regular, time-consuming tedious tasks. You want them productive and focused on the top problems of your institute, rather than meddling with paperwork.

If you are sensing, you have a lowered productivity at your institute, and your current system is not able to power or automate operations at your institute —it is time for an update.

2. Increasing expenditure and no way to track it

The market is very uncertain right now, and the economic climate is stormy. The need of the time is a feature-rich finance management system that comes in-built with the education ERP solutions. It is very common for institutes to face problems while tracking the spending data of the faculty and staff. The data is often dispersed and hard to track.

Meaning, if you don’t know where your money is going, you cannot even start to think of a way to stop it. Hence, you need an updated system that gives you that transparency and reinforces measures to eliminate financial vulnerabilities in your organization.

3. Facing staggering losses and a dipping admission rate

Student admission rate plays a defining role in your institute’s profitability. If you are still using an old system you are likely to be handling the admission phase at your institute through paper-bound operations. And there are tens of things that can go wrong with that. They are time-consuming, error-prone, and costly.

Also, you miss out on many good applicants that were a good fit for your institute. An education ERP solution would help you in managing the admission phase better while automating your operations. Thus, update!

4. No defense against unplanned events

COVID-19 has put the education industry into a twirl, and it is only beginning to get ugly. Challenges such as reduced resources and insufficient funds would be very common scenarios for many educational organizations.

To brace yourself in these uncertain times, you need a system that forecasts trends for you to strategize and respond accordingly. Modern systems such as Academia ERP come with predictive analytics and reports to help you plan ahead of time for these unplanned events.

5. If you are still using different software for every little thing in your institute

If you don’t have a centralized database connected to all your software and if there is no interoperability between any of these tools you need to upgrade to an education ERP toolset. An education ERP serves as a centralized database and supports operations across the wide network of tools used in your organization. This gives you a wider scope of data accessibility and insights to strategize and ensure higher profitability.

Also, education ERP software is an app suite that has a gamut of features to perform a variety of tasks at your institute. This eliminates the need of having multiple apps to perform various tasks. Academia ERP software has admission management, CRM solutions, resource planning and management, finance management, HR management, and much more.

Lastly, you need the right approach

If you are facing all or any of the above-mentioned factors hindering the operations at your organization it is time to pull the plug on the old software and upgrade to robust education ERP software.

Modern systems are more flexible to meet the needs of modern institutes and in these challenging times, you need software that provides you with effective solutions to stay profitable. Furthermore, you need the right approach to finding the right solution.

The primary focus of your search should be the efficiency of the product. Not to nullify the impact of price as a deciding factor, but initially, you must ardently look for a solution that eliminates some of the biggest challenges at your institute. Once you have narrowed down your search, then you can take demos and go into further negotiation to decide on the right vendor that supports your institute’s needs for the long term at the right price.

Single-sign-on software for higher education

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Single Sign-On is a new technology around the corner and is widely used in many education ERP solutions. It is very important to discuss the role of SSO technology and how it is likely to transform the user experience.

From what is SSO to if it is secure, this blog discusses the technology in length to help you understand it better and if you require it in your education ERP solution.

What is Single Sign-On?

Single Sign-On or SSO is a highly trusted authentication method. It enables a user to securely sign in to various applications and websites using one single set of credentials.

How does a Single Sign-On work?

Single Sign-On works based on a trust relationship set up between the application, also known as the service provider, and the SSO system (identity provider). This trust relationship is based upon an exchanged certificate between the two. The certificate is used as a sign of identity information that is sent from the identity provider to the service provider. This exchange of certificate serves lets the app/service provider know the information is coming from a trusted source.

In SSO, this identity takes the form of a token that contains small bits of login information such as the user’s email address and username.

Login Flow

The login flow is mentioned in the following steps:
1.User opens the app that he/she wants to access.
2.The service provider (app) sends the token that contains some information such as email address to the identity provider (SSO System) to authenticate the request.
3.If the user is already authenticated the identity provider gives immediate access to the user. If not, the user has to undergo a few more steps to log in to the identity provider.
4.In the second scenario, in which the user has not logged in to the identity provider, the user is prompted to log in. The login method is quite simple. It usually is done through an OTP verification.
5.Once the user is authenticated, the Identity Provider sends the token to the service provider (app).
6.The service provider (app) validates the token that it is sent from a trusted source during the initial configuration, and thus the user is granted access to the app.

How does Single Sign On help?

There are many apps used in an education institute. Having a different credential for each app and remembering them is a hassle. If you are not using a single sign-on, you must be getting queries on daily basis to reset the password. You can eliminate this completely by having a single sign-on.

An education ERP software serves as a centralized database to provide information to all the integrated applications. And hence, an education ERP software that uses single sign-on would provide an even better experience across the digital ecosystem where a user can use a single set of credentials to login into various applications and perform tasks.

With single sign-on not only are you able to eliminate queries, but it also improves the user experience. It provides a unified experience across the ecosystem where a user is able to manage the username and password much better.

Furthermore, with a Single Sign-On, administrators in your institute can easily control the complex process of multi-factor authentication. Also, they can easily remove login privileges for the people that are no longer in the organization. Not only is SSO great at reducing the calls you get on the helpdesk, but it is a highly convenient tool for administrators to centrally manage and control the usernames and passwords.

Is it secure?

Single Sign-On systems are very convenient and have a great benefit if you are using multiple applications. Users no longer have to manage their passwords and they don’t have to go to IT support each time they lose passwords. But, security is very important to discuss. Since, Single Sign-on serves as a password manager for various apps, if there are vulnerabilities in the app username and passwords to access various apps is compromised. And hence, an institute might lose access to the apps, denting their productivity and operational efficiency.

However, the best SSO vendors have highly secure services. They follow global compliance regulations and industry standards. Many will never store any information like account passwords and master keys on their system. Even in the event that the hacker is trying to make a breach, the security protocols ensure the account is well-protected.

Education ERP solution with Single Sign-On

Academia ERP comes with a very secure single sign-on. The product is highly secure and easily integrable with leading education technologies and applications. With the single sign-on option, you can manage passwords from a single dashboard for the entire organization. It is easy to configure with a variety of products and provides high flexibility to add new applications on the go to provide access to applications through SSO tokens and trust certificates.

Wrapping Up

Single Sign-on is a secure and convenient way to manage the username and passwords of all users across your organization. It is secure, and with a little research, you can find the right vendor to solve your problems. With SSO, you would have reduced queries for lost passwords, easy administration, easeful add/remove of account access to apps and so much more. If you have any more queries with respect to Academia ERP and how our Single Sign-On works, please feel free to connect.

 

How school admission management systems ease operations

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

You are a superhero to be shouldering the admission process at your institute manually. But the burden is increasing. Before you get squashed underneath that paperwork — evolve and switch to digital.

There are thousands of students every year knocking on your institute doors to get admission. And honestly, you are so engrossed with the paperwork that most applications go unseen. Remember the hundreds of phone calls you get for admission inquiries. Do you have any idea how many potential students you must have lost just because you could not properly manage their queries? Or for how many hours a student/parent had to stand in a queue to get an admission form? These and many more instances are screaming their lungs out — you need an admission management system.

School Management Software with Admission Management

School Management Software is an advanced education ERP app suite. It is a multi-module application that allows you to streamline your operations in your institute. It comes with dedicated modules for admission management, examination management, resource management, finance management, and the list goes on.

Here is how the School Management Software helps you manage the admission process better.

1.Difference Between Manual System and Admission Management System

One of the best ways to analyze the potential of any solution is to compare it with your current system. Here is a table that gives you bite-size information to draw a difference between a manual system and a School Management System.

S.no Manual System School Admission Management System
1. Extensive paperwork, application filling, storage, and maintenance Data automatically gets stored over a cloud or computer database
2. Increases dependency on the human resources and is highly uneconomical Automates most operations to free up your resources and provides faster operations — highly economical
3. Difficulty accessing information, longer information retrieval process Within a few clicks get the information that you need
4. A lengthy process of form sale, fee collection, form collection, listing, evaluation, etc. Centralized database shared across organizations for faster processing
2. Salient Features of an admission management software

a. Enquiry Management

The feature allows you to track every enquiry that is happening on call, message, or email for admissions. It also allows pipeline management, conversion of inquiries to applications, and robust data management.

b. Online Admission Setup

Online admissions have become a coveted feature. School management software provides you an option to set up an online admission page on your website that is easily integrated into the main database. It allows you to manage and track every admission application that is coming from an online channel and assist the applicant better.

c. Applicant portal

Once you have converted an enquiry to an application or a prospect has applied for admission you need to provide ease to these applicants. For achieving a higher experience for your applicants with your institute, choose to go with an applicant portal that allows easy management of their profile and application. The portal would provide a real-time update on the application progress, store their receipts and documents in one place, and allows easy communication with your support team through call, chat, or email.

d. Communication

A school management system is configured to provide you with various modes of communication. This makes it easy for you to send out messages and interact with people through calls, emails, WhatsApp, chat, etc.

3. Data management

Data management becomes very easy with the admission management system as it comes with a centralized database. This allows you to access information from anywhere and anytime and perform various tasks. Also, role-based access makes sure the data integrity is maintained organization-wide while improving the functioning of all departments.

4. Real-time updates

Many people underestimate the importance of real-time updates but you know it better. To stay on top of the processes and to make better decisions you need a real-time report on everything. This decreases your dependency on people and departments and allows you to take faster decisions with assured results. Also, sending real-time updates to applicants improves their experience with your institute, rather than them having to call your support team every day to know the progress of their application.

5. Reports and analytics

Advanced analytics come with predictive qualities for you to forecast the admission and enrollment rate. This system gives you a near-accurate prediction on several things and allows you to improve your strategy.

Also, in the post-admission phase, the pre-built reports in the system consolidate the data across all departments to provide you with accurate reports on enquiries, applications, admissions, enrollments, fee submissions, pending fees, and more.

6. Added advantages

Some of the added advantages of going digital include:

  • Manpower Savings
  • Reduced Paperwork
  • Faster Application Evaluation
  • Increased Productivity
  • 24*7 available to serve applicants
  • Streamlined processes
  • No queues
  • Accuracy
  • Remote working capabilities
Wrapping Up

An advanced admission management system can help you in untangling of your admission process. And here is great news, if you want to live this experience you are only a step away. Contact our ERP experts here, and take a live demo.

What does the Accounting System in Education ERP do?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

One of the common misconceptions that people have around the world is that an education ERP is accounting software. The words are used interchangeably and as one of the leading A education ERP solution providers, it breaks our hearts. Accounting is just a fraction of the things an ERP solution does for you. It is multi-functional software that is aimed to provide automation to every operation (including accounting) of your education organization.

Best Accounting Features in an Education ERP and its Benefits

One of the primary functions of an education ERP solution other than automating is to increase transparency in operations. It improves collaboration in the workforce and allows people to use the power of information to take decisions. Some of the best accounting features of an education ERP solution and its benefits are:

1. Centralized Data Repository:

An education ERP software does not put the data in silos but rather centralizes the information to be shared across various departments through role-based secure access. This allows people in the administration to use the information to perform various tasks and get real-time updates on the activities. It provides organization-wide transparency in operations and communicates the right information to people for speedy operations. Hence, it mobilizes the operations in an organization to exhibit more flexibility and ease of data management.

2. Automation

Automation reduces the dependency on people and eliminates the chances of human errors. The software automatically detects accounts receivable and accounts payable and processes the payments while only requiring the employees to intervene when necessary approvals are needed. Manual tasks that can be automated with ERP include invoicing, reporting, order processing, receipt management, and more.

3. Data Analysis

A lot of people underestimate data, especially in the education industry. Business leaders around the world have effectively used data analytics to generate valuable insights and strategize to improve business performance accordingly.

Advanced Education ERP solution such as Academia ERP provides various reports on the financial performance of your organization and provides you predictive analytics to respond to the financial crisis in the market. It streamlines processes, identifies non-compliance, reduces costs, and serves your employees and other stakeholders to improve their experience.

4. Business Metrics

Another powerful feature of ERP accounting software is the capability to manage and monitor business metrics easily. The advanced solution consolidates data across several touchpoints and provides you with real-time data on your operations.

5. Optimized Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are inseparable aspects of an education institute and are also one of the few segments in which an institute invests heftily. With an Education ERP, you get an inbuilt accounting software that manages the commission of your sales professionals and provides you ease to inspect which channels are giving you a better return in terms of lead generation. This comparison and transparency in the operation allow you to take better decisions to run successful campaigns for your education organization and execute campaigns more efficiently.

6. Financial Management

Financial management requires extensive planning, organizing, and tracking of economic data across all departments. ERP accounting software provides you with a digital tool to manage your financial accounts and operations such as taxing – making monitoring, analyzing, and reporting easy with accurate and real-time data.

Customer Relationship Management

Accounting software with integrated CRM features allows you to enhance your relationship with all the stakeholders. With this, you can bring more ease in fees management, commission release, payroll management, and other financial aspects of your institute.

Wrapping Up

This was all that an education ERP does to manage your finances better. An education ERP software comes with dedicated tools to manage the financial aspect of your institute, meanwhile also providing you with other benefits.

Simplify Payroll management with Biometric School Attendance System

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

How Does Biometric School Attendance Management Software Simplify Payroll?

A biometric school attendance software is not only a one-stop solution to manage the attendance of your students but also that of your employees. Primarily, schools use the paper-bound attendance management system to process the payroll of employees. However, the inaccuracies may affect the employee experience in your institute negatively, causing you to have a poor employee retention rate. Instead of going with the paper-bound attendance management system, a school can choose a biometric school attendance software that consolidates data across various departments and provides the admin with an accurate attendance report each month to process the payroll.

It is a highly secure, and integrated software that centralizes the information across the institution and makes payroll management easy for your admins. Also, the staff can use the employee portal to manage their attendance-related activities from a single dashboard and enjoy its convenience.

How does a Biometric Attendance System impact payroll management at your school?

Payroll processing is one of the most important tasks that have to be done every month. But it is time-consuming and any inaccuracies in consolidating the data may cause hindrances in the school taxation process.

Using biometric school attendance software would allow you to securely collect the attendance data for the entire month of your employees and consolidates it to provide a report on the education ERP software. Using the data in addition to the payroll processing features and functionalities in the education ERP you can manage the payroll of your employees without any trouble or increased workload

1.Real-time tracking of attendance

One of the most important features of the biometric school attendance software is the ability to review the attendance record of your employees anytime. The data is consolidated almost immediately to provide you with a real-time report. Instead of an administrator performing all the data consolidation tasks, the system provides you with information in a few clicks.

The software reads, stores and shares the entry and exit data of the employees accurately, and has no lag time. This also gives you a comprehensive view of the active work hours of the employee and helps you in taking any disciplinary action against the staff in case of irregularities.

2.No Fraudulent Attendance

Attendance can often be faked and manipulated by employees that would like to hide the irregularities in their attendance records. Paper-based records fall prey to these malicious elements in the school elements and a biometric-based attendance system is the best way to fight off this challenge.

The biometric machine uses biomarkers to identify and mark the attendance of the person. Meaning, even if a person wants to manipulate the data it becomes impossible for them to do so. With the biometric attendance management system, you can entirely eliminate the changes in proxy attendance, fraudulence, and other malicious activities. Hence, payroll processing and penalizing employees for their indiscipline becomes more accurate and easy.

3.Automated Payroll Processing

Any delays in payroll processing may become a reason for the negative experience of your employees. Since payroll processing is a cost-sensitive function, admins have to check and recheck the records just to be extra sure about the amount to be paid to the employees. This was a time-bound, labor-intensive activity until now. With a biometric attendance management system, you can completely automate it.

The education ERP system consolidates the attendance data and reliably tracks the leaves and active work hours of the employees. It does the required deductions and additions to the payroll, person by person, and processes the payment automatically.

4.Reduction in payroll errors

Instead of relying on a paper register in which a person has to declare or give the information of the attendance record, a biometric school attendance system provides more security. It is very difficult to manipulate the data collected by the biometric system and the education ERP software has a role-based access control wherein only the authorized person has the access to centralized data. Also, the software is very efficient in consolidating the attendance record and automating payroll processing. Given this, with a biometric attendance management system, you have software that efficiently manages the data and automates your process without any errors.

Wrapping Up

Hope we were able to pique your interest in this new-age solution to manage your employee attendance. Academia Education ERP has a built-in biometric attendance management system that does this all for you. It is an infallible software product that brings automation to payroll processing and allows your employees to enjoy the convenience of high-end technology in some of the busiest times of the month. Streamlining the process right from attendance marking, to leave management to payroll processing, Academia Education ERP serves as your one-stop solution to manage employee attendance more efficiently.

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Simplify Payroll management with Biometric School Attendance System

School attendance software not only manages the attendance of students but also of employees. Find out how biometric school attendance management software simplifies payroll.

Manage online registrations using School Management Software

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan
How to manage online registrations using School Management Software?

Managing thousands of applicants and applications may not be humanly possible for you, but it is child’s play for software like Academia ERP. Check out some of the advanced features and benefits of using School Management Software / School management ERP to streamline your operations and communication with potential prospects and beat the competition.

Important features of school management software to manage online registrations

1.Assigning Unique Applicant IDs to the prospects

A School Management System / School Management ERP eliminates any instances of data duplication. The advanced software assigns an applicant ID to the prospects the moment they initiate the application process. This allows you to manage the admission process of every individual better and improves your communication with the prospect. Also, it makes it easy for you to retain an applicant by fast-tracking their applications easily on passing every stage of the evaluation process.

2.Dedicated Applicant Portal

A feature-rich ERP / School Management Software such as Academia ERP comes with advanced solutions such as a dedicated applicant portal. This allows an applicant to manage their profile on their own and track the progress of their application. It also centralizes their communication with your organization in one place. Along with it, it comes with a payment gateway, allowing an applicant to make stage fee payments for every stage of the admission process.

3.Admission Management

As an organization, you can be benefitted from the gamut of features that come with the software to manage the admission process. Good School Management Software / School ERP comes with pre-admission and admission modules. With School Management Software, you can run marketing campaigns, manage your funds, manage enquires and manage the admission process of all the individuals in one place.

Academia School Management ERP software also provides you with dedicated reports and advanced analytics to boost your decision-making. Also, there are various loaders in the admission module, where you can make bulk uploads of offline enquiries, and applications.

4.Added features

Some of the other interesting features are:

  • Easy tracking and checking of admission enquires & registrations
  • Easy comparison of applicants
  • Statistical reports on the school online application process
  • Easy tracking of number enquires and registrations
  • Easy allocation of seats
  • Easy document collections and management
  • Automated notifications to applications
  • Easy configuration of admission rules
  • Easy scheduling of interview

New Feature in Academia ERP:

Academia ERP now has a new feature which auto-detects the similar reasons for application rejection in the applicants based on admission rules and does it in one single go.

Mobile Responsive Web Apps

A responsive Applicant web application allows a prospect to perform various functions using their mobile devices. It does not require them to use a laptop or desktop thus making it easier for the parents/guardians/applicants to manage their applications and keep track of their progress using their mobile devices.

Data security

Modern systems are built using dependable technology to secure the applicant’s data. The platform allows you to manage and modify data while securing it on all devices. Needless to say, going with a reliable vendor such as Academia ERP allows you to digitalize the admission process while using data security measures such as hashed password storing, data encryption, biometric authentication, two-step authentication, and more.

Let’s wrap it

An advanced school management software allows you to manage your admission process better. It is a feature-rich solution that provides real-time application tracking, simplifies the registration process, automates most operations, and provides a better experience to all stakeholders.

If you are looking for a School ERP system that does this all for you, consider Academia Education ERP / Student Information System. It is a globally trusted software solution that helps you in managing internal and external processes and brings automation to operations. The centralized software system boosts your operational efficiency and allows faster decision-making. To experience Academia consider a free live demo.

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