School administration encompasses a range of activities and involves several manual processes. Fortunately, routine administration tasks can be automated, saving your school time for strategic and revenue-generating activities. School administration software, also called a student information system, takes care of automation and offers several functionalities, easing administrators’ burden.
Standard features of school administration software
Student database
A student information database records and stores all relevant student-related data. This includes students’ names, address, parent/guardian data, report cards, attendance, teacher remarks, and so on. Some of the information will remain unchanged from one academic year to the next, but others can be updated as needed. One of the functionalities is publishing the recorded attendance data online for students, teachers, and parents. It can also be used for letters and reports.
Admissions
Confusing or outdated application and enrolment processes can be chaotic and stressful for administrators, teachers, and even parents. Administration software streamlines the online student admission process. You can create admission forms, make them available online, and accept applications seamlessly in one central place.
Additionally, the data on forms can be automatically retrieved and stored as needed. For example, prospective students’ admission status can be made available online, and new students’ contact information can be recorded into the system.
Grading
A student information system comes with a grade-book generator that creates report cards in the format used by your school. You can generate and print transcripts, class rankings, and grade distributions of the class. The software also automatically calculates weighted grades, GPA, and credits.
ID Cards
School ID card generators save administrators valuable time and effort. This tool is integrated into administration software, automatically creating ID cards from students’ data and scanned photos stored in the system.
Accounting, invoicing, and payroll.
School administration software comes with necessary accounting capabilities. You can create and send invoices, track income and expenses, collect school fees online, and generate receipts.
The software may also be able to automate some or all aspects of payroll management. For example, it can automatically calculate payroll breakup, withhold taxes, and deductions related to employee compensation, and generate payslips.
Notifications to parents
Sending informational notifications to parents via the school admin app has become the new normal. Emergencies, closures, early dismissals, and urgent messages can be conveniently communicated via text message or email.
How to choose school administration software
As you can see, school administration software offers benefits to administrators, management, and parents. Administrators can do away with repeated tasks, access data quickly, and save significant time. Principals can examine data and reports on one portal to make more informed decisions time-efficiently.
Management can easily access reports on school performance, expense reports, and other business-related data. Parents/Guardians and students can access report cards, transcripts, and schedules online while receiving urgent or essential notifications from the school directly on their mobile phones.
When choosing school administration software, consider the following:
– Vendor’s reputation and history: Someone who has been in business continuously for at least three years is likely to have a more robust and improved product over a new market entrant.
– Training and support: Does the vendor provide a dedicated account manager and video demos and instruction manuals along with customer support to get you acquainted quickly and effectively with the software?
– Integration: Does the software integrate easily with other software applications you’re already using?
– Customization: If you require a higher level of customization, look for a solution that can be configured to fit your existing processes.
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