School accounting software

Bellevue Education Shapes Partnership Between AccountsIQ and iSAMS MIS for Schools.

When international schools group Bellevue Education chose iSAMS Management Information System (MIS), Finance and Operations Director Tim Carey-Yard took the opportunity to renew their accounting system too, hoping to find a Cloud-based accounting solution which would integrate with iSAMS.

Bellevue investigated integrating with Sage but felt it didn’t cater for their needs at a group level.  Having evaluated many Cloud accounting products for schools, they chose AccountsIQ; an affordable middle market Cloud accounting solution which could be tailored to their needs and meet the complex reporting requirements of the group.

“The systems we evaluated which were genuinely web-based, seemed to be created for small enterprises.  We wanted a system which could be adapted to our international group needs.  AccountsIQ suited us better than Xero, QuickBooks Online and SAP and so we began the process of integrating AccountsIQ with iSAMS.” Tim Carey-Yard, Finance and Operations Director.

AccountsIQ’s UK Managing Director Darren Cran explained, “We were really pleased to work with Bellevue on such a pioneering project and are delighted they are using more and  more features of the software. Since going live with Bellevue, we have successfully installed AccountsIQ alongside iSAMS in a number of other UK schools and internationally.”

Integrating with iSAMS

The systems were fully-integrated and installed in September, just a few months after contracts were signed. The advantage of the integrated application is that the iSAMS MIS system automatically updates all fee payer and student information in the AccountsIQ Sales Ledger, ensuring all data in the two systems is completely aligned, avoiding any duplication of data entry. Meanwhile, the Fee Billing module of iSAMS generates all the invoices for students (with an ability to have multiple fee payers for individual students or multiple students for multiple fee payers) and passes the invoices automatically via an API link to the accounting system. The AccountsIQ accounting platform then takes control of the process and updates the balances within AccountsIQ, as fees are paid, partially or in full.

Group Management Accountant Rosie Bridgman explains, “the integration with iSAMS gives us a much slicker process than we had for billing and the fee run is so much easier. It cuts down our processing time enormously.”

International Group Reporting

Headquartered in Hampton Court in England, the group has 12 independent schools across the UK as well as schools in Switzerland and Qatar, which means the finance team needs to account for income and payments in multiple currencies as well as produce consolidated group accounts.  As well as a suite of 250 pre-built reports, AccountsIQ can be customised to create tailored reports.  Bellevue created their own management reports in MS Excel which can be automatically updated from the AccountsIQ database via an “add-in” link.

Unlike other applications which encourage the exclusive use of in-built Business Intelligence tools, AccountsIQ also gives users the option to plug in existing reports modelled in Excel.  This allows businesses like Bellevue to focus on becoming familiar with the software without the worry of recreating reporting packs in the early stages.

“AccountsIQ’s Excel Add-In gives us continuity in our management reporting while we are still learning how to get the most out of the system.  It maps live and accurate data from AccountsIQ to my existing management reports.” Tim Carey-Yard. 

Day-To-Day Efficiencies

Exploring some of the automated features within AccountsIQ, Group Management Accountant Rosie Bridgman describes how AccountsIQ has made her working processes easier,

Day-to-day reports for sending out invoices are done in the click of a button rather than us having to find the document, scan it, attach it and email it.  The email features are great and we can send emails centrally from any school.

The ability to attach documents to processes saves so much time not just day-to-day but also when we prepare for audit. Other processes are also much smoother such as bank reconciliation. ”

Further Plans

Now that the system is successfully installed, the next phase of the project will include exploring AccountsIQ’s multi-company functionality further.  Tim Carey-Yard adds, “There is a lot of functionality we have yet to explore such as customising dashboards and creating live dashboard reports which consolidate our accounts.  The system’s Excel integration has allowed us to implement the system quickly and plug in our usual reports but AccountsIQ will allow us to do so much more.”  Discussing other future projects Tim adds, “We also want to implement AccountsIQ’s Purchase-to-Pay process which will give us better management of costs versus budget.”

Rosie Bridgman adds, “The real benefit AccountsIQ brings is the time we save every day on tedious and time-consuming tasks.  So much of it is automated in the system.”

Tim Carey-Yard continues: “The multi-company functionality allows us to work in any of our companies and we plan to implement the consolidation module to enable us to enter consolidation adjustment journals and produce consolidated management accounts and multi-company.”

UCD Teaches its Students Business Processes and Financial Management on AccountsIQ

UCD is the largest university in Ireland with 30,000 students and 5,000 staff. UCD uses AccountsIQ’s cloud accounting platform to teach their commerce undergraduates business processes and financial management.

The Challenge

UCD needed a reliable, robust and secure cloud accounting module to allow students to login for tutorials and to enable a secure and tailored session for up to 150 students to work simultaneously on the tutorials.  The student cohort of 520 is split into 11 groups of 50 each with sometimes three of the groups overlapping and needing to work in parallel in three different lecture rooms.

As AccountsIQ is cloud-based, it meant that UCD required no local infrastructure and minimal set up, which is a real advantage given that over 520 students each year need to access the software, each using their own laptops. With AccountsIQ no hardware or servers are required and the system can be accessed through a standard web browser, with minimal support required from the University.

It was also a fundamental requirement of the system, that the students can learn, take an exam and have their work graded.  Added to that, the platform had to be reliable and robust, so that the students can complete their work without any problems, down-time or rescheduling.

The Solution

AccountsIQ designed a solution to fit UCD’s needs creating a version of the software that would enable students to learn and be tested. The University can set tutorials and reset all companies used for each tutorial to a starting position afterwards. Each year the AccountsIQ system is cleared of data and re-supplied to UCD for the fresh intake of students. In the five years that UCD has been using AccountsIQ over 3,000 students have been trained on the platform.

UCD’s IT lecturer Linden Lee says:

AccountsIQ is more logically set out than some other systems, its features are easy to grasp and students can see quite clearly the progression through various business processes such as the expenditure and revenue cycles. It’s intuitive and well thought-out.

AccountsIQ is easy to use for both lecturers and students. Each student is required to take a series of four tutorials which culminates in a 3 hour exam. The student learns the flow through all business processes and has to set up debtors, creditors, push through orders, and then produce a stock pdf, which then tests if the student has entered the correct information. This set up enables students’ performance to be easily assessed.

As Linden explains, “With AccountsIQ it is easy to get the idea of what they’re doing and why. It’s very easy for the student to visualise the process and it gives them confidence that they’re doing the right thing.”

Linden continues: “We’ve been using AccountsIQ for five years now and thousands of students have used the system and been tested on it. It’s great for teaching as we can set exams with literally no set up required. Students can follow it easily and we can see clearly how each student has performed. Batch files are set up each time and it’s a proven method that simply works.”

Accounting software gives Kingsworth School the ability to grow

Kingsworth International School, based in Paris, is relatively new and expanding rapidly, having opened a second school at the beginning of 2016, with further expansion envisaged thereafter. They required an online accounting software that offered the ability to scale as the school grows whilst minimising the capital outlay from the beginning. They also wanted to future-proof their IT strategy and to maximise workflow efficiencies, by ensuring the accounts system was fully integrated into their MIS system. This needed to be flexible enough to integrate accounting software into any further IT systems they may implement in the future.

Flexible pricing model with no upfront costs

Kingsworth International selected AccountsIQ due to its flexible pricing model with no up-front capital costs, and which allowed them to only pay for the schools they required on the system from day one. They liked the SaaS pricing model, selecting and paying only for the functionality they required. As the school expands they can add functionality as required to the school accounting system and use it for additional new schools, ensuring they only pay for what they use and keeping cost to a minimum during the start-up and expansion phase. Kingsworth International also liked the fact that AccountsIQ has a full integration and partnership with iSAMS school administration software.

Integrated solution with iSAMS

The accounting and MIS systems are fully integrated and supported on an ongoing basis. Being dynamically linked, any changes made in iSAMS automatically update AccountsIQ and vice versa. The first class hosting and support of the integration gives Kingsworth International the peace of mind that the two systems work in conjunction at all times.  As more and more schools look to Cloud hosting for their software services, the iSAMS and AccountsIQ partnership offers schools cutting-edge technologies designed specifically for Independent Schools.

When we set out on our journey to implement a new accounting system for the Kingsworth Group of Schools, ease of use, integration with our current MIS, friendly relations and great customer service were top of our pre-requisites.  With AccountsIQ, we have all of that and more.  The team at AccountsIQ have been outstanding; from our initial contact and discussions, right the way through to helping our finance department implement the system in the best way for us. AccountsIQ is a system that is adapted for our needs, rather than us adapting to its capabilities, indeed its capabilities and possibilities are huge.

Tony Standing, Director of Information at Kingsworth International School