How much are paper checks costing your school? On the surface, checks seem like a mild inconvenience at worst. Sure, they can be delayed in the mail or misplaced once they are in your office, but there are no “fees”, so they don’t cost your school anything. Right?
The first hidden cost to consider is time. Depositing tuition checks requires a trip to the bank by a member of your staff. Once the checks have been totaled, endorsed, and deposited, they will take an average of five business days to clear… and that’s assuming you take the check to the bank the day it arrives in the mail. In reality, most checks will sit in a safe for a week or longer until they are taken to the bank!
Consider also the administrative costs. Paper checks must be reconciled with your school’s accounting software. Since they can’t be integrated, all the input must be done manually, and double checked for accuracy if a balance is off. There is also the aspect of paper management, where checks, invoices, and bank statements must be filed and stored for safekeeping and reference.
So what alternatives exist? The easiest way to reduce the hidden costs of time and administrative drain is to employ a cloud-based tuition management system to collect payments for student activities.
- Manage and reconcile all payments from a single, integrated platform. There is no need to import or manually enter checks and cash payments.
- Easily collect recurring payments. Repeating payments can be effortlessly collected through e-invoices and automatic payment plans.
- Improve cash flow by receiving funding immediately. Payments are processed instantly, and will be deposited to your school’s bank account in as little as twelve hours.
- Improve customer relationships by offering a convenient way for students to pay. Plus, records of all past and upcoming payments are available online, eliminating the need for students to call your office with questions.
- Records and payment information in your tuition management system is securely stored in the cloud, able to be accessed by your administration from any location.
Don’t let paper payments drain your school’s office with their hidden costs! Consider switching to an electronic tuition management system to take advantage of the proven benefits.