Learn More About Education ERP Suites
What are Education ERP Suites?
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems were originally developed to help large manufacturing companies run their businesses. In recent years, the education industry has increasingly turned to its own version of ERP software, giving institutions of learning the technology to help them maximize efficiency as their daily demands have grown more complex.
Education ERP suites are integrated systems with modules that manage the “back office" functions of a school, college, or university. Because ERP suites are generally concerned with managing resources, this means most systems include core modules to automate daily tasks in the institution’s finance and human resources departments. But these systems often include functionality to manage a variety of other processes handled by education administrators, including admissions, student fee payments, transportation, scheduling, and curriculum planning. Education ERP systems can help administrators organize the volumes of data these systems gather about their institution’s operations and use analytics tools to understand how to make its processes more efficient and effective.
Key Benefits of Education ERP Suites
- Improve data accuracy and accessibility
- Automate complex and time-consuming business tasks
- Streamline interdepartmental communication and data sharing
- Use advanced data analytics to optimize operations
- Boost enrollment and retention with more personalized student experiences
Why Use Education ERP Suites?
Education ERP suites can be transformative tools for any school, district, or university looking to improve management of the organization’s business practices.
Streamline data sharing across departments — ERP suites designed for education can help institutions reduce their reliance on manual processes for recording and sharing important data about their daily business processes. Depending on paper records to manage finance and HR documents means that data is less accessible to other departments, so different parts of the organization may be working with incomplete or inconsistent data sets. Even if the school has digitized its records, if that data is located on different systems that don’t “talk" to each other, the siloing of that data could cause problems. Education ERP suites are designed with integration in mind, so administrators can be confident they are looking at the most up-to-date data, no matter the department. Making data sharing easier can also encourage greater cross-department collaboration on projects and initiatives, especially at large colleges and universities with thousands of staff and students.
Identify areas for improved performance — Institutions can gather mountains of data about their operations, but that information is useless unless school leaders have a way of compiling it and turning it into actionable insights. The interconnected nature of ERP suites means the institution’s data on finances, employees, and students is housed in a single system, providing a large data cloud that can be mined for insights. Education ERP suite developers are increasingly building in analytics functions into their products so administrators can better understand how their institution is performing. This data can often be customized depending on the role of the person viewing the data. For example, a leader of a K–12 school could create finance dashboards compiled from the data of multiple departments, potentially identifying areas that could be targeted for cost savings. An administrator at a university might analyze trends in student admissions and enrollment to better inform their recruiting strategy for the next admissions cycle. With analytics specifically designed for the needs of educational institutions, the data gathered by education ERP suites can be made more valuable.
Automate business tasks — Resources at many educational institutions are stretched thin, so improving efficiency is a major selling point for education ERP suites. Integrated ERP products for education have built-in automation tools that allow administrators to accomplish routine tasks more quickly. These automated tasks vary, depending on which department is using the software. An HR administrator might automate typical tasks like processing payroll or updating employee records. Academic counselors could run a degree progress audit to quickly determine which classes a student has taken and which ones they still need. Student bills could be sent automatically at custom intervals and payments accepted through an online self-service portal.
Who Uses Education ERP Suites?
Education ERP suites are often expansive, interconnected systems that can touch nearly every aspect of an institution, so they can be used by a variety of school personnel. Most often, though, they are used by administrators who handle the back office functions that keep the institution’s daily operations in order.
Human resources professionals — HR administrators use the HR modules of ERP suites to manage employee information, store records, track absences, process payroll, and manage employee evaluations.
Finance professionals — Accountants and other finance department employees use the finance modules of ERP suites to keep track of expenses and revenues. Budgeting tools also enable finance employees to develop budget projections based on data from multiple departments.
Institution leadership — High-level administrators use ERP suites to get a global view of their institution’s operations. Analytics tools allow them to get insights into how the institution is performing in different areas and make strategic decisions based on that data.
Kinds of Education ERP Suites
K–12 vs. higher education — Some education ERP suites are geared more toward the K–12 education market, offering features that might be used more often at a primary or secondary school, such as an online portal for parents to check a student’s grades. Other ERP suite products cater to higher education institutions, offering functionality that is more relevant to those institutions (managing financial aid or academic advising, degree planning for students, etc.).
All-in-one products vs. modular systems — Education ERP suite vendors sometimes sell their products modularly, so a customer could buy the entire suite or just one component of it. For example, an institution that already has an HR system they want to keep using could buy only the finance and accounting module from an ERP software vendor. In other cases, education ERP suites are sold as a single package, so when you buy the suite you get all of the modules included in it.
Education ERP Suites Features
Finance and accounting — ERP suites for education contain modules or products for managing an institution’s finances. These tools typically include the ability to manage the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, purchasing, budgeting, and other finance department functions.
Human resources module — A significant percentage of an organization’s budget is devoted to its human capital, so ERP suites typically help organizations manage their employees. Common HR tasks like maintaining employee records, recording employee absences and time off requests, tracking work assignments, and processing payroll are typically included. These products may also have more education-specific HR features like conducting evaluations of teachers or professors and maintaining records of an employee’s academic and professional credentials.
User accounts — Not every employee necessarily needs access to every part of an ERP suite. Some suites allow administrators to control which modules of a suite a given user has access to, so an academic advisor can be denied permission to peruse HR records.
Analytics — Built-in analytics tools give administrators the ability to use the data gathered by the ERP system to identify emerging trends, analyze changing demographics, or predict future outcomes. Analytics dashboards display the compiled data in graphical formats that can better illustrate the institution’s performance in a certain area. Administrators can use those insights to guide strategic decisions or set priorities.
Reporting — Educational institutions are often subject to oversight by regulatory agencies and must periodically report on topics like curriculum, financial aid, and student outcomes. Reporting functions in Education ERP suites can compile preconfigured reports that are ready to deliver to the proper agencies, reducing the time and effort it takes to compile the data manually. Reporting tools can also be used to generate reports on admissions, fundraising, marketing, or other topics for internal discussion and decision-making.
Integrations — Most education ERP suites either have a built-in student information system or integrate with an SIS so that information like student enrollments can be linked with the institution’s business performance. Other products that ERPs for education typically integrate with include advising software, financial aid management software, and admissions and enrollment software.
Billing and fee payments — Bills can be automatically generated and sent out to students or parents, who may have the option to pay using an online payment portal.
Mobile device compatibility — Education ERP systems may offer mobile apps that can expand access to the system’s data. For example, an employee might use the app to check their paycheck or benefit status. Students and parents may have their own version of the app for making payments or reviewing a student’s finances.
Single sign-on — Systems that offer SSO functionality allow users to log in with a single click, even if they are accessing multiple systems.
Potential Issues with Education ERP Suites
Ineffective integrations — One of the biggest reasons organizations turn to an ERP suite is because the different functions or modules within that suite work seamlessly together. However, if an institution wants to adopt an education ERP suite—while also retaining some of its legacy software—it is important for administrators to verify that their existing software will work with the new system. For example, a university might have accounting software its staff wants to keep using, while also adding modules from an ERP system for academic advising, human resources, and managing student information. Before pulling the trigger on the ERP, it would be important to verify that the new system will integrate with the existing accounting system. Otherwise, employees in those different departments may be looking at different data sets or be forced to enter the same information twice into two different systems, creating inefficiencies and greater potential for errors. Even if school leaders are buying a single interconnected education ERP suite, they should verify that the system’s components will share information in a way that will help them accomplish their institution’s goals.
Data security — Protecting an institution’s data can no longer be an afterthought as cybersecurity attacks increasingly target schools and universities. When an organization's essential systems are all interconnected, as they are with education ERP suites, it is even more important to build strong defenses against potential breaches. A ransomware attack that takes down an organization’s finance and human resource software, for example, would seriously impair the organization’s ability to conduct daily business. Administrators should ask hard questions about how the vendor for their cloud-based ERP suite is ensuring the security of their data. For institutions hosting their ERP suite data on local servers, IT managers must ensure they have the proper security software and staff trainings in place to protect their valuable data.
