Running an organisation is not a simple task. An organisation is comprised of different processes starting from finance, human resources, manufacturing, supply chain, services, procurement, and others. At its most basic level, an Enterprise Resource Planning system, better known as ERP, is capable of integrating all these processes into a single system.
An ERP is the integrated management of business processes, often in real-time and mediated by software and technology. It is usually referred to as a category of business management software that is a suite of integrated applications. An organisation can use it to collect, store, manage and interpret data from different business activities.
Why do schools need ERP?
Like corporate organisations, schools also require their personalised school management software that can make school management a smart process altogether and enhance productivity. Previously, schools, colleges and other academic institutions tended to rely on manual processes to get all the administrative work done. But manual data management is a tedious process which not only consumes a lot of time but is typically prone to errors. If channelised properly, this time can be used to develop the academic sector by enhancing the teaching-learning strategies.
Apart from this, manual processes are considered to be quite vulnerable in terms of security, whereas it is important to maintain stern data privacy pertaining to official documents. Furthermore, manual administrative functionalities require a lot of paperwork which increases paper usage. As we know, the paper is both an environmental and financial sinkhole; hence, it is important to make efforts to reduce its use on a daily basis in order to save resources.
To address these challenges, Next Education, an end-to-end education solutions provider, has come up with an innovative product that can ease the work of the teachers and administrators. With NextERP, the school management software rolled out by Next Education, one can automate all the administrative processes and carry out all functions on a single platform.
Benefits of using an ERP
Whether the business is small or large, there are several benefits a company can gain from an ERP software that comes with a suite of customised applications that allow organisations to integrate and manage their most important processes.
An ERP equips schools with 21st-century school management system.
- Education is witnessing digital growth and the use of desktops, smartphones and tabs among students is increasing rapidly. In such a technology-driven world, an ERP helps schools upgrade their systems and improve the ways of managing the school.
- School ERP seamlessly connects students, staff and parents to manage the school processes efficiently via stellar communication systems.
- ERP connects all departments of a school and campuses of a group of institutions on a single integrated platform. This eliminates repetitive processes such as entering the same information on different platforms and manual intervention to sort information. Thus, it enhances productivity and saves time.
- Centralized data storage through cloud integration enables administrators, students, teachers, and parents to access data from anywhere, anytime.
- The SaaS-based technology improves scalability, customisations and integrations to ensure that schools are managed with the most advanced capabilities. Like any other SaaS model, it is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS these days has become a common delivery model for many business applications that can cater to multiple sectors, like information management system, human resource management, learning management system and service desk management, apart from ERP.
- Implementing school management software helps shift focus on the improvement of education and reach desired academic goals within measured time and cost parameters. It benefits all the stakeholders of the school in every way.
Why NextERP?
In the competitive world that we live in, there is never a dearth of options for a given product. Schools often choose to use different software for each module of administrative as per their requirements. But this process can never be followed as a long-term strategy as redundancy of data duplication on separate platforms along with a lack of detailed and effective communication among the stakeholders can sloth the whole administrative process. Furthermore, investing in multiple tools is not a smart economical approach.
Next Education’s ERP software is an all-inclusive software that brings together all the processes, departments and stakeholders for an organised and fair management of school affairs. With Amazon Web Services cloud computing, it ensures data security and integrates easily with Tally, the most preferred accounting software of India, to customise accounting methods. It ensures all the administrative processes are transparent, with the help of effective communication and reports that are shared among all the stakeholders.
- Smart communication
NextERP makes communication among different stakeholders easy and effective. The solution is capable of sending out SMS and memos to the stakeholders in bulk whenever required. It is equipped with an automatic alert system that can send alerts to all the stakeholders and keep them notified about particular events.
- Simplifies fee management
There is no doubt that fee management is one of the most important tasks performed by schools on a regular basis. It is a major process that keeps track of the payment of fees, an important factor to run a school. With NextERP, fee management gets simplified with a secure payment gateway and all the transaction details can be easily viewed. The solution makes the lives of accountants easier with error-free management of concessions, scholarships or payment reminders and helps parents pay school fees online and get instant receipts via email and app.
- Hassle-free admission process
NextERP makes the admission process hassle-free for both parents and school management by reducing the paperwork and thorough management of different documents and receipts. Parents can fill out admission forms and make payments online. The rest of the process can be automatically taken care of by the software without taxing the school with paperwork.
- No extra time for attendance
NextERP is integrated with a RFID reader that can take attendance instantly and update in the system and parents app. Hence, no extra time gets consumed for attendance in the classroom.
- Manages complete student profile
Having a consolidated report of each student’s profile, which includes the student’s personal and academic reports, assessment reports, TC, school leaving certificates etc. is important. Such details can be stored in NextERP and can be retrieved whenever required.
- Simplifies report card creation
NextERP provides a collection of customisable report card templates for different boards and helps create accurate report cards in a hassle-free way, relieving educators from the tedious process of generating report cards manually.
- Library management
Maintaining the library is an important task for any school. NextERP takes it over by managing the library catalogue and issuing books online. It effortlessly integrates the library module with a barcode system and helps to maintain a detailed and easily accessible list of the library books. This automatic process keeps the whole procedure free from manual errors.
- Easy tracking via the mobile app
The smart application is available as a mobile application, making it easy for parents to track every detail of their child, such as attendance, day-to-day activities at school, academic performance, etc. Thus, the software engages parents as one of the main stakeholders of the school.
- Academic transparency
The ERP mobile application offers more to parents than to notify them about their children’s well-being and development. With the help of ERP, educators can send daily lesson plans and homework to intimate parents about the progression of a course. This is not all, parents can communicate their concerns to the facilitators and school management and resolve issues.
- Transport tracking
With the help of GPS-tracking, it is easy to track all the school vehicles. NextERP is integrated with a GPS tracker, helping parents and school management with real-time information about students’ journey along with driver details and numerous statistics pertaining to different stops, speed of the particular vehicle, etc.
- Automatic timetable
NextERP simplifies timetable creation for facilitators and helps to make plans to channelise free periods. If a teacher’s attendance is not marked by the assembly, it automatically generates a substitute teacher based on configurable rules and common skills. It helps save time and keep students engaged during a free period.
- Streamlines front-office management
Be it analyse staff calendar, validate security via OTP or biometric identity tag generation, NextERP streamlines front-office operations on a detailed note and ensures thorough visitor management.
- Staff management
Not only students, but even staff management also is made easy by NextERP. By creating staff ID cards and maintaining a detailed staff database, the solution helps to maintain transparency in the HR process. With NextERP, you can get all the details of the teaching and non-teaching staff at your fingertips whenever required.
- Data regularisation and payroll generation
Monthly data can get regularised with NextERP. The application generates bulk salaries, saves time and keeps the process error-free. It also manages applicable allowances or deductions parallelly and creates cumulative, graphical and personal payslips.
- Sorting leave policy
NextERP simplifies leave application and approval process and updates leave data on CRM automatically. The processes of configurable leave types, integration and verification become smooth with the help of the application.
- Flexible finance management
With all that it does, NextERP certainly makes a school accountant’s life easier. The solution keeps track of fee payment, salary increments and provides real-time financial information, which simplifies financial report generation.
- Personalised dashboard
NextERP is capable of providing customers a personalised dashboard with high-end features such as Quick Links that enable them to hand-pick features and get a quick view of the key metrics.
- Topnotch Security Assurance
At the core of NextERP is Amazon Web Services (AWS) – a $5 billion behemoth preferred by over 800 government agencies, 3,000 educational institutions and 10,000 non-profits. An exhaustive list of 21 compliance and security certifications should dispel any doubt about the robustness of the security framework of the AWS public cloud. With so sure a foundation, security always led the charge in the design of NextERP.
- Integration with Learning Management Software (LMS)
Next Education’s Learning Management Platform is integrated with ERP software to provide accurate evaluation and remediation via detailed, reliable and easy-to-understand reports based on student data. For example, if a student does not perform well in an exam due to poor attendance issues, it will be easily tracked from the attendance data of ERP, thus aiding the teacher in understanding the actual reason for the poor performance. Again, with the help of the communication feature, it is easier for the teachers to let parents know the details of a student’s academic prowess. Moreover, an integrative system takes away the redundancy of entering data on different platforms.
- Customised website
The rapid increase of internet usage in India has prompted educational institutions to have an online presence and Next Education has been at the forefront of providing various digitisation tools to educational institutions. NextERP provides myriad website templates to suit the needs of different schools in enhancing their online presence and make them stand out in the crowd. ERP websites ensure the content published on the school website are SEO optimized and the website is social media friendly. Furthermore, it provides full website backup and ample hosting space to the customers as per their requirements.
- Go paperless
It may sound utopian in the academic context, but NextERP can help schools go paperless. NextERP’s online modules help evade piles of paperwork by keeping records of every minute information that the school requires, executing all the work online and managing all the processes pertaining to school management on a single platform.
Today, it is imperative for schools to automate their administrative functions to ease operations. The intuitive interface of NextERP allows users to access the portal on their own and explore different features. The in-app-self-help document familiarizes new users with the workflow of NextERP and helps them to use the application seamlessly. This is not all, being a smart application for the 21st century, NextERP is continuously evolving. The research and development team at Next Education is always in touch with clients and working closely with them to understand their concerns and requirements and upgrading the application accordingly. Once the upgradation is done, the modules automatically get updated in the cloud and notifications are sent to the stakeholders in the form of documents stating the updated features.
Availing NextERP definitely helps your school meet the 21st-century standards of education. Being in the academic sector for the past 12 years, Next Education has always wanted to make smart education accessible to every child and cost-effective smart solutions to every school. There are two types of ERP modules that customers can avail: ERP Basic and ERP Pro. ERP Basic caters to basic administrative functionalities, while ERP Pro provides detailed solutions. This basically helps customers with options, helping them choose solutions as per their requirements.
More than 350 schools in India are already using NextERP and their feedback only inspires us to make it better and more advanced.If you want to know more about NextERP, avail a demonstration today.
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