Top 10 Must-Have Features Of ERP Software For Schools

The world of education has progressed at an incredible rate. 

Academic reports, financial records, and other student-related paperwork piled high on desks are relics of a bygone age. 

More and more schools are recognizing the benefits of implementing a single, user-friendly enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution like Teach ‘n Go.

Our software allows schools to efficiently manage their: 

📈 Students' progress

💰 Billing and invoicing

👩‍🏫 Lesson planning

🧾 Payroll

In this article, we outline some of the most important features to look for in school ERP software. 

We also take a closer look at some of the factors that make Teach ‘n Go the best school ERP software available, and how it can make the management of your school easier than ever before. 

But before we get to that, let's have a look at the basics.

What Is School Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software?

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system serves as a centralized hub for all aspects of a company's operations.

The purpose of a school ERP system (also known as a student information system or school management system) is to help schools streamline their processes and use their resources more efficiently. 

Due to the increased demand for online learning, an ERP system has become essential for every modern school. 

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global ERP software market was worth $46.30 billion in 2020 and $50.31 billion in 2021. 

It’s expected to reach USD 93.34 billion by 2028, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2% during the forecast period. 

Who Benefits from an ERP System?

The simple answer is that everyone participating in the school environment will reap the benefits of an ERP system, especially when you have a school management system that follows a top-down approach.

Because it’s an all-in-one ERP solution, it integrates all of the processes needed to run a teaching business.

Everything from course scheduling, billing, and invoicing, to materials, alerts, and communication is taken care of by the school management software.

School management software is an asset to students, teachers, and administrators alike. Let’s take a closer look at how all the stakeholder benefits: 

#1. Students

When students are in a setting that is consistent, predictable, and well-organized, they tend to learn and perform better. 

A school's relationship with its pupils can be strengthened by implementing a management system.

Using an ERP system, students can:

🎓 Reach out to their teachers and peers when they have questions or concerns.

🎓 Easily view their timetable.

🎓 Review lesson notes and download course material. 

Teachers can also use school ERP systems to praise good behavior and to suggest areas where students can improve. 

By keeping track of their progress, schools can position their students to succeed.

#2. Parents

In today's digital world, technology helps ensure that schools and parents can communicate more effectively. 

ERP systems typically have a dedicated parent portal where they can provide transparent reports and structured feedback on every student. 

Schools can also use ERP software to keep families up-to-date by sending out regular automated emails and notifications.

Thanks to school ERP software, parents can:

👪 Get a clear and accurate picture of how their children are doing in class.

👪 Simplify financial management (including online payments, invoices, and upcoming fees).

👪 Enjoy peace of mind with real-time transport tracking.

#3. Teachers 

Teachers have a lot on their plates, and manual work takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. No wonder the stress that they experience often leads to burnout.

A robust ERP system helps teachers streamline school-related processes. 

They can use the automated features to update students’ course materials, making the learning process more comfortable.

With school ERP software, teachers can:

👨‍🏫 Easily monitor, manage and assess student performance and behavior in the classroom.

👨‍🏫 Update lesson records in real-time, ensuring nobody misses out on tasks and assignments.

👨‍🏫 Bridge communication gaps between students and parents.

#4. Admin and Management Staff

Schools deal with many challenges when it comes to administrative activities. 

Luckily, ERP software reduces the burden on various departments — especially administrative — that are overwhelmed by dull, time-consuming processes. 

Implementing ERP software is one of the best ways to boost operational efficiency and deliver timely services to your school.

Thanks to ERP software solutions, admin and management staff can:

💻 Automate repetitive processes and execute them without error.

💻 Free up their time and prioritize projects.

What Are the General Benefits of a School ERP System?

Increased Productivity

One of the key benefits of introducing ERP systems at a school is that they help educational institutions boost their productivity.

This is because school administrators can spend less time maintaining records and sorting through unorganized data. 

Less time wasted means that educational institutions can focus on the things that matter, like delivering value to students, or teaching curriculums.

Improved Student-Teacher Collaboration

Student-teacher collaboration is enhanced by using a cloud-based school ERP. 

This is because it fosters a greater sense of community among the faculty and students. By using an online application, the teacher is always ready to answer questions from students.

Teach n Go’s group messaging feature allows students to reach teachers with questions at any time.  Students also have 24/7 access to timetables, homework, and resources.

Save Natural Resources

Paper files, stationery, and pages of registers are all saved when the ERP system is used for performing routine administrative tasks. 

By keeping track of data digitally, your school can protect natural resources and avoid creating messy records that have to be reorganized at a later stage. 

Access Data From Anywhere

ERP software can be accessed from anywhere and at any time. 

A record of everything can be kept due to its easy accessibility. It also allows you to share parent and student information with stakeholders in just a few clicks.

All they require are the credentials of the online education ERP portal or you can download the report or data they need and send it to them directly.

Teach ‘n Go will also ensure that sensitive data remains secure and private.

Increased Transparency with Parents 

A cloud-based learning management system also leads to better interactions with parents.

Parents can check on their kids from time to time and keep track of their academic progress. This leads to improved transparency between parents and their children.

For example, parents can check:

✋  Their children's attendance.

💰  Overdue payments.

🗓️   Upcoming events at the school.

The Ten Must-Have Features of School ERP Software

If you want to get the best out of the ERP system and make school life easier, you need to look for some crucial features.

The nine features we’ve listed below are the backbone of all good ERP systems and shouldn’t be overlooked. 

#1.User-Friendliness

When offering new software to your school staff, teachers, and students, you should never forget about user-friendliness. 

If the technology is easy to use, it's more likely to be implemented successfully and yield a higher return on investment (ROI) for your school.

There is no clutter or complexity when it comes to Teach 'n Go. This is because we focused on school and business needs when we designed it.

The result is an online school management system that’s simple to use and install, as well as a technical support team that’s always there when you need them.

#2. Powerful Scheduling

A school’s time management process is critical. Having access to your teachers’ and students’ schedules will help your school stay organized and on track.

This is why an appointment scheduling tool is essential. 

If you don't have a robust teacher scheduling platform, data and daily processes become a lot more difficult to manage as you grow.

School management software also allows teachers and class locations to be assigned on custom or recurring days.

With Teach ‘n Go, scheduling is a breeze for teachers because they can arrange their classes in just a few clicks. 

They can also easily select the classroom, group of students, or teacher for each lesson, and even customize school lessons on recurring days.

#3. Attendance Management

Everyone needs to take attendance tracking seriously—not only of the faculty and staff but also of the students. 

Having a system that has clear attendance history keeps teachers in the loop and helps them identify students who are struggling or falling behind.

By gaining a quick overview of class attendance from our real-time data dashboard, Teach ‘n Go says goodbye to complicated, never-ending spreadsheets.

#4. Parent Portal

One of the best ways to build trust with parents is to provide them with access to their child’s current:

 

🗓️ Schedule

✋ Attendance

🏃 Behavior

This is why a family section should be included in every ERP. 

As a result, the best school ERP software, like Teach ‘n Go, facilitates better communication between parents, teachers, and administrators. 

Teach ‘n Go’s tudent & Parent Portal gives students access to up-to-date schedules, attendance, behavior, course work, and so much more. 

#5. Upload Course Material

On the topic of online education: users need to have access to course materials online. 

With Teach ‘n Go, students can access and download teacher-uploaded lesson notes and course material. 

Our software has multiple lesson management features that will improve your efficiency by making your schedules and classes easier to manage. Some of these include:

• A lesson card: Students and parents can log in and enter coursework and see any notes that a teacher might have left for them.

• Cloud-based video integration: This allows you to host video lessons through Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and more.

• Attendance management: Take lesson attendance with a few clicks, and the record is stored for your reference.

• Grading software: This allows you to easily add grades to a student for each lesson and keep track of results with simple reports generated on the platform.

These features allow students to keep up with their lessons and teachers even when they’re not at school. 

#6. Email, SMS, and Alerts

Another reason Teach ‘n Go remains the best school ERP, is that it puts a stop to the never-ending phone calls that keep your school’s administrators away from finishing other projects. 

Our school ERP software does a great job of keeping everyone up-to-date. This includes:

📧 Personalized emails

💬 Messages

🔔 Notifications

⚠️ Alerts

A last-minute change of classroom? No need to worry. At the press of one button, all of your users will be notified of any real-time changes you make.

Teach 'n Go also allows your school to send payment reminders via customized, automated notifications.

You can also use Teach ‘n Go to send students and parents important updates about newsletters, field trips, and homework assignments. 

#7. Responsive Mobile App

In 2022, your school management software needs to have a mobile-first approach. These days, everyone is constantly on their mobile devices. 

This is why accessing their schedules and course content must be as simple as possible for students, regardless of whether they are:

🏠 At home.

🚌 On the bus.

🏞️ At the local park.

Mobile applications should work seamlessly on all devices, giving users access to all of the features at their fingertips. 

Not only does this increase the availability of the software, but it also boosts the productivity of those using it. 

An ERP software mobile app must have the following features to function properly:

🔔 Real-time notifications and alerts.

💬 Outstanding chat functionality.

🤗 Seamless integration.

When you make your app easy for its users, you will have more engaged students, teachers, and parents. 

#8. Billing and Invoicing 

A school's long-term well-being depends on its ability to ensure financial management properly; in other words, generating and collecting fees. 

A robust billing system helps you to avoid mistakes in this process and keep track of what has been paid and what is owed.

Through Teach ‘n Go, it's possible to set your school up to receive PayPal or credit card payments from parents. 

This is an excellent way to manage fees for your school and can save you time and energy on recording and managing manual payments.

Linking students of the same family on one invoice—through combined payments—makes the billing process much more efficient.

While we’re on the topic of 💰, sending out professionally-looking invoices is about as crucial as watering your plants—yes, even while on holiday. 

Luckily, ERP takes care of it for you, making invoicing a breeze.

#9. Import and Export Data

Fully-functional school ERP software should successfully export and import data. This way, you can transfer student or employee details into and out of the system anytime you want. 

Plus, you’ll never have to re-enter attendance, student, class, and grade information, or deal with duplicate content and losing data.

#10. Reporting

Teach 'n Go can play a key role in the data aspect of student management. Not only does Teach 'n Go store your attendance, enrollment, and grade data, but it also lets you create reports on it. 

This helps schools track trends in their courses, and to see what has been well-attended and how students are performing. 

Teachers' and students' data can be found by a simple search in our ERP system. Then it can be easily downloaded and shared with parents, governors, or your school's board.

There is no need to worry about lost grades or missing attendance when using school management systems like ours. 

👉 Over to You!

In a world where the educational environment is constantly changing, you need the best school ERP software, like Teach ‘n Go, because they have been revolutionizing school management. 

It saves you money in the long run by eliminating the need to buy expensive, incompatible tools by linking separate and complex technologies into a single unit. 

As we’ve seen in this article, everyone from teachers and students to parents and administrators benefits from school ERP software. 

This is because it allows schools to:

• Increase productivity.

• Improve student-teacher collaboration.

• Save money on natural resources.

• Access data from anywhere.

• Increase transparency with parents.

• Schedule effectively.

• Manage attendance. 

• Easily upload course material.

• Send out emails, SMSes, and alerts.

• Operate on mobile devices.

• Effectively bill and invoice.

• Import and export data.

• Report effectively.

With Teach’ n Go, you’ll have peace of mind that all of your school’s processes are taken care of without the hassle. 

Try our software for free to see how we can help you streamline your workflows and make your school more efficient than ever before.