How to make a cashless school

Unpacking the building blocks required to create a cashless environment.


Johannesburg, 06 May 2019

Most people, on reviewing the arguments for and against, would admit the idea of banning the use of cash from school grounds seem like a good idea. The problem, however, is not that schools are unwilling to make this change, but rather the fact that taking a school cashless is a lot more complicated than the layman on the street might realise. This article unpacks the components required to offer a comprehensive cashless solution such as the one d6 group offers.

Firstly, schools need to find an efficient way to collect scheduled and expected payments. Be it fees, projects or fundraisers, all schools have expected payments coming in from parents.

This problem, by itself, doesn't seem that daunting; a combination of planned pre-billing, credit card machines and a large admin contingent to reconcile hundreds of EFTs piling in could remove the need to use cash for these payments.

However, this approach is likely to drown the school in question in banking charges and administrative headaches. A digital payment distribution and completion gateway, preferably directly integrated into the school's accounting, offers a much more efficient alternative to ensure this portion of the payment space operates smoothly without cash.

Secondly, schools need to collect unexpected payments from parents or other parties involved. Whether a school is dealing with clothing shop purchases, market day vendors, ad-hoc payments or food purchases from the cafeteria, a robust cashless payment method is critical. Once again, credit card machines offer a solution, to an extent.

The cost and complication of rolling out such devices to all possible points of payment make the solution infeasible. A much more feasible alternative would be to roll-out a mobile payment portal, preferably one that integrates to the digital payment gateway mentioned in the first step, for the sake of simplicity. With such a scan-to-pay service, new payment points are easy and cheap to roll-out, especially if the payment feature is already embedded within the core communication application used by the school, avoiding additional on-boarding efforts.

Finally, schools need to offer learners an alternative to mobile payments. Especially in primary schools, where mobiles phones among learners aren't welcomed and parents would prefer a bit more control over learner spend, a card or other token payment system becomes a key requirement. For the sake of elegance, this solution should preferably be cross-compatible with the first two steps. Going through the process of obtaining parent buy-in a second time is the last thing schools want to do.

The good news for schools looking to undertake the noble venture of ensuring the safety of their grounds by removing the presence of cash is that all three steps indicated are already offered as part of one comprehensive, integrated solution by d6 group.

After years of working closely with hundreds of schools across South Africa and globally, d6 group has set about to gain a thorough understanding of what it will truly entail to run a cashless school and offering a solution in line with the true requirements involved.

To book a demo on how the d6 Connect application can offer your school a cashless environment in three easy steps, send a mail to: sales@d6.co.za.

www.d6.co.za

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Editorial contacts

Tania Hoon
d6 group
taniah@d6.co.za