Online learning has been prevalent for a long time. However, its potential was not fully realised until now, all thanks to COVID-19. Educational establishments were left with no choice other than to get equipped with an ERP system to not hinder the learning process even in the hardest of times. Even though many institutions had to make major changes in their process of teaching the students, managing the school; the existence of ERP software made it a lot easier.
A lot of institutions around the world that were dependent on the manual, non-digital processes of functioning faced problems. They were left with no option but to adopt digital processes to keep working. As a result, those staff who did not know much about the digital systems faced problems and had to learn or undergo training to utilize technology to its best.
ERP systems for schools and other institutions are the backbone of digital processes in the education industry. It is necessary to create a robust system of digital processes for these institutions to cope up with the changing world where everyday new technology comes up.
Choosing The Best ERP System
When choosing an ERP software, consider the following factors.
1. Data Management
An ERP software would manage data inefficiently regardless of its volume, protect it against breaching and give you access to the data easily without making any compromises to its security. It would be better to define levels of data access so that everyone is clear about what and how much access they have to information that is stored online.
It is a good idea to store all the students’ data on a single database so that you can have a look at it at once. It will help the management to take important decisions quickly. Also, the management would stay updated about schools’ finances and operations.
2. Applicant Management and Online Fee Payment
It enables students to easily apply for courses and pay their fees. It is important to integrate your website with a secure database so that all the information remains protected and at the same time can be assessed by the stakeholders whenever needed. It would also ensure seamless payment of fees and fines through the online gateway.
3. Fixed Assets Management
It does not matter whether the world is going through a pandemic or not, it is always necessary to maintain our fixed assets. Likewise, institutions need to manage their fixed assets even if they teach with the help of an education app. An ERP system comes with a fixed asset management module that allows you to keep a record of all the school buildings and other assets. The module would also calculate depreciation automatically and hence save your time, money and energy as well as keep you updated about the remaining life of the assets as well as the time they would become obsolete.
4. Course Scheduling and Timetables
A good ERP system that gives you an option of customization would help you in preparing timetables, be it subject-specific, teacher-specific or course-specific while ensuring that there is no clash between any schedule.
5. Automated Attendance
It also comes with the feature of automated attendance. There is no requirement of maintaining files or recording them in spreadsheets. Also, the attendance record of every student and class would be just a click away and your administrative staff would not have to look through spreadsheets to calculate the attendance of a particular student or for a particular subject.
