School office staff are always busy so simplifying school payment administration is important. As part of our integrated, school payment solution, SIMS Pay helps you easily collect parent online payments, securely and cost-effectively, using the data you already have in SIMS, and helping to significantly reduce time spent on payment administration.
Discover our all-in-one parental engagement solution
We've integrated our engagement products to provide one place for schools and parents to communicate and collaborate.
Reduce payment administration time
Use SIMS Pay for parent online payments and permissions. Effortlessly set up items that can be bought online such as school trips, uniform, school events and more, using SIMS Pay’s simple and intuitive wizard interface. Send automatic alerts and reminders to parents, for example when an instalment for a school trip is due. Manage stock and event capacity, and easily collect payments - saving your school office hours of time.
Easily reconcile parent payments
For maintained schools, integration with SIMS Dinner Money and other cashless catering providers allows parents to top up and view their child’s school meal balance and receive automatic payment reminders when it is low. School dinner payments are synchronised between SIMS Pay and cashless catering providers, including SIMS Dinner Money, so no manual is entry required. By reconciling parent payments with meal requirements, you can ensure your school meal provision is correct, improving cash-flow and reducing time spent on chasing funds.
Enhance financial efficiency and accuracy
Streamline your refunds process by automating refund requests. Parents will receive the refund into the same account within two working days. Save time and improve data accuracy by automatically reconciling all school payments, and link product codes in your school's FMS with the synchronisation of SIMS Pay and SIMS Financial Management System. SIMS Pay provides access to information such as tracking payments, a clear audit trail and helps for improved efficiency in the finance office.
Engage parents and receive monies faster
With everything in one place, it is much easier for parents to manage their school payments, whether they are using a smart phone, tablet or PC. Parents also have the option to pay by instalment, spreading costs into manageable chunks. Our school payment system allows parents to choose how to pay using whichever method suits them, whether it's by debit/credit card, PayPoint, the Post Office, manual cash or cheque payments - helping your school to receive payments faster.
Stay safe and secure
Improve safety for your pupils and staff by becoming a cashless school. By allowing parents to make online payments, children will no longer be required to carry cash. With less money held at your school, you'll have peace of mind that all transactions are safe and secure, and by receiving fewer cash payments, you will also reduce your office workload.
Selecting SIMS Pay for our online parent payments was an easy choice. The automatic integration with SIMS Dinner Money was the main benefit for us as it seamlessly updates when parents make a payment.
Mandy Paris, School Administrator at The Park Lane Primary School
Both our senior school and our prep school use Pay for parent payments and permissions - from school trips to booking tickets for performances, to asking for expressions of interest so we know whether to go ahead with an event. Being able to ask people to register their interest has particularly helped the PTA with their forward planning too.
Pavla Mataskova, SIMS Development Manager, St Bede's College
Get in touch to find out more
Maintained schools - 0800 170 1721
Independent or international schools - +44 (0) 1285 647500