Automation: How Schools Can Leverage Digital Tools for Security and Compliance in 2023

Through the digital transformation in education survey, we gained insight from 629 education industry professionals into their processes and challenges and how automation can benefit them. The current state of digitisation has a large role to play in the world of financial compliance and security, education institutions in which have a major role in the invoicing of multiple parties need to be compliant with Australian standards. Through the survey results, we found that a large portion of the education sector engage in manual and legacy processes which require double handling and revision to ensure audit trails and invoices are compliant and securely protected.  

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Security and compliance

Cyber security in schools is a crucial aspect of ensuring the protection of sensitive information and data. The need for secure storage and transmission of financial information internally is growing at rapid rates due to the rapid development of technology, schools need to have up to date systems to keep their data secure. These systems range from firewalls, staff training, automated security measures and secure audits. In education institutions, schools are required to comply with various security laws including the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and the Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme.  

In addition to security, financial compliance is a necessary and important aspect of school financial processes. Schools need to ensure that their processes are meeting financial compliance regulations by reporting, submitting annual finance statements and having comprehensive audit trails in place year-round. The Australian Education act 2013 requires schools to adhere to strict financial requirements which includes submission of annual financial statements. This is imperative to a school as failure to comply with financial regulations can result in fines and penalties, as well as damage to the reputation of the school. Due to rising security and compliance concerns and requirements, schools should consider automation software with the capability to protect fraud attempts and security risks as well as streamline financial processes to ensure compliance.

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Challenges faced within schools

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Challenge 1: Security

Schools surveyed indicated the various security challenges they have faced by using manual and on-site security processes to ensure the safety of sensitive data. With unique security concerns such as student records, parent account information and internal data, schools need to be up to date with the latest security features and functions. Schools indicated their 3 most pressing security challenges; these were intrusion detection, only implemented by (41.3%) of schools, this feature keeps data protected from attackers that are constantly finding new ways to bypass current security measures. Firewall technology (39.9%) is a must have in terms of data security, it ensures that attackers cannot access systems without bypassing the initial firewall, this is especially challenging when firewall tech is automated. The best way to implement these features would be to implement a cloud-based security software that automatically updates its security measures and systems that has the ability to keep up with evolving technological landscapes.

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Challenge 2: Compliance & Reporting

Current reporting systems that education institutions have in place have been found to require double handling, meaning that staff are spending a large chunk of their time ensuring individual details are correct in invoices, audits, records and reporting. This can lead to a multitude of problems in terms of compliance due to the possibility of human error, loss of paper trails or security breaches. If there are found to be errors within an invoice, this can lead to incorrect audit trails and fines in the future as well as problems with school records and data being incorrect. Survey results revealed that (27%) of schools with under 850 students require double handling with parent record management, this includes parent contact details and financial information. The main task that requires double handling for schools with over 850 students is academic reporting, with (33%) of participants stating this process requires the most amount of double handling.  

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Challenge 3: Finance Procedures

In terms of financial procedures, it was reported that (52%) of finance managers believe that their current school management systems were not meeting their needs in terms of productivity and compliance. (42%) of business managers reported that accounts payable was the most common time-consuming manual financial process. Due to the sensitive data and information stored in school records. Invoices and financial reports, schools need to be accurate to prevent incorrect details from being logged, the use of digitisation and automation can solve this issue entirely by keeping records stored and matched with integrity checks within each purchase order received or invoice placed.

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Schools that found help in automation

Digitisation and automation are a growing procedure amongst education institutions, with schools growing in numbers, manual invoicing and security procedures are becoming increasingly time consuming and costly. With the use of automation these processes can be streamlined to be a simple and timely task. We asked Tranby College who have implemented Alii accounts payable automation to tell us how their previous processes were improved upon.

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Carina Fu, finance manager at Tranby College implemented Alii to automate their accounts payable processes and security measures and told us how automation has improved upon their day-to-day processes and ensure compliance for their school.

"Alii is definitely one of my favourite software programs among all the new systems we implemented this year.

The clean design and simplified user guidance has made the platform user-friendly. The implementation and training process was super easy, as Alii linked and posted to TASS promptly with a full audit log.

Alii will assist budget holders in understanding their budget and streamlining the purchasing process. I foresee improved efficiency in accounts payable automation for our industry."

Carina Fu – Finance Manager at Tranby College

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Alii automation solutions

Once identifying pressing issues, education institutions should consider implementing technology that is able to provide an all-in-one automation software that is able to handle those processes. Once automation is in place, it is wise to evaluate staff responsibilities and provide new tasks to staff that have their old tasks automated. This is beneficial to a business when focus can be shifted to developing the business. Alii provides an end-to-end solution for accounts payable and procurement processes while offering intrusion detection. Alii provides software for Education sector but also Law firms, enterprises and non-profit organisations. Alii offers integrations with a wide range of school management systems such as TASS, PCSchool and Synergetic, bringing all processes to one centralised platform. As well as integration with finance/ staff management systems such as Xero, Myob and SharePoint. For education institutions considering automation, we recommend looking into software that offers these capabilities.  

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Through the digital transformation in education survey, we found that manual processes and legacy processes take up a significant amount of time and are costly. Education institutions are recognising this issue and are slowly learning about automation and digitisation, 63% of surveyed participants indicated they are interested in implementing automated processes. There are multiple roles within the education sector that could benefit from automation. These tasks can be improved significantly by implementing automation to free up time it takes to complete these tasks manually allowing staff time to focus on other things. Most manual processes such as purchase orders, intrusion detection and approvals can be automated.  

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If you’d like to see our insights report, download your free copy here:

‍https://www.myalii.cloud/campaign/digital-transform-in-education-report-2022-2023