News
Our online school payment software just keeps on getting better. For the latest cashless school news, features and case studies read on.
Our online school payment software just keeps on getting better. For the latest cashless school news, features and case studies read on.
6 March 2017 Comments Off on SchoolNews: “Review your e-commerce system to save time and money” Case Studies, News, School Donation, School Donations, Software Features, Student Management System
E-commerce for efficiency and improved finances is well covered in this Term 1 2017 issue of SchoolNews magazine. Ellerslie School is profiled on page 12 “Revenue up at Ellerslie School with Kindo” featuring how the school cashless payments system, Kindo, has increased donation collection 20% and also improved funds earned through fundraising on the e-commerce platform. Kindo “more than pays for itself”.
The e-commerce feature on page 24 features more information on e-commerce and how schools are using technology to improve their efficiency, reduce forms and paperwork, and improve finances. Articles are shown below… Continue reading SchoolNews: “Review your e-commerce system to save time and money”
1 November 2016 Comments Off on Gazette Focus: “Digital Transformation a win-win” at St Thomas’s School Case Studies, News, School Donation, Student Management System
Kindo is featured 
as the online school payments system that has been described as ‘transformative’ for the school administrative team and the school community at Auckland’s St Thomas’s School, in this article published by the Education Gazette Focus, October 2016. Integrated with ETAP student management system and used for PTA fundraising, paperless show tickets as well as instantly updating ETAP with payments, Kindo’s saved the office hours in payment processing and reduced foot traffic in the office, cut down on volunteer time and made it easier for parents. St Thomas’s School note that they’re seeing payments come in more quickly too. View the full article. Continue reading Gazette Focus: “Digital Transformation a win-win” at St Thomas’s School
26 July 2016 Comments Off on School News: Cashless payments remove administration woes News, School Donations, Student Management System
Earlier this year, School News magazine featured an article called ‘Cashless payments remove administration woes’.
Did you know that New Zealanders use electronic payment more than almost anyone else in the world? Yet a surprising number of schools still process cash payments manually. With the help of online payments system Kindo, schools across the country are shifting to cashless payments solutions. Now fully integrated with eTAP, Kindo provides a completely hands-off process which updates student account information on the fly, saving hours of admin in the school office.
“We’re happy to say it’s (Kindo) turned out to be exactly what we hoped – a payments system that works for schools.” Gae Beckingsale, Takapuna Grammar
Read the full article here.
Continue reading School News: Cashless payments remove administration woes
24 June 2016 Comments Off on Principals Today features Kindo eTap cashless payments Case Studies, News, Software Features, Student Management System
Principals Today magazine featured the integration of student management system eTap with Kindo. You’ll find it in their 2016 Term 2 issue under the banner ‘Dollars and sense’. This sure makes sense to us!
The Kindo e-commerce system provides parents with a seamless view of their account on eTap, with a quick click to pay… resulting in instant eTap updates.
View their article here. (page 19) or scroll down to read more.
Continue reading Principals Today features Kindo eTap cashless payments
24 February 2016 Comments Off on First schools get ‘flood’ of payments directly into eTAP – February update. Case Studies, News, School Donations, Software Features, Student Management System
Ellerslie School and Stonefields School are two schools well on the road to becoming truly cashless. Find out how their February has gone so far, with the introduction of ETAP integration with Kindo for fees and donations payments.
Stonefields School has processed 222 payments in the first two weeks of term, without spending any time on receipting, manual processing or reconciliation. This saves one to two hours of admin every day for finance manager, Lauren Wessels. According to Lauren, payments are coming in more quickly and there’s less parent confusion over what to pay. Kindo displays everything that each student needs in one place – from IXL Maths to fees and donations.
“When parents click on the icon for fees and donations everything they have to pay is presented together. A lot of people are paying donations and fees, in full, more quickly as a result.”
Ellerslie School’s finance manager, Dawn Findlay has had a similar experience. “We’ve had 350 fee transactions through Kindo since the beginning of term one. Every time we send out a reminder with a link directly to Kindo, we get a flood of money in. Parents love it.”
And if the idea of setting Kindo up and integrating eTAP makes you shudder, relax. Both schools found the process a breeze.
Dawn Findlay ‘couldn’t believe it was actually done.’ “Two weeks after we signed up, the system was up and running.”
Lauren Wessels comments “Kindo’s service is fantastic, other schools can rest assured that the whole integration process is pretty painless especially compared with the massive benefits it delivers.”
If you need a seamless payments system that works for your school, get in touch. We offer a FREE one month trial and super fast start up, so you can have ETAP payables, sports registrations and online permissions slips, ICAS, fundraisers, lunch and more, up and running as soon as you need it. Call Sandra on 09-869 5200 or email sandra@tgcl.co.nz.
4 February 2016 Leave a comment News, School Donations, Software Features
The collection of school donation payments can be key to the success of balancing a school budget. Here we share three key ways to ensure school payment collection is optimised for your school. Continue reading Encouraging School Donation payments
8 December 2015 Leave a comment News, School Donations, Software Features, Student Management System
Kindo is the first school e-commerce platform to fully integrate with Student Management System, eTAP.
This means that schools using the SMS can cut out all office handling of parents payments by signing up to Kindo. School invoices on eTAP can be paid online through Kindo’s intuitive interface and flow directly into eTAP without the need for manual reconciliation or data entry – making school payment processing quick, easy and accurate. Continue reading Kindo integrates with Student Management System ETAP to provide “seamless automated payments”
20 January 2015 Leave a comment News, School Donations, Software Features
Need to encourage families pay for the whole package, but still let them opt out of voluntary bits?
Package up your Year 1, Year 2… Back To School Fees, create your own Stationery Packs and more.
Kindo Packages are a great way to offer easy, customized packages for parents, making it easy for them and encouraging them to pay for all the things you want, without forcing them to pay for the parts they don’t want or need. Continue reading Back To School Packages made easy for parents and administrators
25 June 2014 Comments Off on Takapuna Grammar School finds payment solution Case Studies, School Donations, Software Features
Office admin time handling cheques and cash ‘drastically reduced’ and queues in the shop became shorter after Takapuna Grammar School introduced Kindo as an online payment option in term one 2014.
The catalyst for the decision was a recurring start-of-year bottle neck in stationery and uniform sales.
“There’s a very small window of time when parents can purchase these items,” explained Finance Manager, Gae Beckingsale. “We want all students to be equipped for learning as soon as possible.”
Feedback from parents was that the existing system was not user-friendly, so the school started to look for a more convenient and secure payment system.
“We’d been approached by a number of companies offering payment solutions but when we dug down into each one, it became apparent that they had little understanding of how schools and their accounting systems actually operate. Kindo was different,” said Gae.
“It was patently clear that Kindo had been thought through by people who were used to dealing with schools,” she continued. “The fact that Kindo wasn’t a pilot but was already being used successfully across the country also really helped.”
Once the system was up and running, shop manager Jo Fitzsimmons created a separate pick up zone for pre-paid goods.
“At the beginning of the term we schedule the classes through the shop to speed up stationery
collection. Having a pre-pay option through Kindo meant that we were able to cut down on the time that students had to spend out of class,” said Jo.
Takapuna Grammar now plans to add school fees and donations to their Kindo payment options and the tuck shop will offer a prepayment service using Kindo later this year. Update: Takapuna Grammar School now offer all options online.
The system also seems to be working well for the parent community. “We’re expecting online payments to continue growing because it’s clear that our parents are happy,” said Gae. “When we first looked at Kindo, we were immediately struck by how well thought out it was. We’re happy to say that it’s turned out to be exactly what we hoped – a payment solution that works for schools.”
19 November 2013 Comments Off on Stonefields School using Kindo payments software Case Studies, School Donations, Student Management System
At the end of 2012, Stonefields School Principal Sarah Martin was invited to trial Kindo, software designed to allow parents to pay any student fee online, 24 hours a day, in one place. The school began the trial in Term one 2013 and currently offers parents online payment options for trips, ICAS exam payments, camp, Mathletics, Maths Whizz, swimming, fundraising events and school donations
“The system is easy to administer,” confirmed Principal Sarah Martin. “It allows us to charge families for activities as the fees are incurred, rather than rolling all the payments into one lump sum due at the beginning of the year. It’s a more transparent pay-as-you-go option for families. We received 95% of our budgeted school donations by the end of June this year – almost 20% paid through Kindo.”
With an increasing number of double income families in the school community, part of the system’s appeal is that it fits the lifestyle of working parents and gives them the flexibility to pay online at their convenience. Parents are finding it increasingly difficult to find time to pop into the office.
Angela Cosford is the mother of two Stonefields students in year zero and year three. She started to use the school’s e-commerce software as soon as she heard about the new payment option.
“I prefer to pay for as much as I can with my credit card to earn points. I’ve really enjoy using the system, it’s very logical.”
Kindo software supplies a weekly audit-ready report of payments taken over the previous seven days to back up the single lump sum transferred directly into the school bank account every Friday. Currently payments then have to be manually entered into the school’s financial system but Stonefields is working with The Growth Collective on a development that will allow the school to automate this process so information can be uploaded directly into their student management system. Update 2016: Student Management System ETAP now integrates with Kindo to provide this automation.
Ease of use: Camp refunds
Recently Stonefields ran a Year 7/8 school camp. Two children were unable to attend at the last minute due to illness, so the school had to refund payments. One family had paid through Kindo leaving a clear audit trail – the school was able to repay the money quickly and easily with no need to seek further information. The other family had paid by cash or cheque. It took longer for the second family to receive their refund and tied up much more administrative time in the process.
“We’re getting money in much faster since we started using Kindo,” said office administrator, Ellie Kinley. “The system is easier for our parents – we’ve had no complaints at all. Kindo has no set up cost, it’s up and running within a day and is so easy to manage. I really can’t see why any school wouldn’t give it a go.”