Case studies / Education
Case studyOne back office for a multi-campus school group
A multi-campus school group replaced campus-by-campus admissions, fees and purchasing with one Odoo back office, tracking fee collection daily and reporting to leadership from one view.
Overview
A private school group operating several campuses, from early years to sixth form, with a small central team handling finance, procurement and governance. Campuses had historically been run as largely independent schools under a shared brand.
Scale. Five campuses, about 4,000 students and several hundred staff, with admissions and fees across all campuses, and procurement and fixed assets ranging from textbooks to buses and laboratory equipment.
The challenge
The group's campuses shared a name and a set of values, but not a way of working. Each handled admissions, fees and purchasing differently, with its own spreadsheets, forms and habits, and the central team spent much of its time translating between them.
Admissions were tracked in different ways on each campus, from a well-kept database on one to an inbox and a paper register on another. Leadership could not see a reliable pipeline of applications, offers and acceptances across the group in the critical months before September.
Fee collection was difficult to track. Families on sibling discounts, scholarships, bursaries and payment plans were handled campus by campus, and the central finance team learned about arrears late, often after a parent had already raised a complaint about an incorrect invoice.
Purchasing followed local preference. Campuses bought similar items from different suppliers at different prices, and the central team only saw the spend when invoices arrived for payment.
Reports reached leadership and the board weeks after the period closed. Decisions about staffing, places and investment were being made on numbers that were already out of date.
The solution
Admissions and enrolment now follow one workflow across the group, from enquiry and visit to application, assessment, offer and enrolment. Campus teams manage their own pipeline, and leadership sees applications and places across all campuses in real time.
Fee plans, discounts and bursaries are set up once and applied consistently. Invoices are generated from each student's plan, families pay through the payment gateway and parent app, and collections are tracked daily with reminders for overdue amounts.
Finance and procurement run across all campuses in one system. Purchases follow a single approval process and an approved supplier list, and fixed assets, from laptops to minibuses, are recorded and depreciated by campus.
Group and campus reports draw on the same live data. Board reporting and government returns are produced from the system rather than compiled by hand from campus submissions.
Integrations keep the back office connected to the rest of school life. Enrolment data flows to the learning management system, staff records link to payroll and HR, and bank feeds reconcile parent payments automatically, so campus offices no longer match receipts by hand at the end of each week.
The engagement
- Seven months, timed to finish before the new academic year
- Five specialists
- Process standardisation with campus leaders, Odoo admissions, fee plans, invoicing, collections, multi-campus finance, procurement and assets, five integrations and a campus-by-campus rollout.
Integrations
- Learning management system
- Payment gateways and parent app
- Payroll and HR
- Bank feeds
- Government and board reporting
How we delivered it
- 01
Standardise with campus leaders
Six weeks
We ran workshops with campus heads, bursars and admissions staff to agree common processes for admissions, fees and purchasing. Campus leaders shaped the common process themselves, and genuine local needs were kept as controlled variations.
- 02
Configure one set-up
Ten weeks
We configured a single Odoo set-up with campus-level controls, approvals and reports, so each campus could manage its own work while the group saw everything in one place.
- 03
Migrate and test
Six weeks
Student, fee and supplier data was migrated and tested with each campus office, using real families and real invoices to check sibling discounts, bursaries and payment plans.
- 04
Campus rollout
Eight weeks
Campuses went live one at a time during the summer term, so every campus was on the new system before the next academic year and its first fee run.
Results
- Daily fee collection tracking across campuses
- One consolidated view of admissions and finance
- One purchasing process and approved supplier list
- Board and government reporting produced from the system
Fee collection is tracked daily across all campuses. Arrears are spotted early and followed up consistently, and families receive accurate invoices that reflect their discounts and plans.
Leadership now sees one consolidated view of admissions and finance. During the admissions season, the group can move marketing effort and places between campuses based on real demand rather than anecdote.
Purchasing follows one process and one approved supplier list. The group negotiates as one buyer, and the central team sees commitments before they become invoices.
Because campus leaders shaped the common process, adoption was smooth. Bursars who had been sceptical became the strongest advocates once they saw how much less time month-end took.
The new set-up has also made the group easier to grow. A further campus can be added as a new company within the existing structure, with processes, reports and controls ready on the first day.
Our campus heads designed the process, so it never felt like head office telling them what to do.
What made the difference
Campus leaders helped standardise, so the common process reflected real needs.
