As featured on The Educator Australia
There’s nothing worse than having to spend your own money for work purposes and undergoing the gruelling waiting period of reimbursement. Unfortunately, this is a reality for some including teachers who are enduring this avoidable big money problem fate.
According to The Educator article, the 2023 poll from Australian Education Union (AEU) revealed that when it comes to forking out for classroom supplies, a staggering 85% of principals, teachers and support staff spend an average of $885 a year, with those in NSW, WA and the NT spending more than $1,000 each a year. Based on the national average, the total spending by teachers is just under $160m a year.
Painful, right?
In addition to this financial pain of spending their own money at schools, teachers are also faced with tedious, manual reimbursement processes, often leading to frustration as they are diverting their time and energy away from other important school activities.
How can schools cut the red tape in expense management?
- Establish clear policies: Develop concise expense policies outlining allowable expenses, spending limits, approval procedures, and reimbursement processes. Educate staff members on these policies to ensure compliance and reduce misunderstandings. Check out the Expense Management Pack for School here.
- Embrace digital solutions: Transition from manual paperwork to digital expense management systems with software specifically designed for educational institutions to automate processes. Poll findings from The Educator webinar revealed that all participants would lose a receipt at some point, indicating the dire need to digitise the process to ultimately enhance overall efficiency and control.
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Automate expense reconciliation processes: Automate expense reconciliation processes to streamline the matching of expenses with corresponding receipts and invoices. This will in turn reduce manual work and increase visibility across staff records.
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Encourage expense accountability: Foster a culture of expense accountability among staff members by promoting awareness of budget constraints and encouraging responsible spending habits. In turn, leading to employee empowerment and spending efficiency.
The good news? Budgetly ticks all the boxes.
Budgetly is an innovative all-in-one expense management platform designed specifically for schools. By leveraging Budgetly, educational institutions can bid farewell to costly, time-consuming, and outdated practices, empowering them to allocate resources more efficiently and focus on their core mission of education.
Hear from one of our happy customers: Hillsborough OOH
Director of Hillsborough OOSH, Judy O’Leary, said her school has saved more than 10 hours a week on manual admin since using Budgetly.
“The main thing for us with Budgetly was the convenience. The Budgetly account on Xero pretty much reconciles itself because everything is just there, and it saves us a lot of time,” she said.
“We were contacted by another company that offered similar expense management services, but we decided to use Budgetly in the end because we wanted to engage with an Australian company. They also had a good background of working with other childcare companies, which gave me a lot of confidence.”
For the full case study on Budgetly, read here.
Say goodbye to your outdated expense management process, schedule a demo with us today, or watch a 10-minute recorded demo.
Want the same for your school? Get your hands on our complimentary Expense Pack for Schools or learn more about how Budgetly helps education providers here.
Budgetly hosted a webinar on 4 April 2024 when Clements discussed how to ease your school’s financial strains and improve its financial autonomy; and how to empower employees by simplifying your school’s expense management process. The webinar also featured Kirk Peirce, Accounts Manager at Taree Christian Community School, who was on hand to answer questions around the school’s Budgetly experience.
About The Educator
The Educator Magazine is Australia’s only magazine and news website for the most senior educational professionals & decision makers.
The Educator Magazine works with some of the world’s most high profile business schools and leverages off Key Media’s global footprint to talk to the leading education executives from around the globe.
Every issue of The Educator will contain aspirational cover stories and high-level case studies providing a global and national perspective on education leadership and management best practice, as well as interviews with the finest minds in education.