As independent public schools, open to all students, Charter schools are governed by a local Board of Directors appointed to meet established educational standards. While the reporting guidelines and audit trails are structured differently from state to state, every state system implementing charter schools employs a high volume of reporting.
Michigan, for example, has 232 charter schools serving over 100,000 students, with each school routinely filing more than 100 detailed forms with various state agencies. As a result, authorizers, limited staff, and personnel, accumulate, collect and review hundreds of reams of hard data for review, and the amount of information funneled to these offices can be overwhelming.
But what if these reports could be completed in an efficient, timely manner? What if the hard data could be consolidated into one secure, centralized and accessible database for as many charter entities as there are? And what if productivity and efficiency could be increased across the board, from authorizers, Board of Directors and everyone in between? Well, if you were able to implement all that, you’d have one seriously efficient and transparent system in place. But how?
Like any multi-entity business, a system of charter schools from any state has a uniform criteria and guidelines used in reporting periodic updates and findings. While this system is off to a good start with reporting uniformity, the way reporting and data accessibility are structured pose potential barriers to efficiency.
Multiple schools
At first thought, you might think that it’s necessary to have and maintain a single, separate database for each charter entity. After all, if each school has its own database maintained by a designated person, data stays secure and each entity stays on top of its reporting obligations, right? Not so fast.
What happens when a key member of the governing Board of Directors, (who happens to oversee a third of the state’s charter schools), needs answers and updates from every school? If the hard data backing up these reports is isolated in separate databases for each location, they key member will have to wait for the head of each charter to provide this information. The immediate result is a performance bottleneck because crucial data is tedious and slow to consolidate into one financial report.
[Related: Financial Reporting for Your Multiple Companies]
Now imagine if all the data from every chartered entity was consolidated into one centralized database. Before your red lights and security concerns are raised, consider the fact that this single database will have proper security measures in place to limit and restrict access where and when necessary. If you were able to implement this secure, working dream scenario, the benefits would be felt from all schools and every overseeing office. These benefits can be felt at every charter location:
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Every piece of important data could be accessed in an instant. No more logging in and out from database to another.
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Reports and forms are produced and delivered faster with accuracy and precision as the norm, no longer the exception.
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With all this increased productivity and efficiency taking place, transparency via clear and concise reporting paves the way for exceeding educational standards.
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All 100 forms submitted by every chartered location would have readily available hard data to back up any findings, further promoting precision and transparency in reporting.
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By consolidating the data from multiple locations into one cloud based solution, you get improved visibility on any single entity at any level, at any time.
Harnessing the power of Gravity
With a single database with proper security measures in place, you can make that translation into dollars saved instead of money lost. Well let me introduce you to Gravity Software® (Gravity). Gravity’s accounting solution is written on the Microsoft Power Platform (aka Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM). If your chartered school is on an entry level accounting solution like QuickBooks, upgrade your system to Gravity Software. Learn more and schedule your online demo today! My business is connected. Is yours?
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