13 Best School Accounting Software for 2024

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT is cloud-based nonprofit fund accounting software. It’s best suited for nonprofit universities and schools that want to streamline and manage restricted funds.

Edge NXT comes with pre-designed workflows for automating reconciliations, patented expense submission, budgeting, and reporting for non-profits.

Further, Financial Edge NXT allows you to create and manage financial records for each restricted fund. You can store grant, contract, and donor agreements, track activities and deadlines, and maintain strong audit trials for each fund to maintain compliance.

Use the patented Visual Chart Organizer to streamline compliance with outside funder reporting requirements. Alternatively, leverage Insight Designer to build your own presentation of important financial metrics.

Balckbaud’s marketplace makes integrating with third-party apps, including Microsoft Excel, Paycor, and Questica, easy. You can also create custom solutions with SKY Developer tools or automate processes with Microsoft Power Platform, Paramount Workplace, and Smart PO.

Blackbaud AI helps you predict insights from restricted funds, identify potential donors, and add context to each transaction with intelligent donation forms.

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT pricing

Financial Edge NXT offers customized pricing plans tailored to your school accounting needs.

• 

  Offers user-based permission and authorization allow for better data control

• 

  Supports complex fund accounting, making it ideal for non-profits with diverse funding sources.

• 

  Provides cloud-based access, enhancing flexibility and remote work capabilities.

• 

  The UI is a bit glitchy, leading to slow navigation between tabs and workflows

• 

  Lacks canned reports that could be edited for your business use

Ellucian Banner Finance helps large institutions create connected campuses by administering their entire student and employee lifecycle. It’s a leading provider of professional ERP solutions that assist you with day-to-day administrative operations.

Ellucian’s Banner Finance helps with financial management and gathering high-level insights on procurement, budgeting, and accounting operations for large institutions.

Using its Research and Grants modules, you get a top-level view of all grant data and reporting, including the Federal Financial Report (FFR), with a proprietary grants ledger that is operable throughout the year.

Banner Finance integrates with Ellucian’s other solutions, such as Ellucian Spend Management, Ellucian Analytics, CRM Advance, and more, for seamless functionality.

It generates actionable insights from real-time data and finds efficiencies or cost savings when procuring goods and services across your institution. Also, you can securely access financial information via a robust self-service mobile app.

Ellucian Banner Finance combines multiple segments, such as My Finance Query for spend analysis, My Requisitions for working with requisitions, and My Journals to process journal vouchers, providing personalized views of your institution’s finances and operations.

Banner Finance Pricing

Banner Finance does not reveal its pricing on the official website. However, you can request a free demo and discuss quotes.

• 

  Supports complex budgeting and forecasting, helping institutions manage resources more effectively.

• 

  Great storage with advanced grant and document management functions

• 

  Offers good customer support

• 

  Lacks integration capabilities with third-party tools (compared to other ERPs)

• 

  Banner’s reporting tools are lacking. It has very few prefabricated reports with limited customization

• 

  Requires significant training to fully utilize all features

QuickBooks Online is a versatile accounting software that assists with online accounting, bookkeeping, banking, tax preparation, and filing.

Being a cloud-native platform, QuickBooks allows uninterrupted access to your finances from any device with an internet connection.

QuickBooks integrates and automates bookkeeping by categorizing bank transactions, invoices, estimates, proposals, and bills into a centralized database that is synced in real-time.

Using Mileage Tracking, you can automatically track miles and trip costs and create reports for monitoring expenses from school buses or school-governed vehicles. You can customize estimates, accept mobile signatures, see status, and convert estimates to invoices with a click.

For institutions with international campuses, QuickBook accepts payments in 175+ currencies. Moreover, you can notify customers when their payment has been received or set reminders for transactions like invoices, fees, or deposits with a due date.

With QuickBooks online, you have access to live tax experts around the year who can help you maximize your tax returns.

• 

  Offers dedicated certification and training programs for users

• 

  Provides flexibility to customize reports, user permissions, and more to suit the school’s specific needs

• 

  Easily accessible on desktop, web, and mobile app

• 

  Supports multi-user access with customizable permissions

• 

  Offers limited customer support options

• 

  Multi-currency bill payments require an upgrade to Essential/Plus plans

Zoho Books integrates various accounting functions and business processes into a single platform. It eliminates the need for separate invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reporting systems.

Plus, it’s well-integrated with payment gateways, third-party applications, Zoho apps, and partner banks for smooth accounting operations.

Easily visualize all your receivables, payables, balances, and other financial information using 70+ customizable reports. Use advanced analytics to understand your business’s performance and make data-driven decisions.

Zoho features a visual automation builder to automate monotonous tasks like converting receipts to bills, quotes to invoices, payrolls, notify updates, validate information, and more.

With Zoho’s global tax compliance system, you can automatically track your payments, calculate the sales tax you owe, and file your annual 1099s. Its integration with Avalara helps calculate final invoice amounts with the current tax rates and exemptions automatically.

• 

  Integrates with other applications in the Zoho suite, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Inventory, and Zoho Projects

• 

  Offers self-serve customer and vendor portals to lessen burdens on your administrative team

• 

  Provides robust automation for streamlining repetitive tasks

• 

  Only administrators can correct errors on invoices, which can hinder efficiency in businesses

• 

  Struggles in handling large data sets, best for small to medium-sized businesses

Tyler Enterprise ERP is an integrated solution for government and education institutions. It integrates and streamlines the management of your finances, purchasing, fixed assets, reporting, human capital, and more.

Tyler’s School ERP includes a robust student information system (SIS) for managing student records, enrollment, and attendance, ensuring accurate data tracking. Financial management tools facilitate budgeting, accounting, and reporting. And human resources management capabilities, covering employee records, payroll, and benefits administration.

Tyler Enterprise ERP, equipped with role-based dashboards, automated workflow, and interactive charts and graphs, ensures frictionless school accounting.

The BI dashboard lets you monitor key processes, quickly execute routine tasks, and eliminate time-consuming data searches. Using drag-and-drop, you can organize data as you want.

Additionally, the ERP supports communication with parents and students through portals that provide access to grades, schedules, and other essential information.

Tyler Enterprise ERP Pricing

Tyler Enterprise ERP’s official website doesn’t mention pricing. Please contact its sales team for a quote.

• 

  BI dashboards and reports make finance monitoring easy and visually appealing

• 

  Offers robust reporting and analytics capabilities tailored for government agencies.

• 

  Provides historical budget data to allow for comparisons from previous years

• 

  Has a steep learning curve due to widespread functionality

• 

  The implementation process is cumbersome and time-consuming

Skyward’s School Business Suite provides an ERP toolkit to manage finances and human resources for K-12 school management.

With Skyward, you get a comprehensive dashboard for managing all things. For example, you can view each department head, subject teacher, remunerations, and assigned duties under one roof.

Its human capital management toolkit helps with data-rich position management, staff planning, payroll processing, benefits management, and overall ACA compliance.

For managing school finances, Skyward ERP has tools for handling accounts payable and receivable, tracking extracurricular activities, budgeting, forecasting, and general ledgers with real-time information.

Skyward even assists with applicant tracking for both internal and external candidates. For example, when you have a substitute opening or want a Grade 8 class teacher, you can post jobs, receive applications, and review them in one portal.

Meanwhile, the self-serve employee portal is also helpful for employees to manage their information, fill out forms for reimbursements and time off requests, and access pay history.

Skyward Pricing

Skyward offers tailored pricing plans to meet your school’s needs. To learn about pricing, navigate to their pricing page.

• 

  Supports decision-making with advanced analytics and reporting features

• 

  Facilitates communication between parents, students, and teachers through a user-friendly portal.

• 

  Offers a drag-and-drop report writer that gives full control over data visualization and reporting formats

• 

  Software times out too quickly if inactive for a short time

• 

  Potentially experiences occasional downtime or technical issues

PowerSchool ERP is specifically designed to manage K-12 environments and simplify complex K-12 administration processes. It’s among the best school management software, serving over 75% of students in North America, with 16k+ schools and district organization partners.

With eFinancePlus, you have an integrated finance, HR, and payroll solution that syncs data across functions and automates day-to-day workflows such as approvals, reimbursements, and bank reconciliations.

PowerSchool ERP features real-time dashboards with easy-to-read visualizations and analytics, giving your administration end-to-end visibility into current financial and HR analytics. Personalize dashboards to track projects and grants, encumbrance accounting, and client-specific segments.

Meanwhile, eFinancePlus uses AI and ML technology to forecast budgets and predict outcomes using ‘What-if’ analysis, assisting the school’s administration in making informed decisions.

With self-serve portals, employees have direct access to their information, benefits, attendance, payroll, and W2 information via an intuitive, centralized location.

PowerSchool ERP Pricing

PowerSchool ERP offers custom pricing. However, you can request a live demo and connect with their sales team to get quotes.

• 

  Built-in translation to over 80 languages eliminates the language barrier.

• 

  Real-time alerts and notifications via multiple channels: SMS, email, and phone calls.

• 

  Supports scalability, making it suitable for growing educational institutions.

• 

  AI integration helps teachers automate assessments, assignments, and instructional content generation.

• 

  Lacks the ability for multiple users to work simultaneously on a file

• 

  Lacks collaboration sync between between HR, payroll, finance, and information systems

Rediker AdminPlus is a cloud-based K-12 student information system (SIS) that streamlines administrative tasks and enhances communication within educational institutions. It provides educators with a centralized platform to manage student information and take action efficiently.

Rediker AdminPlus gives a high-level snapshot of students and staff members with details like demographics, attendance, schedule, contact details, and more. The built-in “household” feature lets you query the AdminPlus database for students from the same family.

With incident and behavior management, you can document disciplinary incidents without any word limit, view past incidents, and email reports to parents without leaving the interface.

Moreover, Rediker’s AdminPlus is coupled with School Billing Software to help with school accounting and finances. You can design customized tuition and payment plans, route billing plans to appropriate students, pre-create invoices, and schedule emails for invoices for the entire year at once.

With a built-in report writer, invoices, reminder letters, notices, statistical and financial reports, and other documents can be easily created.

Rediker AdminPlus Pricing

Rediker’s official website doesn’t mention pricing. However, you can request a demo and fill out a short form to connect with their representative.

• 

  Easy to use and navigate, designed with educators in mind

• 

  Automate billing emails for the entire year with a click

• 

  Built-in report builder for creating invoices, letters, and financial reports

• 

  Lacks integrated experience with Rediker’s other products, such as PortalsPlus and Gradebook

• 

  Can be costly for smaller institutions with limited budgets.

Sage Intacct AI-powered cloud accounting lets you automate billing, payment processing, reporting, and other monotonous tasks involved in school financial management. It is the best accounting software for managing large, global educational organizations that work across currencies and tax codes.

Sage automatically creates GAAP-compliant financial statements, Form 990 submissions, and FASB-compliant reports for schools, colleges, and other public/private educational and research organizations.

Easily connect Sage Intacct to your other business tools, such as Salesforce, for a seamless data flow across platforms.

Gather and oversee all your accounting data via customizable dashboards and reports, which can be shared with key stakeholders. Sage Intacct Collaborate brings the whole team together by adding a secure social layer embedded in your Sage Intacct financial management system.

Use AI to scan thousands of transactions across your general ledgers and flag anomalies for specific actions. Intacct makes it easy to tie transactions to invoices, emails, and any document you want.

Sage Intacct Pricing

Sage Intacct provides custom pricing plans. You can fill out a form to request pricing.

• 

  Robust customization features allow for tailored account structures and personalized reports

• 

  Integrated AI helps with bank reconciliation and anomaly detection

• 

  Provides grant reports across different periods rather than just the fiscal year

• 

  Report creation settings are too complicated and may require time to master.

• 

  Sometimes, it renders and takes time to add multiple bank accounts to make payments

Tuio is a trusted school accounting software handling over $200M in payments annually. It allows centralizing all enrollment, waitlisting, billing and payments in one easy-to-use online portal.

The self-serve cloud portal allows parents to oversee their child’s progress. And for educators to collect tuition payments, automate invoices, create custom payment plans, and more.

Use Tuio’s integration with its enrollment management system to track enrollment pipelines, manage waitlists, review form submissions, collect fees, and send replies from within a single platform.

Its Tuition Management system vouches for same-day fund transfers and resolves failed payments on your behalf, so your revenue streams keep flowing.

Tuio Pricing

Tuio offers a free demo of the platform and customized pricing plans for your K-12 management on request.

• 

  Offers payment automation for scheduled or recurring fees

• 

  Real-time alerts and notifications when an invoice is overdue

• 

  Tuio has exceptional customer service

• 

  Despite being an automated payment system, partial payment of invoices is not a native feature

• 

  Limited to accounting, not fully developed as a Student Information System (SIS)

MIP Fund Accounting has been the top accounting software for schools and universities for more than 40 years. It offers modules for streamlining accounting, reporting, budgeting, grant tracking, billing, and other administrative tasks.

MIP Fund Accounting drag-and-drop report editor lets you generate reports directly within MIP and in compliance with FASB and GASB. You can choose from 340+ robust, dynamic report templates or centralize and view financials through integrated, configurable dashboards.

Using built-in budget management modules, it’s easy to create and collaborate on unlimited budget versions and build budgets against grants that span multiple periods.

MIP Fund Accounting Pricing

MIP offers custom pricing plans, and you must request pricing quotes to start with accounting.

• 

  An extensive gallery of hundreds of financial report templates

• 

  Facilitates account receivable aging and tracking

• 

  Supports compliance with various educational funding and reporting requirements.

• 

  Provides robust reporting and budgeting features to enhance financial transparency.

• 

  MIP has an outdated and inefficient bank reconciliation process

• 

  Limited visualization options often limit reporting capabilities

Vidyalaya is the most secure and integrated school ERP solution designed to streamline school management processes. Its strong emphasis is on effectively managing monetary transactions.

Vidyalaya allows schools to set up various fee structures, including tuition, extracurricular, and other charges. It automates fee collection, sends reminders for due payments, and generates receipts, ensuring a smooth process for administrators and parents.

Vidyalaya supports all types of online payments, including credit/debit cards, e-wallets, and cash options, making monetary transfers frictionless between parties.

Additionally, Vidyalaya offers analytical dashboards and reports for tracking and managing fees, expenses, and other monetary transactions across different bank accounts.

Lastly, all financial changes during school management are documented on a comprehensive log, ensuring transparency, accountability, and compliance with financial regulations.

Vidyalaya Pricing

Vidyalaya offers a free demo of the software. You can also request tailored pricing plans for your educational institute.

• 

  A well-integrated ERP solution with a biometric time-attendance solution, barcode technology, vehicle tracking, and more tools

• 

  Integration to WhatsApp and and email services to facilitate easy communication between schools, students, and parents.

• 

  Supports all major payment modes for frictionless monetary flow

• 

  Reporting templates lack relevancy and need manual customizations

• 

  Can experience occasional performance lags, especially with large data sets.

AccountEdge is a desktop accounting solution designed for small—to medium-sized businesses. It helps with general ledgers and budgets, creates financial reports, and automates payments from a unified interface called The Chart of Accounts.

The Chart of Accounts includes all your asset, liability, equity, income, and expense accounts in a cohesive dashboard. Plus, you can choose from dozens of fully customizable templates and views for balance sheets, profit & loss statements, budgeting, mileage tracking, and business insights reports.

AccountEdge for desktop accepts credit card payments and allows users to attach essential documents, such as detailed warranty information, customer contracts, or return policies, to any invoice.

With powerful bank reconciliation features, AccountEdge tracks and transfers undeposited funds to the appropriate bank account while recording adjustments and tracking cash back to the source.

Additionally, AccountEdge allows you to track billable hours and create custom billing for your employees based on fixed or custom rates using time sheets or activity slips.

• 

  Supports both Windows and Mac, offering flexibility in platform choice.

• 

  Offers robust reporting capabilities for detailed financial insights.

• 

  Allows customizing your checks, payment notifications, and credit card receipts

• 

  Lacks a cloud-based option, limiting remote accessibility and collaboration.

• 

  Limited integration with other third-party applications.