Smart business: from financial aid to fundraising, cutting-edge software can streamline your business process, saving you time and money

University Business, Jan, 2005 by Tim Goral

When it comes to money--from financial aid to fundraising--there's always paperwork involved, and usually far more than seems necessary. That's why administrators are always on the lookout for ways to streamline operations, improve customer service, and maybe even save some money along the way. Here's a look at how some schools are using technology to make a difference.

No more lines

Traditions are usually a good thing, but at Sam Houston State University (Texas), there's one tradition that administrators and students don't miss. That's the annual "Coliseum event" in which new and returning students converge on the school's Johnson Coliseum sports facility over the course of a few days to take care of late registration, submit financial papers, and get aid disbursement checks.

"It had been going on 15 or 20 years," says George Rollins, director of the school's Bearkat OneCard system. "Over the years we've gone to an online early registration system, and that's helped tremendously but, for whatever reason, transfer students and others just don't get around to early registration. There is always a good number of students who wait until the last minute."

And during that last-minute registration rush at the beginning of each semester, the university had for years distributed refunds via paper check during the Coliseum event, requiring significant staff time, added expense, and limited options for students. Problems were compounded by the fact that there was no common data available to be shared between the Financial Aid and Administrative Accounting offices, so errors and stop payments on paper checks were costly for the school

"Basically, it was a logistics nightmare," says Rollins. "There were long lines throughout the day. In fact, at one time we had a live camera feed on our school website so students could see how bad the lines were and whether they wanted to come register now or wait until the lines were shorter. It was a time-consuming, maddening process."

The solution came 18 months ago as part of the automated OneCard system provided by the Higher One company of Connecticut. SHSU wanted to provide students with the latest in integrated banking services through the university's ID cards in a format that could be used off campus as well as on campus without hassle for local businesses, accessible through an online OneAccount checking account, and a OneRewards program for local merchants. Then they learned they could streamline the distribution process. When students sign up for the card (as more than 85 percent have) they can choose to have their refunds automatically deposited to their accounts.

"Students select their refund preferences beforehand," Rollins says. "They don't need to be there on line, and we don't have to have personnel there to write checks or fill out the different ACH (Automated Clearing House) forms. We just send an electronic file to Higher One and they take care of it. It really speeds up the process."

"The reduction in the time-consuming processing of paper checks has freed our staff to devote their attention to new entrepreneurial activities," says Jacque Gilliam, associate VP of Finance and Operations at the university.

The result is a cost avoidance of $240,000 in the first semester of the program, money that can be diverted to other uses. Administrators expect to reach $400,000 in cost avoidance gross over the year. The savings have allowed a number of departments on campus to better cope with state-mandated budget cuts of 10 to 15 percent. Those efficiencies have helped the campus avoid the prospect of personnel reductions as well as improve student services.

An added benefit: The Bearkat OneCard program has generated significant levels of commerce. Over $3.4 million was transacted through OneCard during the fall of 2003 on campus and in surrounding communities.

Attracting Donors

Donor gifts are a big part of the financial lifeblood of any institution, and finding a way to manage constituent information to generate greater gifts from school supporters is always top of mind. One system that claims to do just that is ... well, One, by Iowa-based RuffaloCody. It's the "next evolution" of two of the company's legacy products (Summit and Ascend) that have come together in a new web-based donor and member management software package.

"We had a fundraising system in place here for many years that was fairly old and clunky to put it mildly," says Adam Kahan, vice president of University Advancement at Ryerson University in Toronto.

"One is a full-fledged, web-based fundraising database system that answers all our needs in the maintenance and use of all our donor records," says Kahan. "It enables our staff to be proactive in terms of their relationships with donors and prospects. It has very strong reporting features and has good content management and customer relations software."

Because it is web-based, One allows fundraising and alumni association officers to get critical data about their constituents virtually anywhere they have access to the web. Time and cost savings result from being able to access information directly, without tying up support staff time. "In the long run this is a cost effective system for our business needs," notes Kahan. "The motivation to change wasn't to save money in this instance, although obviously that was a consideration. The functionality was what mattered to us; the ability to serve our business needs with a system that would do so was what really mattered."