Education finance software providers need schooling

One in five finance leaders working in UK academies and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) grade their existing finance software as 'Requires Improvement' or 'Serious Weaknesses'. 

Our latest research into the views of finance leaders working in UK academies and MATs shows that almost one in five (18%) graded their finance software as ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires Improvement’. This is only marginally less than a year ago when 22% graded it as 'Inadequate.'

Our survey looking at the views of over 100 CFOs and senior decision-makers working in UK academies also showed that just over a third (34%) rated their current software as ‘Outstanding’ - up slightly from 30% in 2023. 

This shows more work needs to be done to ensure that education finance software providers can make the grade.

Lyndon Stickley, Chief Executive Officer at iplicit, said: “I’m not surprised that these results show education accounting software providers ‘must try harder’. We have witnessed a real appetite among education leaders to break free from the shackles of legacy, on-premises software and migrate to a scalable true cloud finance software that is up to the job. Since launching into the education sector in 2023, we’ve already onboarded 500 schools onto our platform and we fully expect to cross the 1,000 schools threshold in 2025.

"This lack of confidence supports results published by the National School Trust Survey, organised by the Confederation of School Trusts in late 2023. Researchers in this independent survey found the number of Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) CEOs who were very confident or quite confident of financial sustainability dropped from almost three quarters in 2022 (72%) to less than half in 2023 (46%).”

iplicit move into the education sector 

iplicit for Education was launched at Bett in 2023 and is rapidly becoming recognised as the genuine alternative to old accounting systems that trusts have outgrown. Over 300 schools were onboarded in the first 12 months alone.

While we've only been in education for eighteen months, our team has supported schools and trusts for decades.

The education edition is based off the highly successful non-profit version that launched in 2019. Gaining 10’s of thousands of daily users in the first 5 years, it was later tailored and enhanced for the specific needs of education customers in partnership with MAT CFOs and sector specialists.

Our entire team is committed to providing powerful, yet affordable finance solutions to markets where existing on-premises vendors have failed to innovate and cannot provide a true cloud solution. You can meet the team at SRMS, MATPN, ISBL or Schools and Academies Show conferences throughout the year.

Stickley concluded: “The continued success of MATs will be underpinned by great technology to support their processes including for the finance teams. We look forward to meeting education finance leaders at an upcoming event, and helping to support them with their bespoke accounting needs.”

Finance software for multi-academy trusts

A finance solution for multi-academy trusts (MATs) of all sizes, iplicit has a modern, user-friendly interface that will resonate with busy finance teams and MAT leaders.

As you grow, iplicit empowers your MAT to add schools quickly and efficiently, without charging the disproportionate costs that other vendors do for adding academies.