Nowadays Digital Payments are everywhere from train tickets to paying school fees. Schools were the latest to adopt payment gateways for fee payments. Now the trend has grown to a level where the schools can’t even imagine operating fee transactions without digital payments from parents as it saves time and human errors. By the coming two decades schools and education market will be one of the major contributors to this valuation of digital payment.

So what actually is a Online payment gateway? When anyone does any monetary transaction online, the transaction is coordinated and supported by a payment gateway company. For example, when you pay from a train booking app like IRCTC, the payment doesn’t go directly to the bank of IRCTC. It will be processed and supported by an intermediary or third party company that accepts the payment from the card or bank and informs IRCTC that the payment is received successfully. The payment Gateway Company or bank transfers the money to the company or the beneficiaries only after some hours. So for the presence of payment gateway, the person can experience the transaction as instant.

So how can an online payment gateway prove to help in the success of any educational institution? Following are the list of benefits with brief descriptions:

1. Creates a Stable & Rapid Cash flow: Using online payment gateways for the institution, the management can rely and make ensure the cash flow availability far better than how could be using demand drafts and cheques. Online Payment gateways of any bank transfer the transacted amount for a day usually in the next few hours and there is some payment gateway which transfers the amount may be within a day. So you can check your payment gateway to understand better about the status about your transaction. So with the stable flow of incoming cash to the institution’s bank account, other activities can be planned & executed better using the resources usually allocated for fee collection and daily accounting.

2. Forget the Usual Troublesome Traditional Payment Process: When you collect fees as cash or demand drafts there are lot of human interventions and long queues for depositing the fees and in the process this wastes a lot of the precious time for both administrators and parents. Also, the risks associated with cheques like non-clearance due to insufficient amount or within in a stipulated time line are nullified due to moving to digital payment solutions.

3. Collect any Payment amount for any fee head from Parents Online: The application of Online payment gateway in the institution is not only limited to school fee heads, but also to any kind of payment from parents like any extra charges or fine amount. It can be the sale of admission form as well. Once the Online payment gateway is dedicated to the institution, administrators can use it in different ways creatively.

4. Immediate & Minute Detailed Reports at Fingertips to Help with Quick Decision Making: With the integration of digital payment gateway in the institution, all the reports regarding fee transactions will be available in a single dashboard with minute details about the collections. Admins can see the total fee collected day wise, previous day, last week collections, etc. and can generate graphical reports as well. Admins can see any failed transactions or fee payments where the transaction is successful but fee receipts are not generated. All these reports will be instantaneous and based on latest transactions. The flexibility and clarity of reports may vary from payment gateways of various banks.

5. Accept Payments from anywhere, anytime across the Globe: With the implementation of online payment gateway, there are no boundaries across the globe where parents can make payments. They can pay from anywhere across the globe where internet connection is available. They just need a valid bank account that is compatible with the payment gateway, which will be clearly mentioned on the payment page. This is not only helpful to international parents but also for every parents who doesn’t have time to travel to the school and stand in a queue to make payments.

6. Payment Collection works 24*7 without any interruptions: The traditional payment collection works only during school hours i.e. – was not flexible. With the help of Online payment gateway, there are no limits on the working hours. Parents can pay at any time like early in the morning before leaving for their day or late in the evening after returning from work.

7. No limitation to the Payment Modes: Accepts the payment from parents via multiple modes like Credit cards, Debit cards, Net banking, UPI and different types of online wallets like Paytm, PhonePay, PayUMoney etc.

8. Instant Communication and updates to Parents: The fee receipts for online transactions are generated instantly hence the communication gap is reduced to minimal. Messages sent to parents in the form of SMS, emails or mobile app alerts helps in effective communication. This helps the parents for better understanding of whether the transaction was successful or not. Thus there is no requirement to contact school separately to collect the receipt. The ERP software integrated with the payment gateway will generate the receipts which can be downloaded and kept for further purposes.

Vidyalaya School ERP comes with various online payment gateway integration for a smooth & hassle free experience of collection of fees.