KIPP Massachusetts seeks to “provide educationally underserved students with the academic skills, intellectual habits and character traits necessary to maximize their potential in college and the world beyond.” This leading charter network has been partnering with Edstruments since July 2021 in order to expand opportunities for their 2100 students in the most economically disadvantaged parts of Lynn and Boston.
The Challenges
KIPP utilizes an accounting system that only the finance team could access. When other team members needed finance data, they would have to submit a special request or wait until the finance team released its periodic report. Pulling such reports involved:
manually downloading data from the accounting software 😐👩💻
manually inputting it into excel 😕👩💻
manually reformatting in excel 😧👩💻
manually sending it to relevant parties 😫👩💻
Not only did this take a significant amount of time and effort, the reports represented a snapshot of the network’s finances in the past rather than up-to-date information.
The Solutions
Because of Edstrument’s powerful accounting system integrations, transactions registered by their accounting software automatically reflect in Edstruments within one hour of entry. As a platform that allows unlimited users and highly customizable permissions, the KIPP finance team was able to give budget owners the ability to see only the information relevant to their role and responsibility area. This eliminated the need for manual report creation through Excel: While KIPP’s finance team previously managed 20 active spreadsheets, implementing Edstruments reduced that number to 3– an 85% reduction. Steve Pizzimenti, the KIPP Mass CFO who leads the finance team, estimated this saves his team an average of 5-10 hours of work weekly, and personally saves him 15 hours of work each month.
When asked how he would describe the process of vetting and implementing Edstruments, Pizzimenti was enthusiastic:
“With the training Edstruments provided, it was very easy to get the platform rolled out to staff. We're in schools, so financials are always a consideration, but the financial investment pays for itself in terms of people being more informed and able to make better financial decisions.”
In addition, he complimented the swift and efficient implementation led by the partner success team:
"The implementation of a new system is no small task. You all made it seamless, and with the training you made it easy to get up-and-running."
As the school year comes to a close, we're thrilled Pizzimenti and his team have been able to leverage our school budgeting platform for the benefit of students and the KIPP team. When asked what he would say to others considering changing their financial management systems, he was succinct: "I know price is a factor. and I know change can be very daunting, but looking at the hours saved...it just seems so logical.
Edstruments was founded to help public school systems including both traditional school districts and charter schools make the most of their resources on behalf of students. We work with leaders in all roles to empower their decision-making, utilizing principles like those written about in this article. Increase your collaboration, plan multiple scenarios with ease, and deploy your dollars more strategically. Interested in learning more? Reach out to our team at hello@edstruments.com today!