Every school ERP demos well. The gaps show up in November, when you are generating term report cards and the system cannot handle your grading scheme. Use this checklist during the demo, not after.
Fees — where most systems break
- Multiple fee heads with different due dates in the same term
- Sibling, staff-ward and merit concessions applied as rules, not manual edits
- Instalment plans with partial payment and auto-calculated balance
- Transport fees varying by route and distance slab
- Late fee that accrues automatically and can be waived with an audit trail
- A defaulter report by class, section and branch, as of any date
Ask the vendor to configure your actual fee structure during the demo. If they need a week to come back, it is a customisation, not a feature.
Examinations and report cards
Boards differ, and your report card is not negotiable. Confirm the system handles your board format, co-scholastic grades, weighted term averages, re-examination records and printing that matches the layout parents already recognise.
The parent app
The purpose of the parent app is to reduce calls to the front desk. That means it must cover attendance, homework, results, fee payment, circulars and transport tracking. Anything less and parents keep calling. Check that it is published under the school name on both stores, not as a generic vendor app with your logo inside.
Questions people forget to ask
- Can we start mid-session, and how does the migration handle part-paid fees?
- Who owns the data, and can we export the whole database?
- What happens to the parent app if we change vendor?
- Is there an audit log showing who changed a mark or waived a fee?
- How are TC and bonafide certificates generated?