Oswego School District (SD308)

Solution: ArgoFire

The Oswego School District (SD308) is one of the fastest growing in Illinois, serving over 18,000 students in 22 K-12 schools. For a district of this size, updating student fees, such as course fees, athletic fees, tickets, etc., was a time-consuming task.

Oswego’s previous fee software made it especially difficult to accurately resolve monthly bank statement fees. Reconciling the student fees became an inefficient process and a persistent headache. With this in mind, Oswego bookkeeper Deborah Smith began to research alternatives. The hunt was on for a solution that would automate, streamline, and improve fee transactions!

When Deborah learned about FrontSteam’s FastTransact payment integration with eSchoolPLUS Home Access Center through a SunGard K-12 newsletter, she quickly discovered its payment processing features matched her wish list items, such as real-time payment updates in Home Access Center and the ability for parents to see their current balance at any time. Oswego worked with FrontSteam to immediately deploy FastTransact for fee processing.

How’s life for Oswego school districts administrators after implementing FastTransact?

The district is now able to instantly update fees inside the system when payments are made. Parents and guardians are able to see what they owe at any time, and can quickly pay the outstanding amounts online. This is a critical improvement as the previous system involved an alarming amount of guesswork. Parents and guardians lacked the information they needed to pay the correct amount owed.

With FastTransact, the number of parents and guardians paying online has increased dramatically, reducing the number of NSF checks, and the costly manual processing of checks or cash and removing payments out of student pockets.