The Dunham School streamlines contract
management with Blackbaud.

Even in the best of times, school staffs are asked to wear multiple hats, often
spending time on managing internal processes. Perhaps nowhere is this
challenge more present than the annual process of managing enrollment
contracts and setting up tuition billing each year.

At The Dunham School, a pre-K through grade 12 independent Christian
school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the contract to billing process was
previously managed manually, not only involving significant time entering
and transferring data, but introducing the possibility of errors. Additionally,
managing deferred tuition was cumbersome and manual.

With Blackbaud Tuition Management already in place, several years ago, The
Dunham School took the step of a fully integrated contract management
process by implementing and connecting Blackbaud Enrollment Management
System, Blackbaud Tuition Management, and the Blackbaud Financial Edge
NXT fund accounting platform.

“We previously entered billing details manually,” said Grady Hazel, director of
Finance and Operations. “We used to create spreadsheets with everybody’s
tuition and everybody’s tuition discounts, then enter it manually into the
tuition system.”

The process is now integrated, significantly reducing time and errors. Once
an enrollment contract is generated in the enrollment management system,
tuition details from the contract are passed directly into Blackbaud Tuition
Management, where Dunham can more effectively manage the financial
relationship with their families.

Blackbaud Tuition Management handles all aspects of tuition management,
including online account access for families, a variety of payment options,
dedicated support and account follow-up services, and robust reporting
capabilities. It also integrates with their fund accounting platform, Blackbaud
Financial Edge NXT. Operating as an integrated subledger, transaction
details flow directly from the tuition management system into Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT for ease of reconciliation and reporting. Blackbaud Tuition
Management was also able to effectively process and automate deferred
tuition plans.

The Dunham School’s integrated contract management system is delivering
significant advantages in terms of time savings and accuracy. Hazel estimates
the contract to billing process alone previously required at least eight hours
of manual data entry work. That has now been reduced to four minutes.
“They tell you that you punch a button and it’s done, and that is the absolute
truth. You punch a button, and it’s there,” commented Hazel. “Furthermore,
reconciliation is a heck of a lot easier now than when I had to do it manually
because you don’t make a mistake copying the data.”