Effortlessly managing all school income with one comprehensive system

George Dixon Primary School, Birmingham

Cityserve Pay is a new cashless payment and pre-ordering system exclusively available from Birmingham City Council’s catering service, designed to cut costs and administration time for schools. Powered by sQuid, the FCA-regulated online payment provider, Cityserve Pay is the fast and easy way to manage catering, attendance and online payments for all school services, such as school trips, as well as parent communications and school bookings. George Dixon Primary School in Birmingham has recently started using Cityserve Pay, and are already seeing the benefits...

Choosing a new online payment system

Charmaine Cole, Senior Office Manager at George Dixon Primary School started searching the internet for an online payment solution, as the school was keen to become cashless and reduce their cash-handling costs, and minimise the associated office administration time that was being devoted to this, which could better be spent elsewhere. Charmaine was particularly focused on finding a system which would help them to eliminate the loss of time caused by incorrect input of lunch figures. Turning her search to Birmingham City Council’s website, she found her new online payment system. The school would be able to partner with Cityserve - their catering service provider, without having to go through a formal tender process as the Council had already done the work for them, and furthermore, they would be able to take advantage of the benefits that the system provides free of charge.*

Getting started

Charmaine reports that the process of getting started with Cityserve Pay has been very straightforward. The school has a dedicated Account Manager, who has delivered a comprehensive training session, and who remains on hand to answer any queries. Additionally, the school has received an extensive set of materials to help them to promote the new system in school and to send to parents, to advise them of the changes in advance of their starting to use cashless payments. In all, she has found the set-up process to be very simple, and starting to use Cityserve Pay has been very smooth.

The benefits

Charmaine feels that since making the switch office staff are able to manage their time more efficiently, and that as a direct result, not only is more time available to be redirected to other more important tasks, but there is a significant cost saving. Accuracy of lunch figures has been greatly enhanced, and she has no hesitation in recommending the dinner money (which includes SIMS writeback) and trips system to other schools who might be thinking about taking on an online payment provide, or switching from their current provider. She says: "The whole process has been straightforward and pleasurable, and I would recommend this to other schools without fail".

Why you should get started

• Free for Cityserve Schools - Cityserve Pay is free for schools* and free for parents to use.
• Hassle-proof switching - We handle the entire process if you currently use another payment system.
• Innovative income management solution and parent app - Intuitive system to manage payments for school services, and mobile app for parents/carers to make fast and easy payments.
• Interactive ordering and attendance - Whiteboard meal ordering in class increases meal take up and reduces queue times. Children simultaneously mark themselves as present.
• Extensive reporting - Run, access, download and export reports for income collected, dinner money debt, FSM management and much more.
• Saves you time and money - Eliminates the need to count, reconcile and bank cash as all payments are made online. Cuts costs associated with cash-handling.
• Good for the envirnment - Improves your school's environmental impact by significantly reducing food wastage.
• Unrivalled training and support - On-site training for all school administrators, dedicated school support from a named Account Manager and first line customer support for parent.

*Excluding transaction fees and SMS broadcast charges.