1. SIMS Agora online payments
Helen Browning Account Manager

2. The new online payments solution from SIMS

3. Easy way to pay for school items

4. Helping the whole school community

5. SIMS Agora… for schools
Secure, integrated online school payments
Seamless automatic integration & updates with SIMS.net
Seamless automatic integration & updates SIMS Dinner Money
School manages bank account administration
Faster payment reconciliation
Allows parents to manage their own login details
Improves security & safeguarding

6. Education Local Government
Processing over £2.2billion payments per year
Over 2 million payment transactions per month
Housing
Local Government

7. So What?
Why Agora?

8. Safe ▪ secure ▪ resilient Trusted
Making school payments simple
Easy to use
Integrated
Safe ▪ secure ▪ resilient
Trusted
Microsoft

29. SIMS Agora automatically shows each pupil’s dinner money balance
Balances and payments automatically synchronised & updated between SIMS Agora
Parents can pay online for their child: SIMS Dinner Money is automatically updated

30. Payments made online by parents for their children through SIMS Agora are automatically updated in your SIMS Dinner Money module for the pupil’s account
Any cash or cheque payments entered into SIMS Dinner Money manually will also show in the parent’s SIMS Agora account

31. SIMS Agora payment details include the payment card type, bill payer name, date, amount per pupil & payment reference

32. SIMS Agora update Launched at January 30th 2013
Early Adopter Scheme (field trials) started January - April 2013
Availability update – target SIMS Spring 2013 Release
Continuing developments through 2013

33. Agora pricing Annual subscription based service 1 or 3 year options
Range of training options
Transaction fees:
Debit card: 30p per transaction
Credit card 1.6% per transaction
No gateway charges

34. SIMS Agora Pricing – 1 year option
Standard Annual Subscription
One-off Connection & Configuration fee
Single-site Sales:
Primary / Junior
£395 per year
£200
Secondary / Senior School
£975 per year
LA/Group Sales (min of 20 or more schools committing to purchase Agora in a single purchase/group deal)
£295 per year
£875 per year
Subscriptions will be pro-rated within the year, with all contracts renewing on 1st April.

35. SIMS Agora Pricing – 3 year option
Annual Subscription Introductory Offer orders placed up to 31st August 2013
Standard Annual Subscription
One-off Connection & Configuration fee
Single-site Sales:
Primary / Junior
£295 year 1
£395 per year
£200
Secondary / Senior School
£795 year 1
£975 per year
LA/Group Sales (min of 20 or more schools committing to purchase Agora in a single purchase/group deal)
£235 year 1
£295 per year
£635 year 1
£875 per year
Subscriptions will be pro-rated within the year, with all contracts renewing on 1st April.
Prices are for a 3 year contract per school.
All customers paying the introductory price for year 1 will pay standard pricing for years 2 & 3.

36. Easy parent/guardian account activation
About our new online payment service

37. Supporting schools with parent engagement

38. Agora - Looking ahead
Cashless Catering
DINNER MONEY
FMS
InTouch
SLG

39. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
“Using SIMS Agora has been very easy for our school – it just works! The setup and training was all very straightforward – just a few simple steps.  After the setup all we had to do was activate the parent groups. Then we sent out letters with the easy-to-use guide for our parents that Capita provided  – it really was that easy. We find the system very intuitive to use.  SIMS Agora helps us to keep track of school finances like dinner money payments and nursery fees.  Our parents like the system too and really appreciate the convenience of being able to make payments online, whenever and wherever they wish to. Mrs Jean Robinson, Office Manager, Didsbury CofE Primary School, Manchester

40. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
“Our school has been using SIMS products like FMS for many years, so selecting SIMS Agora for online payments was a logical choice to keep everything in one place.  As an integrated SIMS product, SIMS Agora provides us with the peace of mind that our pupils’ data is kept securely.  We don’t have to put our data into a separate system or worry about keeping records up-to-date as any changes we make in SIMS are updated across Agora automatically.

41. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
We use SIMS Agora for our school meal payments, integrating it with our SIMS Dinner Money system and this has worked very well indeed. We also use SIMS Agora to collect payments for our after-school clubs and music lessons. The take up from parents has been high.  I know the team at Capita are constantly adding additional features too and they work closely with us to understand our requirements.

42. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
As a school business manager, I also like the fact that we only have one single number to call for support. Whichever SIMS product we need a hand with we have the single point of contact to help us. This helps us to manage the school office much more efficiently. Since introducing SIMS Agora we have seen a real reduction in the amount of money we have to count each week for school meals and then pay into our school bank account. SIMS Agora is saving us so much time!”
Mrs Sarah Orley, Finance and Office Manager, Newlands Spring Primary School Academy Trust, Essex

43. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
“We use SIMS Agora to collect online payments from parents for our school meals and the many clubs we run.   Setup was easy and fully supported by the team from Capita throughout, meaning we quickly got to grips with using the system.  It’s easy to update and offers the flexibility to collect payments from parents to suit the way we work in the school office.

44. SIMS Agora online payments – what schools using Agora have said…
Using SIMS Agora provides our school with a cost-effective way to collect parent payments and reduces the handling of cash and cheques in the school office. This is saving time us a lot of time spent on counting money and banking administration. The integration with SIMS Dinner Money is a real plus – parents can access SIMS Agora at any time to check their child’s balance and quickly make a top-up payment.  It also serves as a record, showing a full list of any payments they have made to the school.  Payments made via SIMS Agora automatically update our SIMS Dinner Money system, which reduces the amount of time we spend on school meal administration.“ Trudy Taylor, School Business Manager, Oakfield CE Primary School, Isle of Wight

45. The new online payments solution from SIMS

46. Helen Browning – Account Manager Mobile: 07584 262986
OR Contact Me:
Helen Browning – Account Manager
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