The 10 Best Accounting Software Solutions for Education

Educational non-profit organizations and businesses need robust education accounting software systems unified as a financial and organization management platform. The best accounting software for education handles accounting and bookkeeping, streamlines processes, makes mass global online payments, scales with growth, and increases efficiency to reduce hiring needs and costs. 

The education industry is wide-ranging, with multiple financial and accounting needs for each type of organization. It consists of traditional educational institutions (universities, colleges, K-12 schools, school districts, and pre-schools) and online learning Edtech companies for all ages and types of learners. 

What is Education Accounting Software?

Education accounting software is school accounting software and online learning company solutions that enable educational institutions and businesses to manage their finances and revenue sources, automate invoice payments, and improve financial controls, planning, and analysis. 

Why Accounting Software for Educational Institutions Matters

Accounting software matters for educational institutions because these organizations need to manage tuition, scholarships, grants, and other revenue sources, control costs, efficiently make global and sometimes multi-entity payments, complete accounting tasks, and perform accurate financial reporting with metrics and analysis for improvement. 

Top-Rated Education Accounting Software

The ten best education accounting software solutions include:

1. Tipalti
2. Blackbaud
3. Sage Intacct
4. QuickBooks Online
5. NetSuite ERP
6. Acumatica
7. Odoo
8. Microsoft Dynamics 365
9. SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA
10. Sage 100

This accounting software education list includes ERP systems and accounting software, plus add-on third-party finance automation software (Tipalti) and specialty software for the education industry.

Tipalti

Overview

Tipalti provides education industry solutions that consist of a unified, scalable platform for cloud financial automation software, including AP automation and mass payment products for organizations with global suppliers, independent contractors, and other payees. Tipalti integrates with your ERP system or accounting software and syncs data. Tipalti education industry customers include educational institutions and Edtech companies that provide online learning. 

Tipalti AP automation software reduces payables processing time by 80%, reduces fraud and errors, and strengthens financial controls. The automated payment reconciliation for accounting automation can accelerate the monthly accounting close by 25%. With Tipalti finance automation software, your educational organization can reduce its hiring needs, take early payment discounts on time, and reduce costs. 

Tipalti also offers Expense management software (combined with AP automation) for employee expense submission, approval, reimbursement, and Procurement automation software. Tipalti’s advanced FX software products, Multi-FX and FX Hedging for accounts payable work with its AP automation and mass payments software. Tipalti also offers a corporate spending card with spending rewards called the Tipalti Card. 

Features

Features of Tipalti AP automation software include:

• Self-service supplier onboarding, tax form collection before the first payment, and supplier validation with TIN matching
• Supplier invoice digital capture by headings and line items, using OCR and AI
• 3-way or 2-way PO matching
• Automated general ledger account coding using generative AI
• Application of 26,000+ payment rules to reduce errors 
• Automated global regulatory compliance, including screening against blacklists
• Guided approvals
• Global payments in preferred payment method and currency with cash flow visibility for planned payment batches
  • Payments to 196 countries in 120 currencies, with a choice of 50 payment methods
• Automated payment status to inform suppliers and reduce staff follow-up time with suppliers
• Automated real-time payment reconciliation with GL syncing to the ERP or accounting software
• Simple tax preparation reports or optional eFiling with partnered Zenwork Tax 1099 software for 1099s and 1042-S IRS forms (requires 12 calendar months of payment data)
• Business intelligence with Ask Tipalti AIâ„ 
• Real-time spending visibility and multi-entity with ERP and accounting software having these capabilities 

Pricing Category: Midrange

In addition to midsized companies and organizations, Tipalti is used by smaller high-growth organizations that add features and complexity as the educational institution or business and its budget grow. 

Education customer testimonial

Swing Education has been a Tipalti finance automation software customer since 2018. Swing Education is an education marketplace that connects substitute teachers with schools for assignments and pays substitute teachers. For Swing Education, Tipalti integrates with QuickBooks Online accounting software. 

According to the Tipalti case study,

With the implementation of Tipalti, Swing Education was able to cut the monthly close for accounts payable down to 30 minutes. In addition, Swing Education was able to grow payment volume to 15,000+ per month without adding additional resources.

Because of Tipalti, I’m no longer worried about our Accounting and Finance operations—I’m confident that our substitute teachers will get paid on time and be completely satisfied with the process. Payment day takes 5 minutes. Tipalti will continue to work for us as we grow.

— Melanie Reeves, Director of Finance, Swing Education

Blackbaud

Overview

Blackbaud offers a Total School Solution as school management and accounting software for education. It also offers separate products for Tuition Management and K-12 School Management. 

Features

Blackbaud’s Total School Solution includes these features:

• School Accounting
• Tuition and financial aid
• Fundraising & advancement
• Admissions & enrollment
• Student information 
• Learning management
• Marketing & website

Pricing Category: Midrange

Sage Intacct

Overview

Sage Intacct offers cloud accounting software for educational institutions and education organizations, including nonprofits. The Sage Intacct accounting system for education is used in public and private schools, colleges, associations, agencies, and libraries. Sage Intacct software is also used by Edtech companies providing online learning. 

Features

Sage Intacct education accounting software with nonprofit features includes:

• Accounting for schools and other educational organizations
• Tuition management
• Multi-entity and multi-location
• Handles GAAP and nonprofit accounting, including Form 990 submissions
• Grant management tracking, reporting, and reimbursement and fundraising
• Budgeting, financial planning, and forecasting
• Automated consolidation and revenue recognition
• Real-time, multi-dimensional visibility
• Stakeholder, donors, and grantors information sharing 
• Dashboard with metrics and KPIs
• Over 150 standard reports plus customization
• Payroll and HR software modules for schools

Sage Intacct partners with FACTS, a third-party software provider, to enhance its education industry offerings for school financial management and nonprofit accounting functionality.

Pricing Category: Midrange

QuickBooks Online

Overview

QuickBooks Online is primarily small business cloud accounting software, with pricing plans for startups up to organizations with up to 25 users for QuickBooks Online Advanced. QuickBooks online is used by educational institutions and companies that include Edtech. 

Features

QuickBooks Online features for education accounting software include:

• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Payroll for schools (optional module)
• QuickBooks Payments (with approval)
• Invoicing with the PayNow button
• Recurring billing

QuickBooks Payments is integrated with QuickBooks Online to enable payment processing through QuickBooks’ parent company, Intuit. Payment methods with QuickBooks Payments include credit cards, debit cards, ACH bank transfer payments, PayPal, Venmo and Apple Pay. 

Pricing Category: Low

NetSuite ERP

Overview

NetSuite ERP provides a school finance solution for educational organizations that it sometimes refers to as school management software. NetSuite is also used by businesses in all industries, including tech companies, to meet the needs of Edutech online learning companies and other businesses that provide services and solutions to education companies. 

NetSuite provides cloud software as a management system that provides financial data, real-time results with dashboards, and customized and standard reports. It can be implemented as multi-entity, global software. NetSuite offers webinars to learn more about its accounting solution features. 

Features

NetSuite ERP features, as accounting software for education, include:

• Financial management and accounting
• Constituent relationship management
• Fundraising
• Online E-commerce
• Business intelligence
• Global business management

According to Oracle NetSuite, “Constituents are individuals and organizations with whom your nonprofit interacts. They include volunteers, donors, and recipients” as stakeholders. Like the business application of customer relationship management software, constituent relationship management also uses the acronym CRM. 

Pricing Category: Midrange

Acumatica

Overview

Acumatica is a modern cloud ERP system for multiple industries, including education, non-profit, and general business. Acumatica also provides industry-specific editions for manufacturing, distribution, construction, professional services, and retail (including eCommerce). Acumatica ERP integrates with third-party software, offering solutions for educational institutions and other education industry participants. 

Features

Acumatica features include:

• Financial management
• Project accounting
• Payroll management
• Multi-entity and intercompany accounting
• Reporting, dashboards, and Data Analysis Toolkit
• Customer relationship management (CRM)

Pricing Category: Midrange

Acumatica prices its SaaS software based on usage instead of by the number of users. 

Odoo

Overview

Odoo is a SaaS, modular ERP system consisting of many cloud apps that include accounting solutions and management tools. A third-party developer, OdooExpress, offers a modular education industry platform solution called Odoo ERP for Education Management which targets educational institutions. 

Features

Odoo ERP for Education Management features include accounting and school functionality:

• Fees management
• Admission management for enrollment
• Student information system and document management
• Attendance management
• Timetable management
• School information system (SIS) with communications
• Course planning
• Grading
• Resource allocation

Pricing Category: Low (per user per month for all apps) for the Odoo SaaS pricing plan

Additional costs apply for using Odoo ERP for Education Management from OdooExpress. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Overview

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an ERP system used by many industries, including the education industry for generating financial information and managing organization or business operations. Microsoft Dynamics may be deployed as hosted cloud-based software, on-premises, or hybrid. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 natively integrates with Microsoft 365 software apps, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Power BI, Power Platform, and Azure. 

The Microsoft Education Accelerator helps developers create an industry-specific solution for the education industry using common data models with business logic integration. The Microsoft Education Accelerator (not intended for on-premises deployments) can be used for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and employs tools beyond Microsoft Power Platform. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 software also integrates with many third-party apps featured in its AppSource online marketplace to provide add-on functionality, including administration and student management, for the education industry.  In Microsoft AppSource, Tipalti is listed as one of the software companies providing third-party add-on products for finance and accounts payable automation. 

Features

Microsoft Dynamics 365 education accounting functionality includes:

• Education accelerator for customized development in the education industry
• Accounting and financial management
• Real-time visibility 
• Copilot for AI and Finance
• Integration with Microsoft 365 apps and Power Platform

Pricing Category: Midrange for medium-sized companies to high cost for large enterprises

SAP ERP and SAP S/4 HANA

Overview

SAP ERP and SAP S/4 HANA are very high-end ERP systems for large organizations and businesses. SAP ERP will be phased out and replaced by SAP S/4 HANA by 2027, with the end to maintenance and updates in 2027 and extended maintenance until 2030. Some organizations use both SAP ERP and SAP S/4 HANA. In a more general sense, SAP ERP may be used as an all-inclusive term to refer to all types of top-tier SAP ERP systems for large enterprises. 

SAP S/4 HANA may be deployed as cloud, on-premises, or hybrid software. SAP excels at providing a higher education and research solution with SAP S/4 HANA Public Cloud Edition. 

Features

SAP S/4 HANA higher education & research features include:

• Financial accounting and budgeting
• Grant management
• Joule AI Copilot navigation for budget management, grantee management, and fund accounting
• Budget uploads from financial planning software or Excel
• Real-time insights

Pricing Category: High 

Sage 100

Overview

Sage 100 is an ERP software product that can be used in the education industry instead of Sage Intacct. It is used in many industries, including education. Although Sage 100 lists industries served, including nonprofits, it doesn’t have an industry-specific version for education. However, it does have customers in the education industry. 

Sage 100 is deployed as cloud-hosted or on-premises software by small and mid-sized companies. 

Features

Sage 100 software features include:

• Accounting and financial management
• Dashboards
• Financial Reports Wizard
• Integrates with other Sage software modules, including HRMS for human resources and CRM for customer relationship management
• Integrates with third-party add-on software to increase its functionality

Pricing Category: Midrange

Tips for Choosing the Best Software for Your Organization

11 tips for choosing accounting software for educational institutions and Edtech companies include:

1. Scalability: Your accounting software, including add-on automation software, should be scalable to enable handling growth in volume and complexity. 
2. GAAP compliance: Accounting software must be robust enough to accurately handle generally accepted accounting principles, including revenue recognition, expense classification, assets and liabilities for the general ledger and subsidiary journals, income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow reporting and accounting. 
3. Business intelligence and analytics: Modern accounting software uses AI to improve business intelligence and analysis, enabling spend control and cost reduction. 
4. Financial planning and cash forecasting: Planning financial results with budgets vs. actual variances and the planned timing of cash inflows and outflows is an essential part of financial management. 
5. Consider funding and nonprofit solutions, if applicable: If your educational organization is a nonprofit entity or has a non-profit component, find an accounting software solution that meets the needs of both education and nonprofit industries. The education industry may need fundraising, receivable collection, fund accounting, and grant accounting capabilities. 
6. Add-on integration solutions:  Besides basic accounting software, look for third-party add-on education industry solutions that will make your operations more efficient for handling workflows and streamlining processes, eliminate manual data entry through digitization and automation, and provide more functionality. 
7. Security and financial controls: The accounting software for education must provide adequate security and financial controls to reduce fraud and accounting errors. 
8. Cloud deployment and user interface: The software should be user-friendly with a modern UI and cloud deployment and provide real-time, multi-entity results when possible. 
9. Customer support: The software provider should provide excellent customer support. 
10. Customer testimonials and customer retention: Read reviews and testimonials, consider software awards, and ask about the customer retention rate. 
11.  Budget: Choose a solution that fits your organization’s budget but provides the highest level of functionality possible. Some software offers an upgrade path to add more features as needed. Consider cost savings when evaluating the return on investment. 

Summing It Up

Education accounting software for educational institutions and Edtech companies offering online learning to students includes many products that meet their needs. Finding the right combination of ERP or accounting software plus add-on software for automation and specialty solutions requires some software evaluation research and planning. 

Efficient global supplier payments automation software is an essential part of the solution. Tipalti provides excellent solutions for the education industry, including non-profit organizations and businesses. Explore more about global supplier payments and Tipalti financial automation software that integrates with your accounting software or ERP.