Cash payments in the Junior Cafeteria and weekly dinner money collection in the school office for the infants, had sometimes led to confusion as to which children had paid when they turned up for lunch. This situation was expected to get much worse with increased numbers due to UIFSM. A new cashless catering system was required which would not only remove the need for cash in both locations but would help in tracking and reporting on free meal entitlements.
The school required a cashless catering system that would give a simple way to keep on top of student’s accounts; who had taken a school lunch, had they paid? A simple way to know who had paid, who hadn't, were balances up to date or overdrawn?
In addition to making the fl ow of students through the lunch service more effi cient, a priority was to remove cash from the catering environment in order to ease the burden on catering staff and to give the school improved visibility and control of the fi nancial situation.
The school already had a cashless catering system but sought improvements in the way that money is loaded into the system, the level of reporting and in overall fi nancial management with tighter controls and greater visibility of the status of students accounts. A tight control of student’s accounts and ensure that overdrawn accounts don’t get out of control.
An existing cashless catering system was proving to be slow and inflexible, a new system to speed things up and allow administration to be moved into the office away from catering was required. Additionally there was a need for an improved method for getting information out to parents. The priority was to take control of catering administration from the school office.
The current system of using paper and relying on catering staff to track payments and numbers was unreliable and gave the school no opportunity to gain control and improve the financial management of the catering operation. Student’s progress through the system was slow and not very enjoyable. A new cashless catering system would need to improve on all of the above as well as introducing new ways to communicate with parents and allow Free School Meals to be served in a more discrete way. A smooth and efficient flow of students through the tills and keeping parents informed was needed.
