Sydney Catholic Schools are automating data consolidation, improving data accuracy, and providing real-time insights
Sydney Catholic Schools, (SCS) as part of the Sydney Diocese, serves over 70,000 students across 150 schools and is committed to providing high-quality, faith-based education, with a focus on; spiritual development, academic excellence, and personal growth. SCS supports its educational mission by; prioritising innovation, technology, and professional development for students and educators.
Critical to Sydney Catholic Schools’ finance function is the sustainability and effectiveness of its operations by managing budgeting, financial planning and reporting, and also compliance with regulatory standards. The finance function also performs payroll and procurement to utilise resources efficiently.
The finance team’s remit also includes providing valuable financial insights and guidance, to assist school leadership make informed decisions that align with SCS’s strategic goals and educational objectives.
A Better Planning Process
SCS was seeking a more efficient and accurate solution for managing financial and operational reporting. GK Horizons were introduced via CEnet (Catholic Education Network) and demonstrated the Workday Adaptive Planning platform. SCS staff also attended a report writing masterclass highlighting the platform’s ease of use and flexibility. SCS then selected GK Horizons (Implementation Partner) and Workday Adaptive Planning (EPM Solution) to automate data consolidation, improve data accuracy, and provide real-time insights.
Phase One
SCS requires a financial reporting solution that expedites manual processes, simplifies tasks, and mitigates the key person risk associated with financial reporting and analysis, which had relied heavily on complex spreadsheets and workbooks.
The implementation’s first phase will focus on integrating TechOne Trial Balance and Financial data with Workday Adaptive Planning to reducing the manual burden of their current process and ensuring efficiencies around financial reporting and analysis.
Future phases will include Budgeting, Personnel and Student data reporting.
SCS project success measures:
- Faster month-end financial reporting
- Improved accuracy levels
- Freeing up the finance team time for data analysis and interpretation
- Reduce manual reporting efforts and achieving cost savings
- Monthly financial reports templatised and customisable
- Automate current monthly reporting package
- More efficient production of budgets and 10-year forecasts
- Enable SCS internal resources to develop reports and Workday applications independently
GK Horizons is also working with CEnet, Catholic Schools NSW (Case Study in progress) and also Catholic Health to improve their planning capabilities with Workday Adaptive Planning.
Contact GK Horizons or learn more about Workday Adaptive Planning.
