Moving away from time-consuming email approvals to automated workflows: a case study with Epsom Girls Grammar School

How automated bill approvals in a New Zealand school saves time for the finance team, approvers and auditors

Epsom Girls Grammar School is a leading New Zealand school founded on traditions of service and commitment to girls’ education. Their focus is on developing young women into confident and resilient learners who actively contribute to their communities.

Epsom Girls Grammar School attempted to eliminate paper a while ago when they made a start of digitising their bill approval process by emailing approvers invoices as PDF files. However, this approach left much to be desired, and the staff still found it rather time-consuming. 

With ApprovalMax, the finance team and approvers from the various school departments no longer need to engage in drawn-out email correspondence, so all of them have more time for key tasks. The finance team uploads the invoices and submits them for approval, meaning they go to the approvers as specified in the predefined workflow straight away. No more PDF editing, all approvers have to do is check the invoice and the charge code then click one button to approve. After the final approval, bills are published to Xero automatically, again saving the finance department staff valuable time. 

Audits are also a much quicker process since ApprovalMax has been implemented. An audit trail is generated automatically as part of the approval process flow so that each approved document published to Xero has an audit report containing its detailed approval history.

The top three ApprovalMax benefits according to the Epsom Girls Grammar School finance department are:

  • Time savings for the finance department, approvers and auditors thanks to automation
  • Simplified the audit process
  • When they have queries, ApprovalMax users can leave a comment  

Epsom Girls Grammar Schools found out about ApprovalMax in our webinar Tech talk with a Partner: presenting the Solutions & Services recommended app stack for schools. If you’re interested in learning more about establishing spend control and automating authorisation processes in schools, feel free to watch or have a look at the webinar recap in our blog

Ready to try ApprovalMax and check out these and other benefits? The first 14 days are free!