5 School Budgeting Tools & Software for Fiscal Planning

“Teaching is the royal road to learning.” ~ Jessamyn West

School districts across the country must create and stick to annual budgets to make sure they’re using available funds wisely and with students’ best interests in mind. In many districts, budgeting requires a combination of practicality and creativity.

At Alludo, we understand the importance of budgeting, especially when it comes to professional learning for teachers. Teachers who are supported with a robust system of onboarding and professional development are most likely to stay in their districts (and in the teaching profession). 

Since teacher turnover can wreak havoc on your budget, here are five school budgeting software options that you can use to create a budget that supports the needs of teachers and students in your district.

Table of Contents

1. What Do School Districts Budget For?
2. Why Do School Districts Need Budgeting Tools?
   1. Improved Access to Data
   2. Better Decision Making
   3. Increased Efficiency
3. What Are the Types of School Budgeting Software & Tools?
4. 5 School Budgeting Tools & Software Options to Consider
   1. #1: Questica
   2. #2: Skyward
   3. #3: Tableau
   4. #4: SPSS
   5. #5: Oracle Budgeting Cloud
5. Alludo’s Take
6. Add Cost-Effective Professional Development to Your Budget with Alludo

What Do School Districts Budget For?

A school district budget may appear, on the surface, to be simply a financial tool that dictates how much can be spent and where it may be spent in the course of a school year. Anybody who’s ever worked on a school district budget knows that it’s far more than that. It’s how school districts keep their promises to the district’s parents and students. The budget is a road map that illustrates the path to successful education and positive student outcomes, and without one, it would be difficult for any school district, no matter how well resourced, to deliver on its promises.

Here are the most important spending categories in a school district budget:

• Teacher, administrator, and staff salaries. In most schools, more than 80% of the budget goes toward paying the people who work there. Teachers, teaching assistants, paraeducators, office staff, and school administrators all play crucial roles in student education, so it makes sense that their pay would be a priority.
• Supplies. Necessary supplies may include items for office staff as well as things like textbooks, films, whiteboards, and other items that teachers may use in their classrooms.
• Technology. Computers, tablets, projectors, software, and digital tools for the classroom all fall under the category of technology.
• Field Trips. Funds must be allocated to pay for any off-campus educational trips, including money to pay a bus driver and entrance fees that aren’t being paid by parents.
• Professional Development. Every state and school district has professional development requirements for teachers and teacher aides, as well as for office staff and administrators. It’s essential to allocate part of your budget to teacher professional learning if you want your school district to be successful.

Using school budgeting software can help you make the most of the money you have available to fund each of the above categories.

Why Do School Districts Need Budgeting Tools?

School budgeting tools are necessary for multiple reasons. Since budgeting is crucial to student outcomes, it makes sense that school districts can benefit from using tools that make the process of creating a budget easier and more efficient.

Improved Access to Data

Use of budgeting tools can make it easy for school districts and administrators to access data for each school and for the district as a whole. Accurate and up-to-the-minute data can and should inform the budgeting process.

Better Decision Making

Decisions about budgeting can be difficult to make when data is scattered and incomplete. Using a budgeting tool allows for a clear overview of the district’s needs and resources. Ultimately, it leads to informed decision making about the allocation of funds to provide each school with what it needs to get to the best possible student outcomes.

Increased Efficiency

The school budget planning process can be time-consuming and delays can impact the resources that are available to students. Use of financial planning tools, including school budgeting software, can streamline the process and make it easy for school districts to arrive at a budget that works for everyone.

What Are the Types of School Budgeting Software & Tools?

If your school district wants to use a school district budgeting tool to assist in budget creation, there are several types to consider:

• Spreadsheet software. Some of the most basic budgeting tools are spreadsheets, which allow for easy customization of spending and income categories. The downside of using spreadsheets is that you may need to spend a lot of time customizing instead of being able to jump into budgeting right away.
• Online school budgeting software. Many cloud-based options for budgeting are available. The advantages of budgeting in the cloud is that you may be able to pull numbers from other areas, particularly if you’re using software that integrates with your budgeting tools.
• Visualization software. Visualization software allows school districts to view their budget using a variety of tools including things like graphs and pie charts. These visualizations can provide an overview of district priorities and make it easy to reallocate funds as needed.
• Analytics software. Analytics software can use your existing data and expenditures to determine how much you have available to spend and where funds should be spent for the best results.
• Data management software. Data management software may include budgeting as a feature. You can use it to collect data from a variety of sources and interpret it for the purposes of creating a realistic and effective budget.

The type of budgeting tool you choose may depend upon the size of your district and how you want to analyze and allocate funds.

5 School Budgeting Tools & Software Options to Consider

Here are five school budgeting software tools that you may want to consider for your school district.

#1: Questica

Questica is a budgeting solution that includes many useful features that can be helpful to school districts in the budgeting process. Here are some examples:

• Multi-year budgeting and reporting
• Position & salary planning
• Benefit planning
• Operating & capital budgeting
• Departmental transfers/allocation (aka chargebacks)
• What-if scenarios
• Reporting & auditing

We like Questica for its broad capabilities, which allow for contingency planning and reallocation of funds between departments. The starting cost for Questica is $9,950 per year.

#2: Skyward

Skyward is school management software that provides K-12 Enterprise Resource Planning. It combines tools for school finances with human resources tools, allowing for an integrated approach to district budgeting.

Financial features included in Skyward include the following:

• Budgeting
• Spending
• Accounts payable & receivable
• Applicant tracking
• Activity accounting

You can keep track of hiring and onboarding expenses and use the data to inform your budgetary decisions. As we noted above, salaries are responsible for as much as 90% of most school budgets, so it makes sense to have full integration between HR and budgeting. 

We can’t provide a starting cost for Skyward because they use a quote-based model, tailoring features and other elements to each school district’s needs. Your best bet is to contact them for a quote.

#3: Tableau

Tableau is analytics software that is used by a variety of sectors, including public education. Its special features include visualization of data. Here are some of the features you’ll find if you use Tableau:

• Data visualization
• Forecasting
• Reporting
• Statistics
• Predictive analytics

If you want a tool that will allow for a deep analysis of previous years’ budgets to allocate resources for your school district, Tableau could be the best option. 

Tableau offers three-tier pricing on a per-user basis. They charge $70 for Creators, $42 for Explorers, and just $15 for Viewers. You can decide how many people need access to your information.

#4: SPSS

SPSS is statistical software made by IBM. Most of its features are designed to provide various ways to visualize information, including the following:

• Generalized linear mixed models
• Advanced statistics
• Estimating/forecasting
• Regression analysis
• Custom reports

We think SPSS is best suited for large school districts with a desire to dig into financial and spending data to improve budgeting. 

Prices begin at $99 per month for the subscription model with auto-renewal and go up to over $5,000 per month for large enterprises. Most school districts can get what they need with the subscription model.

#5: Oracle Budgeting Cloud

Oracle Budgeting Cloud is part of Oracle’s Planning Cloud. It offers a host of features designed to make it easy to analyze data, predict expenses, and plan for budgeting contingencies. Here are some of its most important features:

• Interactive dashboards
• Forecasting
• Predictive planning
• Ad-hoc modeling and reports
• What-if scenarios

Like some of the other options we have reviewed, Oracle does not provide pricing on its website. You can visit their website to request a free demo or talk to a salesperson to get a quote.

Alludo’s Take

At Alludo, we believe that teacher professional development is a necessary part of every school district budget. We understand that proper teacher onboarding and training is part of the solution to high teacher turnover and the ongoing teacher shortage. When teachers feel supported and valued, they’re more likely to stay where they are: in the classroom making a difference in their students’ lives.

It’s for these reasons that we’ve created a pricing plan that puts teacher learning within reach for every school district, with costs starting at under $5 per adult learner per month. In return, you’ll get high engagement rates. School districts who have partnered with Alludo typically see engagement rates between 70% and 90%, and some have even reached 100%.

Add Cost-Effective Professional Development to Your Budget with Alludo

Creating an accurate school budget that allows your school district to meet the needs of teachers, staff, students, and parents is a challenge. The choices you make while budgeting will affect everything from teacher retention to student outcomes. The 5 school budgeting software options we have listed here can help you by providing necessary tools and features. You can also take a deeper dive into K-12 budgeting in our free Budgeting Webinar. 

Are you looking for affordable professional development that will fit into your school district budget? Alludo can help! Click here to learn more and get your free trial of Madagascar, a course that provides a great sample of our learning platform.