Overview
Tyndale Christian School, in Blacktown, New South Wales, is one of the many schools to start implementing Eftsure to assist its accounts team in preventing payment fraud and errors when paying suppliers.
Operating for over 57 years, it has a student population of approximately 970 ranging from preschool, all the way through to Year 12. It’s a coeducational school run by The Association for Christian Education of Blacktown, an association made up of parents and friends who believe in Christian Education; the Association also approves the annual budget.
We weren’t aware that there was a problem, but certainly by having used Eftsure we can now see the value of it
Approach
Tyndale has a relatively large number of suppliers, about 2000 in total. Brian Schick, Chartered Accountant and Business Manager at Tyndale was in charge of implementing Eftsure:
We first heard about Eftsure from a presentation to Business Managers for the group of schools that we belong to called Christian Education National. Many schools are completely unaware of the risk of fraud or the level of error that exists in their own records. This human error always occurs and is not a reflection on the capacity of the department in charge. When we sent our suppliers database to Eftsure, we were surprised about how many were on there – there was about 2,000.
Eftsure works alongside all existing accounting systems to ensure all supplier details are correct, properly maintained and mitigates fraudulent and incorrect payments.
Since we’ve implemented Eftsure, in the first month we have already had a couple of payments that have come up as going to the wrong bank, so it has already proven its worth. We have now been able to stop those payments before they are processed.
Eftsure also verifies that suppliers ABN numbers and GST status are correct, a huge issue when it comes to financial auditing.
Again, in the first month we had found that some suppliers were still charging us GST even though they were no longer registered for GST. It has helped us to manage this because if you have 2,000 suppliers on your database, it’s a big task to verify them all the time. Mr Schick adds.
Many organisations are completely unaware that they have a problem before they implement Eftsure, the nature of the errors mean that organisations simply don’t know unless they check. We weren’t aware that there was a problem, but certainly by having used Eftsure we can now see the value of it,” Mr Schick adds.
Eftsure also verifies that suppliers ABN numbers and GST status are correct, a huge issue when it comes to financial auditing.
Again, in the first month we had found that some suppliers were still charging us GST even though they were no longer registered for GST. It has helped us to manage this because if you have 2,000 suppliers on your database, it’s a big task to verify them all the time, Mr Schick adds.
Many organisations are completely unaware that they have a problem before they implement Eftsure, the nature of the errors mean that organisations simply don’t know unless they check.
We weren't aware that there was a problem, but certainly by having used Eftsure we can now see the value of it, Mr Schick adds.
Results
With the protection that Eftsure offers, the ease of implementation and the simplicity of use, Mr Schick had some advice for other schools looking to protect themselves.
I sat with business managers of other schools and discussed this at length and heard what has happened at other schools. If you have a large payment that you’re making, and it goes to the wrong place either through error or fraud, that’s quite a serious thing. Luckily, this has never happened to us, but the risk is there. Now there is no need to live with that risk. Eftsure helps all of us run a final check before we press that button to pay, and the money leaves the school account.
As the Business Manager of the school I'm not the one who prepares the ABA file, but I am the one who is responsible for the payment. I want every measure of protection I can get. Eftsure gives us the security that we have a checking mechanism in place.
As schools, we have a lot of compliance regulations that we have to abide by, and we get rigorously audited. When I mentioned Eftsure to our Finance and Audit committee and our auditors they were 100% behind it. Checking our ABA files before we sign them has now become a standard practice and I believe all schools should be doing the same thing.
Since implementing Eftsure, Tyndale have:
- Improved their supplier onboarding experience: Tyndale have been able to successfully onboard over 2,000 suppliers, securely verifying them through Eftsure’s onboarding tool.
- Reduced risk: Eftsure’s payment and ABA file verification process is helping to reduce the risk of errors and discrepancies in payee information and potential payment fraud.
- Compliance assurance: Operating within a school compliance environment, with high regulatory requirements, Eftsure has provided Tyndale with confidence when it comes to auditing of their payement process.
