Industry: Education
Driving payment volume through real-time transparency
How a SaaS provider delivered a better payment experience for both students and school staff.
More on-time payment volume
Transaction transparency
Funding
The Challenge
The bottleneck squeezing students, schools, and student payment volume
A SaaS provider serving small colleges and trade schools had a payment problem that got worse every term. Their payment provider’s limited features for school administrators, students and parents were actively impeding the SaaS company’s adoption and revenue growth.
Trade schools are deeply practical places. Certification programs range from weeks to years. Students need the flexibility to pay at the last minute, from personal devices, often with help from a parent or family member. The payment provider was no help.
- Not enough ways to pay (mobile, text, or voice)
- No authorized payers (families couldn’t contribute on a student’s behalf)
- No real-time visibility into last-minute payments before class
Manual processes made life harder for administrators
Schools that sometimes have only part-time staff for accounts receivable struggled with tools that added friction.
- Schools couldn’t confirm payments in real time
- Enrollment decisions slowed without visibility into who had paid
- Cash flow lagged as collections fell behind
- Manual tasks piled up (check processing, reconciliation, tracking late payments)
These gaps were directly impacting the SaaS provider’s ability to attract and retain schools, grow volume and payment revenue. They needed payment infrastructure and capabilities that reflect how their customers (schools, students, and families) interact in the real world.
The solution
Breaking the bottleneck with real-time, multi-channel payments
This SaaS provider switched to DirectEmbed for embedded payments and receivables. Suddenly, students and families could pay on their terms and their timelines. Schools could see who paid, who hadn’t, and how many open seats were left in each classroom.
Fast integration backed by support
Just because a problem is complicated and long-standing doesn’t mean the solution is difficult. The SaaS provider got everything they needed from DirectEmbed to solve an array of challenges at once.
- APIs with published documentation for fast integration
- Pre-integrated payment channels from day one
- A dedicated support team to quickly handle any questions that came up along the way
What an adoption-driving payment experience looks like
-
Student-friendly channels
Mobile, text, and voice
-
Family-friendly options
Authorized payers can contribute on a student’s behalf to make one-time, recurring and future-dated payments
-
Real-time payment confirmations
For students and school administrators
-
Next-day funding
For faster cash flow
-
Automated reconciliation
Across channels and across school departments
The results
Unleashing a rising tide of payment volume
Once this SaaS provider improved their embedded payments and receivables experience, volumes across their entire school portfolio started to rise. They’ve been able to attract more schools and differentiate themselves from competing platforms.
Additional portfolio results
On-time student payments up 50%
Real-time transparency across every payment channel
Faster, more convenient ways to pay
“Payment volume doesn’t lie. This SaaS provider got the experience right end-to-end, front-to-back. Of course the numbers moved.”
— Nirmal Kumar, CPO, Aliaswire