How St Andrew’s Cathedral School reimagined its fee and payment operations with Feesable and NAB
St Andrew’s Cathedral School is one of Australia’s leading Anglican independent schools, located in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. Managing fees and payments across a large and diverse school community, the School partnered with Feesable with the goal to transform a fragmented, labour-intensive payment operation into a streamlined, modern school fee management platform.
Feesable is delivering the change we need: a new experience for families and a back-end system that cuts through the complexity and gives our team real time savings.
The challenge:
systems & processes weren’t keeping up
St Andrew’s Cathedral School’s Finance team was managing a complex, fragmented operation built on manual processes and disconnected systems. Daily payment reconciliation was particularly time-consuming. Reconciling payments meant logging into the bank, downloading a PDF, converting it to Excel, reformatting it to match the SIS template — and repeating the process for every payment cycle. Each run took around 15 minutes, and separate files were required for direct debit, BPay, gateway, and deposit payments.
The Fees in Advance (FIA) process was equally labour-intensive. Each family required individual attention: reviewing student records, checking fees and scholarships, calculating the prepayment amount, and sending a personalised email. With so many families to process, this added up to a significant manual burden at the start of every new year fee cycle.
Updating direct debit schedules added further friction. With the existing bank setup, any change required suspending the batch, obtaining authorisation, making the update, and re-authorising — a cumbersome process with timing risks if a payment was due soon. Split family arrangements were tracked through notes in the SIS, with no centralised visibility. Every parent request to update a payment method or schedule meant a phone call to the Finance team.
“Our families expect the School’s payment experience to be excellent, and our internal processes carried a complexity that needed attention”, said Phil.
23 hours
saved in Fees In Advance processing
90%
reduction in reconciliation reporting time
17%
increase in uptake of fees paid in advance
Solution: a consolidated payment platform
Feesable delivered a direct-to-bank payment integration with NAB that brought the School’s payment operations into a single consolidated platform. Rather than multiple manual exports across different payment types, the Finance team now downloads one SIS-ready report covering all payment cycles in a single file.
“The reporting alone has been a game changer for us. What used to mean multiple steps to import to the SIS — repeated for every payment cycle — is now a single download in the right format,” says Aileen Soria, Credit Controller and Billings Manager. “And the Fees in Advance process can now be completed in just a couple of hours. We’re already seeing what this frees up.”
The Fees in Advance workflow was overhauled. FIA invitations are now sent in bulk to all nominated families, with prepayment amounts automatically calculated and consistent messaging applied across every communication — reducing both effort and the risk of error. Families receive a professional, personalised fee estimate by email with any applicable discounts already applied.
Direct debits and payment plans are now managed within Feesable’s admin dashboard, giving the team complete visibility of upcoming and past payments for every family. Schedule updates take effect immediately — no batch suspension or re-authorisation required. Split family arrangements are clearly visible within each family record, replacing the ad hoc notes that had previously made them difficult to track. BPay transactions are managed and reported centrally, with custom reports built for direct import into the SIS.
The reporting alone has been a game changer for us. What used to mean multiple steps to import to the SIS is now a single download in the right format… We’re already seeing what this frees up.
Early impact
- ~90% reduction in reconciliation reporting time — a single SIS-ready download replaces a multi-step manual process of logging in, downloading, converting, and reformatting — repeated across every payment cycle and payment type.
- Improved Fees in Advance collections — the new process resulted in a 17% increase in uptake of FIA for 2026 fees, delivering approximately a 25% increase in advance collections.
- From 25 hours to ~2 hours — the FIA process that previously required around 10 minutes per family now takes 1–2 hours in total, with bulk invitations and automatically calculated prepayment amounts.
- Real-time direct debit management — schedule changes take effect immediately within Feesable, eliminating the batch suspension and re-authorisation process and reducing the risk of payment dishonours.
- Full visibility of split family arrangements — complex payment records are now consolidated within each family record, replacing ad hoc notes in the SIS and making them far easier to track and manage.
What’s next
With the streamlined back-end processes taking shape, the School will roll out the parent facing experience. This new experience will give families direct visibility of their fees, charges, and self-serve access to manage payment schedules and payment methods — offering the experience that parents expect and further reducing inbound enquiries to the Finance team.
With consolidated reporting across all payment types, advanced analytics, and deeper SIS integration still to come, the efficiency gains will continue to build towards a payment operation that meets the professional standard St Andrew’s Cathedral School holds across every other part of school life.