District
Spotlight: Minnetonka, MN
Located in Minnetonka MN, the Minnetonka School
District Nutrition Services Department had a vision of finding an efficient
solution for managing food service payments. “We were just looking at what
we could do to make life easier and reduce labor,” explains Nutrition
Services Supervisor Jane Bender. “We handled a huge volume of money in
checks, and we needed something to streamline that process.”
Pursuing its vision of efficiently managing
payments, Nutrition Services recognized the benefit of reducing the intake
of cash and checks. “In the beginning,” recounts Nutrition Services
Secretary Laura Hanson, “cashiers would have to data-enter all checks.”
This procedure consumed 30-40 minutes every day at each elementary school,
with exponentially more time spent at the high school.
The Minnetonka School District also needed a
convenient payment solution for parents. “We wanted to make it as easy as
possible,” explained Bender. “If parents went to the schools, they needed
to write out separate checks for each student.” As Bender stated, “They
didn’t like to write out separate checks.”
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Building on the success of the Nutrition Services
Department, the Minnetonka School District implemented RevTrak in several
other departments as word spread about the advantages of electronically
processing payments. In 2010, the Minnetonka School District electronically
processed a myriad of fees including food service, activities,
transportation, theatre, parking permits, AP & IB exams, spiritwear,
field trips, yearbooks, school supplies, donations, fundraisers, parenting
workshops, events and more.
The Minnetonka School District continues to
maximize the advantages of the RevTrak web
store and Skyward integration. “In the long run, it
simplifies the whole process.
Don’t be afraid to go ahead and just plunge in,”
encouraged Bender. “It
is definitely worth the plunge.”
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In 2004, the Minnetonka Nutrition Services
Department implemented a RevTrak® web store.
Embracing the advantages of RevTrak’s integration with their Skyward food
service system, the Nutrition Services Department could directly import
online payments into Skyward without having to manually update individual
student accounts. This integration offered parents an effortless online
payment solution while providing streamlined payment management and
reconciliation for the district. With RevTrak, explained Bender, parents
could “put money directly into the student account. It is a nice advantage
for parents to go online and purchase lunch accounts for all the kids in
one transaction.”
Within a year of implementing the RevTrak system,
the Nutrition Services Department witnessed an increase in credit card
payments and a decrease in cash and check payments. As the RevTrak
web store gained popularity among parents, the increase in credit card
payments enabled the district to manage cash and checks in about 5 minutes
per day rather than the usual 30-40 minutes. This decrease in processing
time enabled the Nutrition Services Department to more effectively deploy
personnel.
In 2008, the Minnetonka Nutrition Services
Department processed 13% more online payments than cash and checks. By
2009, 66% of all payments were processed through the web store.
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“In the long run, it simplifies the
whole process. Don’t be afraid to go ahead and just plunge in.”
Jane Bender
Nutrition Services Supervisor
Minnetonka School District
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