---
title: School expense management for iSAMS schools
description: Discover how iSAMS and ExpenseIn help schools simplify expense management, reduce admin and gain clearer visibility of spending with a more joined-up finance process.
image: https://blog.isams.com/hubfs/school%20expense%20management.png
---

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# School expense management for iSAMS schools

A more joined-up approach

[Home](https://www.isams.com) [Blog](https://blog.isams.com) [School expense management for iSAMS schools](https://blog.isams.com/school-expense-management-for-isams-schools)

School expense management for iSAMS schools

3:35

![Nicholas Clark](https://blog.isams.com/hubfs/Nic.Clark.jpg)

By [Nicholas Clark](https://blog.isams.com/school-expense-management-for-isams-schools#author-details)

Your accounting system holds the budgets and the ledger. Expenses often happen outside it, on paper, in spreadsheets, and over email, and only reach it when someone types them in. Staff raise claims, finance chases receipts, and the school can't see what's been spent until invoices land at the end of term.

For bursars and school business managers, that delay matters more than the paperwork. A budget you can only check once the term has ended is a budget you can't steer. That's why we're working with ExpenseIn on a more controlled way for iSAMS by IRIS schools to manage expenses.

## Why are school expenses so hard to manage?

Because the spending is spread across a lot of people, and finance hears about it last.

Staff book training courses. Departments buy teaching resources. Trips mean travel, accommodation, and a pile of receipts. Subscriptions renew on someone's card. Each transaction is small, but every one needs a receipt, an approver, and the right budget code.

## Where school expense processes break down

### Spending is visible too late

When claims arrive weeks after the purchase, so does the picture of where each department stands. Overspends and unusual patterns surface at the end of term, when it's too late to change anything.

### Chasing takes over

Chasing a missing receipt is a small job. Doing it for every claim, then matching card transactions, keying in details, and checking amounts, turns expenses into a standing task for the finance office.

### Policy is hard to enforce

Most schools have a clear spending policy. Whether it's followed depends on someone spotting a missing approval, a purchase over the limit, or a claim with the wrong code, usually after payment. When an auditor asks for evidence, finance rebuilds the trail from emails and filing.

### Reports depend on the slowest claim

Month-end and year-end reports are only as accurate as the last receipt in. One late trip claim and the numbers need reopening.

## What does the ExpenseIn integration mean for iSAMS schools?

It means expenses can be managed in one controlled process, from the moment a claim is submitted to the point where the expense data syncs into your accounting system through the integration. Nobody has to type it in a second time.

Finance gets clearer sight of school spend while it's happening, not once invoices arrive, and staff get one consistent way to raise a claim.

In the webinar, we'll show how this works in practice and how it's built around the way iSAMS schools actually run their finance.

## Where to start if you're reviewing your own process

Three questions give you a useful baseline:

- How long does a claim take from purchase to payment?
- How many receipts are still missing at month-end?
- Can you see a department's spending before its claims arrive?

The answers show where the time is going, and they'll help you get more from the webinar.

## Join our webinar with ExpenseIn: a practical look at smarter school expense management

Join us on Wednesday 4 November at 10am for a practical session with ExpenseIn, built for bursars, school business managers, and finance teams at iSAMS schools who want time back from expense admin and clearer sight of school spend. You'll hear from Kim Ruddle, Sales Manager at iSAMS and Janine Snodgrass, Partnerships Lead at ExpenseIn.

[**Register for the webinar**](https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4f72d465-7e1c-4942-8de7-58cbf86bd26b@7c3e7564-9bb8-411a-9ce2-775ceabd88be?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog) to see how your school can get spending under control, or [**learn more about iSAMS**.](https://www.isams.com/)

 

![Nicholas Clark](https://blog.isams.com/hubfs/Nic.Clark.jpg)

### Nicholas Clark

 Nic is the Product Director for iSAMS by IRIS, and along with the rest of the product team is responsible for the direction and roadmap to make sure that we continue to develop iSAMS in a way that continues to bring new tools and features to the platform that our customers need to run modern schools and groups. Nic is a teacher by training and spent 12 years as a primary teacher, 8 of those as a deputy headteacher in several schools. Nic qualified as a teacher in the early 2000s, just as broadband internet started to transform the way schools work, he became heavily involved in developing the use of technology in and out of the classroom and is still passionate about the way tech can transform ways of working in schools. In 2016, Nic escaped teaching to work with a startup called Hable, a Microsoft partner, to help schools adopt Office 365. During the next 5 years, he worked with independent and international schools across the world to enable them to develop technology strategies around Microsoft 365. In 2021, Nic joined IRIS to lead the Ed:gen product launch into the UK state school market and the development of our unique analytics and data platform for schools

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