Parago Software Wins Kent Catholic Schools Partnership

20 academies in the Partnership are now using Parago Software’s Academy Asset Manager

Reading, United Kingdom, 15th March 2016 — Parago Software Ltd., a world leader in cloud based education inventory management solutions, today announced that it is working with Kent Catholic Schools Partnership, a multi-academy Catholic Education Trust based in Kent. The Partnership is using Parago’s cloud based asset, facilities and contract management system to manage assets across multiple schools without incurring hefty costs.

The Partnership, which was incorporated in 2012, consists of 16 primary and four secondary schools, with an additional four to be converted in 2016. All of these schools have a lot of assets that need to be managed. Prior to implementing Parago Software there was no real automated or cost effective way of doing this.

Mark Harris, Finance Director at the Kent Catholic Schools Partnership comments: “As we converted each new school to the Partnership we found that there were inadequacies in our audits. Robust asset registers were non-existent. So in the case of an insurance claim, theft or fire for example, we simply couldn’t get our hands on evidence quickly.”

One of the schools that Kent Catholic Schools Partnership was in the process of converting was already using the Parago Solution. Mark and his team decided to trial the software with another school, which was a resounding success. In particular Mark was bowled over by how easy and smooth it was to implement the system and the decision was taken to go with Parago Software.

Initially Mark and his team were reluctant to put in place an asset management solution due to limited numbers of staff. Although the Partnership could have put processes in place to record new purchases accurately, Mark felt that the schools simply were not equipped to go back and catalogue every purchase and item in the school. Mark therefore was looking not only for a bespoke solution but also a team to help with the back-cataloguing processes. Parago provided a team that went out to all 20 schools in the Partnership and worked alongside members of staff at the schools throughout the back-cataloguing process.

Mark Harris continues: “I thought it would be a difficult process but this simply wasn’t the case. The hands-on approach provided by Parago really was the best level of training and I can’t speak highly enough of the Parago team who helped implement the program.”

Following this the solution was then roll-out across the 18 remaining schools. Today, the Parago asset, facilities and contract management system enables schools in the Partnership to manage their facilities assets and inventory in a compliant, simple to use and cost effective way. The software allows schools to see a virtual image of their whole school with the ability to zoom into individual classrooms to see every asset and task. This new technology means that schools can move away from relying on multiple spreadsheets and instead use a single solution as a way of controlling, reporting and managing their inventory, contracts and premises.

Tim Roots, Managing Director at Parago Software Limited comments: “We are helping many academies just like Kent Catholic Schools Partnership to streamline their audit processes, which not only saves time but also helps to cut unnecessary costs. Now Kent Catholic Schools Partnership has accurate data on what the schools actually have in their inventory. This means if a school has demand for something, for example iPads or laptops, which can be satisfied by another school, it can easily identify this and they don’t go out and buy unnecessary items. Kent Catholic Schools Partnership is already using the contract management module, and will use its facilities module soon.”

To learn more about Parago’s powerful and fully integrated asset management system, visit: http://www.parago.co.uk

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About Parago Software Limited
Parago Software has been developing specialist inventory management systems for education for 10 years. Life is complicated enough, therefore Parago’s mission is to provide busy managers with user friendly, intuitive and cost effective software services that don’t require a degree in rocket science to use. Headquartered in the UK, Parago now has over 1000 schools, colleges and universities using its secure cloud based solution.

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