What Beauty Schools Need to Know About Digital File Solutions

Posted on May 18, 2021 by Oozle Media

Moving your beauty school’s student files to a digital system can save real time and money on recordkeeping, audits, and accreditation visits. Lightheart, Sanders and Associates has made this move ourselves and has helped schools do the same, including one school that cut its audit file-review time down to six minutes per student. Getting there well depends on appointing a staff champion for the change and choosing software with the right interactivity, integration, and controls for how your school actually works.

Why should a beauty school go digital?

Keeping your business organized and running smoothly is important, especially as a school owner. Staff, students, auditors, and evaluators from your accrediting agency will all require access to files at different times. Knowing where these documents are, that they are complete, and that they are correct can save you frustration, time, and money.

In our firm’s early days, we used the accounting world standard of workpaper folders to perform and document our audits. We filled out the same workpapers each year and placed the documents in a binder that was shuffled from desk to desk for review, initials, and signatures, often copying the same paragraph from the prior year’s file by hand. Going digital saved us significant time in copying, a good amount of frustration in organization, and even money. Digital files can automate things like:

• Who receives access to files
• Processes to make sure files are complete
• Signature requests
• Duplication of standard files
• File storage and organization
• And more

Making these processes quicker and more efficient means employees spend less time trying to do it all themselves, and saving time means saving money. We eventually moved from a fully paper system to a Windows folder document dump and then later to a cloud-based system built specifically for paperless accounting, which increased our efficiency and allowed our staff to work remotely as our geographic range of clients and staff increased.

What happened when one beauty school went digital?

The same benefits we saw from going digital apply to a beauty school as well. We had a school that struggled with disorganization before moving their paper files into a customized, digital student file solution. Before making the change:

• Paper files were constantly moving around the office
• Staff would have to spend time filing stacks of papers
• Searching for files was not quick or easy
• Documents would sometimes miss being filed, putting them in danger of being lost
• Sometimes a student’s documents would find their way into another student’s file
• Files requested for student financial assistance (SFA) audits were sometimes incomplete, which meant staff would need an impromptu meeting with the student to complete the missing document

All of these issues made audits more time-consuming and difficult for both our team and the school’s team. After moving to a digital system, the school was able to simply create a user for the auditor, select the files the auditor needed access to, and select the students the auditor would have access to.

We asked the school how long they spent on student files for the audit after moving to their digital system. The answer was six minutes. The time our team spent on file review was also significantly reduced, since documents were in the same consistent order and we spent almost no time trying to find where things were. This flexibility and time savings were reproduced each year during the audit, each time NACCAS came to visit, and each time anyone else wanted to view the school’s records.

Why does appointing a staff champion matter before choosing software?

Before getting into what different features to consider in software, it is important to consider your staff. Recent years have given schools plenty of insight into how well their staff and students can adapt to changes in technology, and adapting can pose a real challenge to a team.

With any change, it helps to have a champion: the person who carries the vision of the change to the rest of the team. The champion helps create a smooth transition by encouraging everyone to embrace the change, listening to and resolving team concerns, and reminding the team of the benefits of the change. Not having the team on board with new technology is like buying a sports car but still driving it like a tricycle: you can limp down the road, but you will not get the maximum benefit of all the bells and whistles. We have seen schools get tripped up implementing a great solution simply because a team member struggled to adapt to the new way of doing things. Appointing a staff champion is a good way to avoid that struggle as much as possible.

What features should a school look for in a digital file system?

Many student management software providers have released options to move files into a digital environment. The key is finding the right solution for your school’s wants and needs. A few things worth considering:

• Interactivity: who will interact with the new system, how documents will get into the system, and how a document can be looked at once it is there.
• Integration: how connected the student file system should be with other areas of the school, such as academic tracking, financial aid awarding, or enrollment.
• Controls: the processes and rules in place to help maintain compliance, such as flagging missing documents before a financial aid officer can draw funds for a student.

What should you ask about interactivity?

A few questions are helpful for understanding your school’s needs here:

• Who will interact with the new system?
• How will the document get into the system?
• How can a document be looked at?

If your goal is simply a digital depository of student files, you may be able to limit who needs access to or involvement in the student file system. If many people will be interacting with files, though, you may want a living file system: one that allows students and staff to see, interact with, sign, and send off documents, and that can help streamline processes and catch missing information or compliance issues.

On getting documents into the system, there are several sources to plan for: school-generated documents such as SAP reports, ISIRs, and academic test results; external documents such as high school diplomas or student requests; and signed documents such as contracts and loan acknowledgments. While digital signature solutions may seem costly, they can end up saving hours compared with scanning and saving documents afterward.

On how a document can be looked at, consider all the people who may want access and how they need to see it. A financial aid officer will want to review contracts, award letters, ISIRs, and SAP reports. A student may want to see a copy of their contract, academic records, and financial aid information. An auditor has a specific list of items they want to see, and a NACCAS evaluator will have an additional list. Many systems have strong tools for customizing security and access for each of these groups.

What should you ask about integration?

Consider how connected the student file system should be with other areas of the school. Will it integrate with academic tracking, financial aid awarding, or enrollment processes? A system that houses several of these areas together can make a real difference in streamlining them.

One example we consider a must-have: when a student reaches Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), the student management software generates the SAP report, the SFA office reaches out to the student to review it and discuss any issues, the student signs the SAP report digitally, and the report is then automatically stored in the student file. Whether your systems can work together like this is worth checking before you choose software.

What should you ask about controls?

Consider the processes and controls a system has in place. For example, how easy is it for a financial aid officer to see what documents are missing from a student who wants a disbursement? Some systems let you set rules requiring specific documents to be on file before a financial aid officer can draw funds for a student.

A system that keeps track of missing documents can make it easy for a financial aid officer to follow up on anything still needed from a student. From an integration standpoint, the system may also give students access to review their own information, or send reminders about missing documentation based on rules set up in your student file system, such as a student logging in and noticing they still need to complete a financial aid document.

At Lightheart, Sanders and Associates, we specialize in accounting, audits, and other financial services for beauty schools. Our goal is to help you cross all your Ts and dot all your Is so you can get back to doing what you do best: running your beauty school.

Next step: If you have questions about why your school should move to a digital file system, or what systems could be best for you, feel free to contact us.

Frequently asked questions

Why should a beauty school move to a digital student file system?

A digital system can reduce the time staff spend filing and searching for paper documents, cut down on missing or misplaced files, and make audits and accrediting agency visits faster, since access can be set up for auditors and evaluators without shuffling paper files.

What is a staff champion, and why does a school need one?

A staff champion is the person who carries the vision of a technology change to the rest of the team, encourages adoption, listens to and resolves concerns, and reminds the team of the benefits. Without one, schools can struggle to get the full value out of a new system even after they have purchased it.

What should a school look for in digital file software?

Three areas worth evaluating are interactivity (who interacts with the system and how documents get in and are viewed), integration (whether the system connects with academic tracking, financial aid, and enrollment), and controls (whether the system can flag missing documents and enforce compliance rules).

How much time can a digital file system save during an audit?

One school we worked with went from a disorganized paper process to spending just six minutes on student files during an audit after moving to a digital system, with similar time savings on our side reviewing the files.

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