Managing admissions, finances, and compliance for hundreds of students requires more than hard work. It necessitates systems that keep everything connected.
At Victory Christian Academy in Lakeland, Florida, administrators oversee a growing school community of more than 800 students. Between enrollment, billing, reporting, and the state’s expanding school choice programs, operational demands are significant.
One of the strongest tools in their arsenal is FACTS’ connected ecosystem, which has helped the school streamline key processes across departments, save time, reduce manual work, and focus more on supporting students and families.
To better understand how those systems work behind the scenes, we spoke with Michael Cascioli, Victory Christian’s Student Accounts Manager.
Reducing Manual Work with Connected Student and Financial Data
In his role, Cascioli touches nearly all of the processes a busy school office handles, from enrollment and reporting to managing state scholarship documentations and finances. This makes him well-acquainted with the many workflows and processes required to run a school and, crucially, the importance of all these elements working together based on shared data.
When he first joined the school, many of these processes relied on separate systems that required manual work to keep everything aligned. “We were disjointed in a lot of different areas,” he explains. “It was just a lot of manual entries and time consumption.”
To simplify operations, Victory Christian Academy expanded its use of FACTS and connected the Student Information System (SIS) with FACTS’ accounting solution. Bringing those systems together allows information to move automatically between admissions, billing, and financial reporting, making a huge difference in day-to-day workload. “The seamless interaction between SIS and premier accounting is really what makes my day sane most of the time,” Cascioli says.
The integration has been especially important as the school has grown. Cascioli explained that there would be “no way” for one person to manage billing and payments for hundreds of students without connected systems.
Adding Simplicity to Admissions and Billing Workflows
Victory Christian Academy has also refined its admissions and enrollment workflows using FACTS. Prospective families begin with a streamlined admissions packet while students complete interviews and testing. Once accepted, families move on to a customized enrollment experience, where they provide additional family information and select their preferred payment plan.
While this process feels overwhelming for many schools, with everything in one connected system, the transition from admissions to billing is much smoother.
“Once we have the payment plan in, I do the billing, and it’s so streamlined,” Cascioli explains. “I find out the [school choice] scholarship amounts from the state, I plug those in, and it automatically flows into the payment plan that the parents selected.”
This automated flow helps the school move families through the enrollment process efficiently while also reducing administrative workload.
Cutting School Choice Timelines From Weeks to Days
FACTS solutions have also helped simplify Florida’s expanded school choice programs. While these programs make private education more accessible to families, they also introduce additional complexity for school administrators managing tuition and billing. Cascioli has seen firsthand both how these scholarships have positively changed the financial landscape for families and how managing them requires careful coordination.
Victory Christian serves families from several counties, and scholarship amounts vary depending on where a student lives. To manage this, the school uses FACTS rate tables to automate the billing process. The time savings have been dramatic.
“Before this, it would take me a month to do the billing, and this was for 600 kids,” Cascioli says. “Last year, I did the billing in two days, and that was just to double-check everything.”
With the process now streamlined, he expects future billing cycles to move even faster. “This year I have a feeling it’s going to all be done in probably half a day.”
Improving School-Wide Communication and Transparency
FACTS’ connected ecosystem has also provided marked improvements in both the family experience and staff satisfaction.
“The families love it,” Cascioli says. “They love the visibility. They love the ease of payments to be able to do what they need to do.” He also notes that most parents now access their accounts through mobile devices, so being able to access FACTS via their phones has been a game-changer for communications.
Teachers also benefit from improved communication with FACTS, as the school manages most parent communication directly through the platform. This not only saves time for teachers and families as they move past handwritten notes that often got lost but also creates an archive of conversations between families and educators that give staff helpful context when supporting students.
While teachers rely on the SIS for everyday tasks like grades and classroom attendance, virtually every member of the school community has found a feature or report that makes their jobs easier. From Cascioli working with delinquencies and balances reports to the registrar and administrators tracking finances, activity, and operational data, everyone can access the information most relevant to their roles.
A Partnership That Goes Beyond Software
While FACTS is known for its connected solutions, exceptional customer service has always been at the heart of our mission. Cascioli describes the school’s customer service experience as “amazing,” with the support team quick to respond when questions arise and help troubleshoot issues.
He recalls one memorable moment at a past Elevate conference when the team worked together after hours to map out improvements to the school’s scholarship workflow. “[The team] was so gracious with their time. Everybody was exhausted, yet we were able to do this road map. Once we got it tweaked and perfected, it was like ‘wow, I’m so glad we have FACTS.’”
Final Thoughts
For Victory Christian Academy, the biggest benefit of a connected system is the ability to manage growing enrollment and increasingly complex processes without expanding administrative staff.
Cascioli believes the efficiency gains are clear. When asked what he would tell a school considering the move to FACTS, he says he would tell them to “just do it” because it’s a huge time saver.
“You’re going to be able to do more with the same amount of people. You’re going to get more information on your students, more information about your school, and more information about profitability,” he explains.
Ultimately, the connected system has helped Victory Christian Academy simplify operations while continuing to grow and serve families well. As Cascioli puts it simply, “With FACTS, all that’s possible. Without FACTS, it’s just impossible.”
