How St Peter’s thinking evolved from chasing payments to making money

The Problem:

It all started with the struggle of parents not paying

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When asked how St Peter's smart money mindset came about, Mervin Naidoo, Business Manager, put it plainly:

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“How did this new way of thinking about school cash come about? It’s simple! The struggle of parents not paying!”

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Before using Karri, St Peter’s was stuck in the classic school finance trap:

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• You host an event (camp, tour, fundraiser)
• You send invoices after the event
• You spend months chasing payments
• You write off bad debt

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The Solution:

The cash-flow-first mindset is inspired by the corporate world

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Grant Fletcher came from a Telecoms background where a cash-flow-first mindset was drilled into him.

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“I came from a background of Telecoms and we had a 60-day facility…The idea was: You earn interest on the money that was just sitting in your account.

At the end of every day, you sweep your money to your interest-bearing account and you leave the bare minimum on your current account so that you earn interest overnight.

That has been my mindset from day one at St Peter’s.”

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He calls it 'scraping the paint off the walls' i.e. getting value out of every corner.

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When he saw the power that Karri held to get money from parents upfront, he realised that it was the only way to break the school finance trap.

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Today, they follow this process to make their money work harder:

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• Your collection opens months before the event
• You get your money upfront
• You sweep this cash into an interest-bearing account
• You're now making money. Karri's fee is negligible

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The Strategies for Change

1. How to change the mindset of the SGB and upper management

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As Mervin explains, the mindset shift starts from the top:

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School councils aren’t profit-driven. So they ask: ‘What cash do we have in the bank?'

Cash is king where we are.

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St Peter's has worked hard to culture this cash-flow-first mindset throughout the management team. Here's how you can too:

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• Instead of fixating on Karri's transaction fee, ask: 'How fast can we collect money from parents using Karri?'
• Think of time as money. The earlier you get paid, the more you can earn.
• If management are still stuck on Karri's transaction fee, frame it like this: 'Yes, we're paying Karri's fee. But by collecting the cash upfront, we will earn it all back, and then some.'

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2. Getting parents to pay is easier than you think

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With Karri, we implied that you need to pay first before you go on tour and parents just went with it. The wording in our collection description goes, ‘Please pay via Karri to ensure guaranteed attendance.’

We let them know that this is our new way of working. It’s kind of like, ‘pay to play’ and it makes sense for everyone.

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Instead of chasing parents for payments, the psychology flipped:

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• It's now the default for parents to pay upfront.
• Parents find it easy. Tap, pay, done. And they have all the payment options they need.
• Parents are happier because they've paid in advance, have a way to anticipate costs, and can see all their children’s events in one app.

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Finally, events run smoother. Staff aren’t chasing R95 from 34 parents over 3 months. As a result, they can focus on their core role, which is education.