Customer Case Study
Multi-board complexity. One platform to run it all.
AVM SAMARA School's multi-board setup meant more fee configurations, more vendor relationships, and more moving parts than a typical school. Xtend One gave them the operational infrastructure to manage all of it, without the chaos.
AVM SAMARA School
About
AVM SAMARA School is a modern, multi-board institution under the AVM Schools group, the same group behind Aarupadai Veedu Matriculation School. With a growing student body, multiple board affiliations, and an active procurement and vendor ecosystem, SAMARA represents the next generation of AVM's educational vision: academically rigorous, operationally modern, and built for scale.
The Problem
Multi-board complexity with single-school tools
Running a multi-board school isn't just more students. It's more fee configurations, more compliance requirements, and more departments that need to stay in sync. AVM SAMARA was trying to manage all of this with tools designed for a much simpler setup. Each one solved a narrow slice and left the rest unaddressed.
Fee structures fragmented across files
With multiple boards and grades, fee configurations lived in separate Excel files with no single master. Every term, version mismatches led to incorrect fee quotes reaching parents. Updating structures meant editing multiple files and hoping nothing was missed.
What didn't get addressed
- Separate files per board and per grade with no single master
- Version mismatches caused incorrect fee quotes every term
- Updates required editing multiple files and hoping nothing was missed
Fee collection disconnected from fee structures
Receipts were generated manually with no connection to the fee structure files. Amounts in the collection system often didn't match the latest version, leading to parent complaints every term. Reconciliation was a monthly manual exercise that consumed days.
What didn't get addressed
- No connection to fee structure files: receipts generated manually
- Fee amounts in Tally often didn't match the latest Excel version
- Reconciliation was a monthly manual exercise
Vendor payments with no formal approval chain
Purchase orders were shared over chat with no formal record. Payments were made against verbal confirmations, and there was no way to match what was ordered against what was actually delivered. As vendor relationships grew, so did the risk of untracked spend.
What didn't get addressed
- POs shared over chat with no formal record
- No approval chain: payments made against verbal confirmations
- No way to match what was ordered vs. what was delivered
Staff management on paper across departments
Leave records, payroll inputs, and onboarding were all handled manually in physical registers. Each department maintained its own records with no central view. Errors only surfaced at payroll time, when it was too late to fix them cleanly.
What didn't get addressed
- Leave records maintained in physical registers
- Payroll inputs handled manually across departments
- No standardised onboarding or staff record system
No consolidated reporting for management
There was no way for leadership to see a cross-functional view of the school's operations. Getting a status update on fees, procurement, or HR required calling individual department heads. Correlating data across functions was effectively impossible.
What didn't get addressed
- No consolidated view across departments
- Leadership had to call department heads for basic status updates
- Cross-functional data (fees vs. admissions vs. procurement) was impossible to correlate
The Turning Point
When fee mismatches became a parent relations problem
The breaking point wasn't a single event. It was a pattern. Each term, parents would receive fee receipts that didn't match what they'd been quoted at admission. The root cause was always the same: the fee structure in Tally hadn't been updated to match the latest Excel file, or the admission team was working from an older version.
At the same time, the school's vendor relationships were growing (more suppliers, more POs, more payments) but the management infrastructure hadn't kept up. Payments were being made against verbal approvals with no way to verify delivery or match against a budget.
"We didn't want another tool. We wanted one place where everything lived, and where we could actually see what was happening across the school without calling five people."
Management, AVM SAMARA School
What They Evaluated
The shortlist, and why most didn't make it
Multi-board School ERP
Handled academics and timetables well, but fee structure complexity and vendor workflows were unsupported.
Finance software + integrations
Would have required custom integrations between 3 to 4 tools. High maintenance, no unified approval layer.
Custom development
Scoped at 14+ months. No existing reference for multi-board fee structure management at this scale.
Xtend One✓ Selected
Handled multi-board fee structures natively, with vendor workflows, procurement approvals, HR, and live dashboards, all in one platform.
Why Xtend One
One foundation. Every workflow on top.
The One Platform
Unified Foundation
Xtend One's unified data layer meant that fee structures configured once flow automatically into collections, receipts, and reporting, no manual bridging between systems.
Every workflow runs on the same foundation, so data is always consistent and approvals are always traceable.
For a multi-board school, this matters more than anywhere else, because the complexity of fee structures, vendor relationships, and reporting requirements demands a platform that can hold it all together without custom glue.
The result: one fee master for all boards, one approval chain for all procurement, and one dashboard for the entire school.
What They're Enjoying Now
Complexity managed. Chaos eliminated.
One fee master
all boards and grades configured centrally, no more per-board Excel files
Vendor PO trail
every vendor interaction from PO to payment is logged, approved, and auditable
No approval gaps
procurement and vendor payments go through defined chains, no verbal sign-offs
HR centralised
staff records, leave, and payroll inputs managed in one place across all departments
Real-time dashboards
management sees fee collection, pending POs, and HR status without chasing anyone
Faster term setup
new academic year fee structures activated in minutes, not days
What's Next
Built for where they're going, not just where they are
With the operational foundation in place, AVM SAMARA is now expanding into capabilities that scale with the school's growth:
- Parent-facing fee payment portal with board-specific fee breakdowns
- Transport management with route-wise fee allocation
- Vendor performance tracking and preferred vendor lists
- Academic module integration for student performance visibility
- Group-level consolidated reporting across AVM institutions
For Other Schools
Multi-board complexity is a solved problem on Xtend One
If your school manages multiple boards, complex fee structures, and active vendor relationships, and you're doing it across disconnected tools, this setup is directly replicable for you. No custom development. No long timelines.
Schools that benefit most:
- Multi-board schools (CBSE + State, ICSE + Matriculation)
- Schools with complex fee structures and concession categories
- Institutions with active vendor and procurement workflows
- Growing schools that need operational infrastructure to match their scale
- School groups needing consolidated visibility across campuses
Managing a multi-board school on disconnected tools?
Book a 20-minute walkthrough. We'll show you how Xtend One handles the complexity, and what changes when it does.
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