Christian Heritage Academy (CHA) is PK-12 faith-based school of 428 students located in the northern suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The school has been a long-time Veracross user, originally implementing the SIS in 2008. After briefly exploring other systems for accounting and tuition management, CHA returned to Veracross seeking to unify their school operations under one platform when their previous solutions wouldn’t suffice.
The Challenge
Prior to fully adopting Veracross, Christian Heritage Academy had tried two alternative solutions for billing and tuition management systems. With both, staff struggled with the lack of automatic payment features that created workflow inefficiencies in the Business and Admissions Offices. Tasks such as managing deposits and invoices, reconciling payments, and creating or adjusting payment plans for families required several manual interventions that caused frustration for users.
The use of fragmented systems also left families confused as they were forced to navigate multiple portals to make payments, view grades, or even engage with school newsletters.
Business Director Jerry Ruscitti also shared how cost was becoming a challenge for CHA. “It was costing too much to be in so many different places. We were paying for more software than we were really using.” When reflecting on each of these challenges and the best way to solve them, Christian Heritage Academy realized it was time “to go all in on Veracross.”
Creating Efficiencies in the Business Office
After adopting the Veracross Tuition Management module, processes that once required manual oversight were now automated, transparent, and easy to manage.
Jerry detailed how CHA previously struggled with a way to properly track enrollment deposits. With their former solutions, it was unclear to both the school and parents if a deposit had been received and applied to their account due to unclear invoicing and communication.
Now, VC Pay, Veracross’ payment solution built directly into the platform, allows the school to provide detailed invoice summaries in a simple, easy to use payment dashboard within the Parent Portal. Everything “is very obvious from the parent’s side… and clearly marked in the invoice, which is great,” he explained. “It’s also very easy for the Business Office to know when the right time is to apply deposits, and we can do so very easily and very streamlined in the Veracross system.”
The automation features now available to the CHA Business Office with Tuition Management have also greatly reduced the workload and time spent managing accounts. Staff previously had to manually sort through over 400 student records and unique family payment situations to process payments, apply credits, etc. Jerry happily explained that now “the system does the heavy lifting and we just make sure that we’re hitting milestones of billing and payments being processed in a timely manner.”
Improving Collaboration Across Departments
With the switch to Veracross Tuition Management, Christian Heritage Academy has also felt the positive effects of its one-person, one-record database across multiple departments. In addition to the Business Office, their Admissions team has also seen significant gains in efficiency and transparency.
CHA previously relied on a mix of paper and digital forms in their admissions process, but now, families inquire, apply, and make payments directly through Veracross — with the data flowing seamlessly and transparently between necessary departments. Jerry explained that “the admissions director doesn’t have to ask me if a family paid their deposit. They can see it right in the system as part of a family’s checklist.”
This shift has given staff a new level of confidence in their SIS’s data. “Every step of the way the Veracross system has been well-designed to be thinking about what’s the next step and who needs the next piece of information. I can definitely see a lot has been invested to make sure that both the staff and user experiences are done well,” he shared.
A Better Family Experience
Veracross has made tuition management not just easier, but more transparent and flexible for families as well. Parents can view invoices, set up or alter payment plans, make one-time payments, and see credits in real time — all from within the same portal they already use to view grades, communications, and more. With Christian Hertige Academy now “fully embracing the Veracross ecosystem, it’s become a one-stop shop” for families Jerry shared. Its simple, easy to use design allows for “even the most novice person to be able to handle the setup process with ease.”
Due to the fragmented workflows of their previous solutions, families were frequently asked to re-enter information, causing a great deal of frustration during the payment process. “With having one unified system like Veracross, we don’t have to keep re-asking for information that might be in one system that one group has access to, but not another,” Jerry happily shared.
With the switch to Veracross, families also appreciate the flexibility they now have with setting up payment plans. Jerry described that he’s “worked in environments where payment plans were cemented into place.” Now, families can easily change the frequency of their payment plan, make additional, one-time payments, and alter their payment method with ease.
To enrich the payment experience for families even further, Veracross has made several enhancements to the VC Pay mobile checkout experience. The enhancements allow for a more modern and intuitive flow that feels familiar and effortless with fewer clicks and a cleaner layout. Families can now view saved payment methods directly on the screen without entering their wallet. New floating action buttons also allow payments to be made without scrolling to the bottom of their screen.
The Results: Efficiency, Clarity, and Confidence
Since returning to Veracross Tuition Management, Christian Heritage Academy has achieved something every school strives for: a unified, consistent experience for families and staff alike. With 95% of the school using Veracross, they have created an ecosystem that feels natural and complete.
In sharing advice for other schools considering an SIS or new software for tuition management, Jerry Ruscitti confidently shared that “Veracross really can be a school’s one-stop accounting, tuition management, and student management system. In my experience, other vendor software is good at one piece, but is sub-par in other areas. But as a whole, Veracross seems to have a really good product map, and it works with a school’s processes to formulate an integrated, dynamic, and user-friendly platform.”
