For finance and enrollment professionals working in Canadian higher education institutions today, the urgency to automate work in order to do more with less is felt palpably. Knowing where to start can be the harder part to grasp.
Innovative Canadian higher education institutions are looking at critical operational processes – such as accounts payables – and identifying areas that either currently or could introduce friction in relationships with key business partners. These include commission payments to education agents, cross-border vendor payments, and more. Leading institutions are taking steps to digitize and automate. They are seeing outsized impacts in saving money and time, and boosting relationships both across campus and with third-party partners.
As they see the benefits, there’s this collective ah-ha moment: Why did we wait so long to do this?
“If it’s painful now, make the change now, instead of waiting for the push or shove you need,” said Sandy Mazereeuw, Manager, Accounts Payable, at Carleton University in Ottawa, on a recent Flywire webinar.
Quick wins help schools cope now, position for the future
Long-time Flywire users Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), Carleton University and Vancouver Community College (VCC) shared how they’re now leaning on Flywire for not only receivables, but outgoing payments as well. By automating processes, they are benefiting from quick-wins that not only help them better cope now, but also strategically position the institution for the future.
“When we see schools making payments, they have a lot of detailed work,” said Christopher Pearce, Flywire’s North American Outgoing Payments Expert. “100,000 checks, 2,000 wire transfers. Each is someone’s full time job. It means limited capacity, slow processing to capture information, and more communication between departments. It all creates inefficiencies."
Here are three benefits Canadian higher education institutions are seeing by automating outgoing payments processes.
1. Automating agent commissions leads to faster, more predictable payments, and better finance and enrollment collaboration
Always a focus, nurturing agent relationships is even more important now in today’s competitive landscape. For Sydney Munro, the Divisional Business Manager at International at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in Canada, sending commission payments to hundreds of education agents critical to ensuring international student enrollment was getting increasingly difficult. Before Flywire, all of the 350 agents that KPU works with were paid by costly wire transfers. That process was managed by a finance team equally strapped for time. Furthermore, agents had questions the international office could not answer without requesting a report from finance.
“We couldn’t tell the agents when the wire was dispatched since we did not have live access to that information. We’d just say, ‘In a couple of weeks, let us know if there are any issues with receiving the payment,’ she said.
With Flywire’s Outgoing Payments solution, the team can now easily see payment status - from initiated through delivered - in the same familiar Flywire Dashboard used for inbound student payments. The international office no longer has to ask finance for reports on payment status, removing an area that introduced unnecessary friction. The end result frees up everyone’s time, with agents now receiving their payment faster and in their currency of choice.
“Agents have been a lot happier getting their payments quicker,” she said. “Happier agents send you more students.”
Prior to using Flywire for agent commission payments, Vancouver Community College was in a similar spot. Six times a year, it dispatched wire payments to education agents, and paid in-country representatives once a month. Finance and enrollment teams were frustrated by the lack of visibility into payment status, and the high cost of sending wires.
With Flywire, the international education office can now easily reply to agent questions regarding commissions, as well as student refund questions, according to Rosemarie Bernardo, who is Administrative Assistant in the International Education office. The team no longer needs to upload beneficiary information each time, and have trust that the payment is secure.
2. Eliminating cheque payments to vendors and other third parties cuts expenses on paper, ink, postage – and saves staff’s sanity
Institutions of course have lots of areas where digitizing and automating outgoing payments opens the door to more efficiencies. When its banking partner said it would not support sending cheque payments to U.S. payees any longer, Carleton University looked to Flywire for advice on paying U.S.-based honorarium (a one-time payment for speaking, for instance) and vendors. They now send these payments electronically via ACH with Flywire’s Outgoing Payments solution. Since going live in June 2024 after a smooth three-week implementation, Carleton University has:
- Eliminated expenses associated with 200+ cheque payments. The institution has eliminated 200+ cheque payments alongside cutting wire fees and expenses for check stock, ink, mailing costs and labor associated with setting up beneficiaries and sending cheques.
- Paid vendors faster. With ACH, payees now receive their payments within 3-5 days of uploading the payment batch where previously it took weeks.
- Improved compliance. With better visibility into payment status, institutions no longer have to issue stop payments and reissue cheques. This has also significantly reduced the risk of fraud, and improved payment security.
3. Change is embraced, not resisted
Each institution testified to how skeptical their staff - with many logging 20+ years in their roles - was at first to change their process. They now wonder why they waited so long to make a change. The ease of using Flywire to automate outgoing payments has eliminated work that had previously been frustrating and thankless. Staff is able to more confidently give reliable answers to questions around payments, and feels better about the service they provide to people who are critical partners to their institutions.
“Many departments are happier at Carleton,” Mazereeuw said. “Suppliers are paid faster, so departments get their products faster, and have the supplies they need. Speakers receive timely payments, and are therefore more likely to come back and speak again.”
Jose Arellano, Associate Director, Financial Operations, Finance at Vancouver Community College, agreed, “Everyone was happy to use Flywire to send payments.”
Change has been so welcomed at Carleton that they now have a “Flywire-first” approach to solving payments-related issues. They have eliminated all payments made to vendors by U.S. cheque.
Institutions at a glance
Carleton University
- 25,722 undergraduate
- 5,038 graduate
- 4,251 international students
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
- Almost 20,000 students
- Campuses in Surrey, Richmond, Langley, Cloverdale, and Civic Plaza
Vancouver Community College
- 15,000 students, including a growing number of indigenous and international learners
- 1,200 employees and an annual budget of $175 million
Find out more information about Flywire Outgoing Payments, and watch our full webinar, “Streamline your outgoing payments: efficiency gains for Canadian institutions” on demand.