What to Ask a School ERP Vendor Before Signing a Contract

By the time a school reaches the contract stage, it has usually seen a demo and liked it. That is exactly when it is easiest to sign something that costs more, locks in longer or protects the school's data less than it assumed.

These are the questions we would ask any school ERP vendor, including us, before signing. Ask them in writing and keep the answers with the contract.

Price

1. What is the total price for our student count this year, and for each of the next three years?
2. Is the price per student, per module, or flat? How is the student count measured, and when?
3. What is included, and what is extra? Ask specifically about SMS and WhatsApp messages, additional modules, training, data migration and support.
4. Is there a setup or onboarding fee?
5. What happens to the price at renewal? Is an introductory price locked for us, and for how long?
6. What taxes apply on top of the quoted price?

Data ownership and exit

7. Who owns our data? The answer should be: the school.
8. Can we export all our data at any time, in a usable format, without paying extra?
9. What happens to our data if we leave, and how long do you keep it?
10. What is the notice period, and is there any penalty for leaving early?

A vendor who is vague about exit is telling you something.

Security

11. How is our school's data kept separate from other schools'?
12. Can we control what each role can see and change?
13. Is there an audit trail of who changed what, and can we read it?
14. Where is the data stored, how often is it backed up, and how quickly can you restore it?
15. Who at your company can access our data, and is that access recorded?

Our post on school data security warning signs explains why these matter.

Onboarding

16. How do we bring our existing records in? Can you import our roll from Excel, and do you check it before writing anything?
17. Who sets up our fee structure, classes and timetable rules, you or us?
18. How long does onboarding take, realistically, for a school our size?
19. What training is included, and for whom?

Support

20. How do we contact support, and in which hours?
21. What response times do you commit to, and are they in the contract?
22. Is support included in the price or charged separately?

The product, honestly

23. What does the product not do yet? Ask this directly. Every product has gaps; the honest answer tells you how the relationship will go.
24. What is on your roadmap, and is any of it promised in this contract? If a feature you need is "coming soon", get the date in writing or assume it is not coming.
25. Can we talk to two schools of our size that use the product today?

Local company or national vendor?

Many schools search for a school management software company in their city, hoping for face-to-face support. A local company can be a good choice, but check the same things you would check with any vendor: who maintains the software, how data is stored and backed up, and what happens if the company changes hands. A cloud product with responsive remote support can serve a school just as well as a local office, and is less exposed to one person leaving.

Before the demo: what to prepare

To get useful answers, bring your own scenarios to the school management software demo: a real class to mark attendance for, a fee receipt with a discount, a progress card in your board's format, and a parent's view on an ordinary phone. Our checklist for choosing school management software has the full list.

How Onflows answers some of these

For transparency, here are our own short answers. Pricing is per student per academic year with no setup fee, published on our pricing page. Staff logins are free on every plan. Your data is your school's; every school's records are kept strictly its own, access is set per role, and changes are recorded in an audit trail. What we do not do yet is listed on our features page, and what we are building is on our roadmap, without dates.

Frequently asked questions

Should a school sign a multi-year ERP contract?

Only if the price is locked for the whole term and you can leave with your data if the service falls short. A one-year term with a locked renewal price is often the safer start.

What is a fair school ERP software price?

It depends on your size and what you need. Compare five-year totals including extras, not the first-year headline. See on-premise vs cloud school ERP costs.

What red flags should we watch for?

Vague answers about data export, prices that are not written down, features promised "soon" without dates, and pressure to sign before you have trialled the product with your own data.

Ask us anything on this list. Create your school to try Onflows with your own data first.