To provide responsive and individualized services that foster the hopes and dreams of people and their communities.
They were ready for a digital transformation because of the time- consuming inefficiencies they had from disparate systems in their operations. The staff’s challenges stemmed from administrative processes that were done manually which took a lot of time – especially the payment of their 200 foster parents, which happens twice a month – they had to manually enter every dollar amount for every parent.
New Directions has scaled from a $21 million organization into a $51 million organization because of the switch from a disparate system to a single ERP platform. Instead of manually keying in every amount, they’re able to import a list of contacts with all of the amounts to pay directly into the General Ledger – something that took hours now takes seconds.
"The Sparkrock team’s experience from working directly with Nonprofits was truly invaluable. They had amazing perspective and advice for the project."
Jennifer Hume
Director of Financial and Operational Support
New Directions has been able to grow tremendously by increasing their efficiencies and reducing the time it takes to complete administrative processes.
The biggest time saver for the organization has been how they’re now able to pay their foster parents. Instead of manually keying in every amount, they’re able to import a list of contacts with all of the amounts to pay directly into the General Ledger – what used to take an hour now takes seconds.
One of the most complicated areas of scheduling for New Directions is that 32 of their homes are scheduled 24/7, but this is all managed manually. Overtime costs become a problem because finding available staff with the right qualifications must be done over the phone.
With the new HRP solution and Scheduling functionality, all of these processes will become automated, allowing staff to go online to see what shifts are available, while built-in alerts will notify managers when certain staff are approaching overtime hours.
The York Region District School Board is committed to meeting the increasing demand for school space and accommodating the region's growth. Their unwavering focus on success and achievement keeps York Region students performing consistently above the provincial average. The board aims to empower students to realize their full potential and maintain exceptional academic achievements amidst the evolving educational landscape.
YRDSB faced significant challenges with their existing system, as many of their processes were excessively time-consuming and required significant manual labour. From a purchasing perspective, the board lacked sufficient reporting capabilities, leading to a lack of visibility into the procurement process.
The York Region District School Board successfully implemented the Sparkrock K-12 Finance Solution, resulting in significant improvements in the operational efficiency of their finance team. By leveraging this solution, the YRDSB team operates more strategically, with accelerated data access and robust reporting tools. Previously, all bank reconciliations were conducted externally from their system; however, with the seamless integration of the General Ledger, the reconciliation process can now be efficiently performed within the solution. This integration has streamlined their financial operations, enabling them to enhance their financial management processes and achieve greater effectiveness in handling their financial responsibilities.
"We’ve seen Sparkrock grow as a company over the years, and their response times are amazing. They listen to what we need and what we’re looking for, and it’s clear they are dedicated to being involved with their customers from their regular on-site visits.”
Dan Reynolds
Senior Manager of Finance
Following the implementation of Sparkrock, the YRDSB finance team has significantly enhanced their ability to assist a broader range of individuals. Adopting a new ERP system has empowered them to operate more proactively, granting them faster access to critical data and enabling them to harness the power of robust reporting tools. The heightened visibility of real-time data has proven valuable in facilitating streamlined and efficient purchasing processes, ultimately benefiting many organizational stakeholders.
"These areas where time and effort is saved benefit all members of the school board, although getting all school users on board for a new system can be tough. It is a big change, but ultimately once users learn the new system they truly enjoy it.”
Dan Reynolds
Senior Manager of Finance
By embracing a more modern solution, the YRDSB finance team continues to leverage technology effectively, expanding their capacity to provide timely and effective support to an increasing number of individuals. A few strategies employed by the board to entice users and engage them with the solution's potential revolved around its robust functionality, particularly with reporting. Users now receive monthly reports containing relevant and personalized data, allowing them to see the solution's potential in improving their work. Demonstrating how the solution can benefit them alleviates any uncertainties about learning something new. This proactive approach fostered excitement and confidence amongst users as they recognized the solution's capacity to enhance their everyday workflows.
Waterloo Catholic District School Board began as a one-room schoolhouse in 1836 and has become the 8th largest Catholic school system in Ontario. Their mission is that as disciples of Christ, they will educate and nurture hope in all learners to realize their full potential to transform God’s world.
Waterloo Catholic DSB began their journey with Sparkrock over 10 years ago. They faced increasingly complex financial reporting requirements, and the school board struggled with its aging ERP software, which its staff found difficult to use.
As a public sector organization, Waterloo Catholic DSB prioritizes transparency and accountability. As a result, the organization’s demand for financial reports was and is high. Its reporting needs were also becoming more complex due to changing accounting standards and new legislation promoting accountability. Technology tools had played an essential role in helping the school board meet these needs, but the aging BAS technology it was leveraging began creating challenges for the board as it grew.
“We were using technology implemented in 1983. It was functional, but we continually had users complaining about how difficult it was to use. Our users also had difficulty reading the data that was generated by the system. As our reporting needs grew, we found ourselves up against the wall in terms of what our old system could provide. Clearly something had to give.”
Shesh Maharaj
CFO/Superintendent of Corporate Services and Treasurer
The school board was also concerned about security issues around its existing solution. The product had been slated for an upgrade for six years. As the upgrade was yet to materialize, they felt the DOS-based solution was not providing the level of security Waterloo Catholic required for its confidential information. Considering these needs, the organization sought a business application solution that would be easy to use, cost-effective, and meet its complex reporting requirements efficiently and securely.
In 2004 Waterloo Catholic began working with Sparkrock (then Altus Dynamics) on implementing a business application solution.
Nicola Dickinson, one of Sparkrock’s founding partners, commented, "As with many education organizations, Waterloo Catholic had strict budgetary parameters for its new solution. This only reinforced the fit of the Microsoft Dynamics technology to their needs, as the solution is very economical.”
The Sparkrock implementation team worked alongside the Waterloo Catholic project team to ensure the solution precisely fits the school board’s needs. The seamless integration between Sparkrock and Waterloo Catholic’s other IT systems also helped ensure that financial information was easy to access at any time. Drill-down functionality and on-the-fly filters in the Sparkrock solution helped Waterloo Catholic transform budget tracking documents from passive summaries to practical instruments that offer precise statements with fully updated information.
The school board now has complete financial insight across the organization to make timely and informed decisions—with data from the current fiscal year and previous years. But the feature of the solution that made it stand out furthest above competitive products was that it works like other familiar Microsoft products, helping reduce the time required to learn how to use the software and fuel Waterloo Catholic’s productivity.
Waterloo Catholic immediately felt the benefit of their new solution in 2004.
“With the help of Sparkrock we have revamped our budgeting process. Tasks that used to take days to complete now take only hours. The difference is truly amazing. We got our weekends back!”
Shesh Maharaj
Executive Superintendent of Corporate Services & Treasurer
Budget management was simplified for Waterloo Catholic with the help of Sparkrock’s Finance solution and the cash management features. The solution automates bank account management tasks and the entire check-writing process. The school board has more visibility into its budgetary processes with bank reconciliation tools and bank account statistics reports.
With the ability to automatically import cleared cheques into the business management system, tracking budget spending has become easier for the organization, while data entry requirements have significantly decreased.
Waterloo Catholic can now email purchase orders, which allowed them to eliminate the need for a dedicated fax line, a modem, and software used to manage the faxing process under their old system. Simplifying the process has helped the school board realize cost and time savings as administrative staff can now focus on more strategic tasks.
The ease of use of the new solution allowed the school board’s staff to generate more reports in a significantly streamlined and quicker way and helped them make sense of the results. Where previously, staff members looking for specific types of information would have needed the assistance of an experienced report writer to generate a more complex report, today, they are comfortable performing such tasks independently.
“The user-friendly interface is the biggest immediate benefit we’ve seen. With our new system, transactional data is easy to read, budgets are easier to monitor, and users’ understanding of financial data is increasing across the organization. Our staff are now comfortable generating reports on their own to find the data they need—it’s a huge step for us.”
Shesh Maharaj
CFO/Superintendent of Corporate Services and Treasurer
Waterloo Catholic DSB has not looked back since their original purchase from Sparkrock in 2004. Over 10 years later, Waterloo Catholic still believes Microsoft Dynamics, provided by Sparkrock, is still the right choice for a sound financial and accounting management system for their board and the 55 schools they service.
The Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board has nurtured the development of students and families since 1847 and is fervently committed to high standards for achievement in teaching and learning. They are very proud of the quality of instruction within all schools and their commitment to inclusive learning spaces that provide differentiated opportunities for growth and development.
Before implementing the upgraded finance and HR/payroll solution, Huron-Perth faced several challenges that hindered their efficiency and data integrity. One major limitation was the absence of dimension validation during the posting process in their outdated system. Consequently, they had to perform numerous reallocation journal entries when it came time to generate reports for their schedules. This tedious and time-consuming task involved going back into their records to identify and correct misplaced postings. Such manual efforts drained valuable time and energy that could have been dedicated to other critical tasks.
The lack of validation functionality also resulted in uncertainty regarding the accuracy of their records. Without the ability to validate accounts before loading, there was a constant concern about data integrity and the reliability of the information pulled into their Ministry reports. This limitation significantly impacted their confidence in the reported data and the subsequent decision-making process.
“We evaluated the leading competitors in the K-12 school board business application market, but what impressed us most about the Sparkrock product was its flexibility. With Sparkrock we have the flexibility we need to respond to changing Ministry of Education reporting requirements. In addition, we feel confident that with the dedication of Sparkrock to the education market we’re purchasing a product that will continue to be well supported in years to come.”
Kevin Kale
Manager of Business Services at HPCDSB
Huron-Perth Catholic DSB first became a Sparkrock client in 2007, implementing the Finance & HR/Payroll solutions. Sparkrock supported Huron-Perth through the transition by constantly reassuring them with meetings and phone calls that they were on track with their implementation. Because the school board was nine versions behind, they were very nervous about the transition, particularly about their data accurately transferring.
“Sparkrock guided us and left no questions unanswered. They were there all the time, and they really held our hands."
Lisa Regier
Accounts Payable at HPCDSB
Sparkrock also sent Application Consultants on-site to help their team navigate the new software and the particular intricacies it holds for school boards. During the upgrade, the Sparkrock Customer Success team made numerous recommendations.
Mary-Ellen Ducharme, Manager of Finance, notes that “if your client success team recommends something, they know the product inside and out, listen to them because we found that 6 months down the road we wished we had acted upon the recommendations at the start.”
In the end, HPCDSB made the recommended changes and has experienced a smooth-running solution. Recently, Huron-Perth Catholic DSB underwent a substantial upgrade to bring their solution to the current version available.
With their upgraded finance and HR/payroll solution, Huron-Perth can now do dimension validation when posting, which has been an incredible time-saver. Using dimension combination validation allows them to check accounts before loading. If one is missing, they can quickly upload it and maintain their data integrity when they have to do reporting for Schedule 10.
“The solution is great because any time that can be saved between me and my team means that we have more time to provide support out in the schools to our portal users, to our department heads, and to our office assistants.”
Mary-Ellen Ducharme
Manager of Finance
Because their previous version was so old, they didn’t have the option to do validation before posting, so when it came time to do reporting for their schedules, they would have to do numerous reallocating journal entries. It took a lot of time and energy to go back into their records and determine where things should have been posted correctly in the first place. Now using dimension combination validation right in their GL before posting, they can rest assured that they have accurate records the first time around and trust the integrity of the data being pulled into their Ministry reports.
Mary-Ellen Ducharme notes, “The solution is great because any time that can be saved between me and my team means that we have more time to provide support out in the schools to our portal users, department heads, and office assistants.”
Mary-Ellen Ducharme“We believe it’s important to stay current because change is constant; we want to be up to date. We are a school board, so our teachers and students are always on the cutting edge of technology, so we certainly want to be on the same level as them. We want to have the best out there, and to us, that’s Sparkrock.”
Manager of Finance at HPCDSB
The District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board (DNSSAB) is committed to promoting and enhancing healthy communities, and strengthening and empowering their citizens. With a wealth of in-house experience, they carry out their mission in a citizen-focused manner, and by offering the best quality of services possible.
DNSSAB was using an outdated and costly system that made them rely on Excel spreadsheets to complete most tasks. Reporting was a hassle since the legacy software did not easily support basic accounting transactions and reporting, like providing aged Accounts Receivable listings.
“Everything took a long time. It took two Finance Officers to handle the many workarounds we developed. On top of that, the system was not user friendly and delayed the simple process of retrieving financial information.”
Sara Tonks
Director of Finance and Administration
With more than 75 funds to manage, the organization was searching for a solution that catered to their specific needs and could handle complex reporting to 4 different government funders. The top 3 goals set out by Tonks were flexibility to use dimensions, user-friendliness, and flexibility in reporting and accessing of information.
Sparkrock’s Finance and Accounting solution that was implemented solved all of the problems that DNSSAB was facing when it came to reporting. They can now add many different dimensions to their data, allowing them to slice and dice information and arrange it exactly the way their funders want it.
Furthermore, their new system can integrate with other systems to make importing and exporting data simple and fast, while providing real-time numbers. Workflows also streamline processes to ensure that funds and grants go through the proper approval process before being allocated to one of DNSSAB’s programs.
“We deal with many different government funders and Sparkrock’s financial solution gives us the flexibility to get the required information reported properly, accurately and fast. It’s wonderful and liberating to be confident that our information is correct.”
Sara Tonks
Director of Finance and Administration
After implementing their new solution, DNSSAB reduced the immediate accounting costs by $20,000 and realized significant improvements in efficiency. They virtually eliminated human errors of keying in information, and their reporting became a breeze!
What’s more, their month-end reports used to not be ready until the 3rd week the following month; now they are able to run reports any time, in real-time. They’ve reduced the reporting time from a month to usually less than 2 days.
Overall, because of these new-found efficiencies, DNSSAB estimates saving about $50,000 per year, which can be reallocated back into their services.
High Prairie School Division (HPSD) sought out a more secure and efficient way to share report cards and facilitate parent-teacher communication. Recognizing the limitations of email and the need for a more streamlined approach, the district implemented Sparkrock’s Edsembli Family Portal—transforming how families engage with their child’s education.
While HPSD had long used digital tools for communication in its secondary schools, elementary-level adoption remained a gap. That changed when the district saw the capabilities of Sparkrock’s Family Portal. The new system offered an intuitive, secure platform where parents could easily access student information, improving transparency and engagement across all grade levels.
Angela Uhrig-Dow, Student Information Specialist at HPSD, believes the portal’s features—particularly the homework tool—will foster stronger connections between teachers, students, and parents. Additionally, the communication board provides an interactive space for direct updates and announcements.
“Edsembli’s unified login is a game-changer, as it allows parents to seamlessly manage multiple children, even across several schools. Through secure mobile access to student data such as attendance, marks, and report cards, the portal has also reduced the risk of falling prey to phishing attacks or bad actors,” says Uhrig-Dow.
After piloting the portal in May and June, HPSD moved forward with a full-scale deployment in September. Sparkrock provided detailed documentation to guide families through the transition, minimizing potential challenges. Any issues identified during the pilot phase were quickly addressed by the Sparkrock team, ensuring a smooth rollout.
To further support adoption, Sparkrock introduced login activity reports, helping HPSD track engagement by monitoring which students and parents are accessing the system. These 30-day snapshots offer valuable insights into usage trends, allowing the district to continuously refine its approach.
In today’s digital learning environment, simplicity and efficiency matter. That’s why HPSD is enhancing the Family Portal in collaboration with Sparkrock—ensuring it meets the needs of educators, students, and families. With a focus on security, accessibility, and user experience, the district is creating a more connected and resilient education system that supports learning at every stage.
Join school districts like HPSD in creating a more connected learning experience. See how Sparkrock can help. Connect with our team to get started!
The needs of K-12 school boards are evolving, and legacy ERP solutions often struggle to keep up with the demands. District School Board Ontario North East (DSB1) recognized this challenge and saw an opportunity to modernize its operations. DSB1 partnered with Ontario Education Collaborative Marketplace (OECM) to complete an ERP bid process, with a goal of selecting a more efficient and future-ready solution. DSB1 evaluated multiple vendors and ultimately chose Sparkrock as its trusted partner.
During an extensive four-month evaluation, which included in-depth product demonstrations and direct engagement with vendors, Sparkrock stood out among the four vendors. According to DSB1 ERP Project Manager Stephanie Banks, communication played a critical role in the decision.
"The way [Sparkrock] communicated with us really set it apart from its competitors," says Banks. " During the pre-sales process, [They] quickly responded and ensured all our questions and concerns were addressed. They took a collaborative, proactive approach to problem-solving. [Sparkrock]’s proven track record and experience working with school boards even further cemented our confidence in its capabilities as a vendor."
Beyond communication, Sparkrock’s commitment to continuous innovation was a key factor. The board sought a modern ERP system that could replace its aging legacy platform while also being accessible and user-friendly. Sparkrock delivered on both fronts, providing a system designed specifically for the education sector.
Another major advantage for DSB1 was Sparkrock’s team of experts, many of whom have firsthand experience working within school districts. This background provided unique insight into the board’s challenges and allowed for a smoother implementation process.
“Because [Sparkrock] employs people who’ve faced the same challenges as our school district, it truly understands our needs,” explains Edwards. “We also really appreciate [Sparkrock’s] commitment to transparency and the clarity of its five-year roadmap, which together have allowed us to build a strong partnership and ensure both our organizations stay aligned in their long-term goals.”
DSB1’s journey with Sparkrock highlights how the right ERP solution can drive efficiency, streamline operations, and support better decision-making. With Sparkrock, the district has gained a future-focused system that adapts to the evolving demands of K-12 education, ensuring ongoing success for administrators, educators, and students alike.
As DSB1 continues to enhance its operations and adapt to the evolving needs of K-12 education, Sparkrock remains a dedicated partner, delivering a modern, efficient ERP solution designed to meet the unique challenges and opportunities of the sector.
Join school districts like DSB1 in transforming K-12 operations with Sparkrock. See how our purpose-built ERP can support your goals. Schedule a demo now!