Flywire & Workday Student: Streamlining Higher-Ed Payments

In a significant development for the higher education sector, Flywire, a leading global payments and receivables company, has announced a deepened strategic partnership with Workday, a prominent provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. This collaboration marks a crucial integration of Flywire’s advanced payments and student financial software with Workday Student, aiming to revolutionize how higher education institutions manage student payments. The integration, officially unveiled on October 16, empowers universities and colleges using Workday Student to streamline their financial operations, enhance the student payment experience, and reduce administrative complexities associated with tuition and fees.

Revolutionizing Higher-Education Payment Infrastructure

The core of this expanded partnership lies in its ability to embed Flywire’s robust payment capabilities directly within the Workday Student platform. Workday Student, a comprehensive system designed to manage a wide array of academic and financial processes including registration, billing, and financial aid, now facilitates direct student payment processing. This eliminates the need for institutions to manage separate systems for student information and payment collection, thereby creating a more cohesive and efficient financial ecosystem.

Flywire's recognition as a Workday Certified provider underscores the technical and operational synergy between the two platforms. This certification assures higher education institutions of a seamless and secure integration, minimizing implementation challenges. The collaboration is poised to offer substantial benefits:

• Streamlined Billing: Automates and simplifies the billing cycle, reducing manual intervention and potential for errors.
• Reduced Administrative Complexity: Consolidates payment processes, freeing up administrative staff to focus on more strategic tasks rather than payment inquiries and reconciliation.
• Multi-Currency Support: Enables institutions to accept payments in a multitude of currencies, crucial for international student populations, without necessitating significant IT investments.
• Localized Payment Methods: Through Flywire’s extensive global payment network, institutions can offer hundreds of localized payment options, catering to diverse student demographics and preferences. This ensures greater accessibility and convenience for students and their families worldwide.

Crucially, all payment transactions and updates are synchronized in real-time via Flywire’s advanced APIs, ensuring that student account balances and institutional records are always up-to-date. This real-time data flow significantly improves visibility and accuracy in financial reconciliation processes.

Flywire's Student Financial Software (SFS): Enhancing Operational Efficiency

A pivotal component of this integration is Flywire’s Student Financial Software (SFS). SFS is engineered to automate critical financial operations, including the management of payment plans and the often-challenging process of collecting past-due balances. By embedding SFS functionalities within Workday Student, universities can leverage sophisticated tools to:

• Automate Payment Plans: Offer flexible payment schedules to students, automating the collection process and improving cash flow predictability for institutions.
• Manage Collections Proactively: Implement systematic approaches to manage outstanding debts, reducing the administrative burden and improving collection rates.
• Improve Account Visibility: With transactions and updates posting automatically, institutions gain immediate and accurate insights into student account balances, aiding in financial planning and decision-making.
• Reduce Inquiries: Flywire estimates that this integration can lead to a reduction of billing and payment-related inquiries by up to 40%, allowing staff to allocate resources more effectively.

Beyond tuition payments, the platform also extends its support to 529 plan disbursements, a popular savings vehicle for education expenses. This automation streamlines cashiering operations and significantly reduces the reliance on paper checks, aligning with modern digital financial practices while ensuring student accounts remain current and accurate.

Global Reach and Strategic Vision

Flywire’s extensive global footprint, serving over 4,800 clients across 240 countries and territories and supporting more than 140 currencies, positions it as a critical player in international education finance. This global capability is now seamlessly integrated into Workday Student, benefiting institutions with diverse student populations. David King, Flywire’s Chief Technology Officer, emphasized that this integration delivers unparalleled transparency, convenience, and security, benefiting both the institutions and their students. Early adopters, such as Amherst College, have already reported tangible improvements, noting faster reconciliation processes and a significant reduction in manual interventions post-implementation.

An Elevated Student and Family Experience

For students and their families, the integrated experience represents a considerable upgrade. The system provides a single, intuitive portal for viewing account balances, accessing financial aid information, and completing payments. This consolidated approach drastically reduces administrative queries and the frustration often associated with navigating disparate systems. Workday Student’s holistic design, which brings together academic records, financial aid, billing, and advising into one unified system with embedded payments, is specifically crafted to eliminate data silos and provide a consistent, user-friendly experience.

This partnership builds upon Flywire’s ongoing strategic initiatives to solidify its leadership in education payments. Recently, the company launched a solution aimed at streamlining U.K. student loan payments, further enhancing automation and compliance for universities collaborating with government lenders. Such innovations underscore Flywire’s commitment to addressing the evolving needs of the education sector.

The timing of this integration is particularly pertinent, given recent reports indicating that college administrators often spend more than half their time managing unpaid tuition. This highlights the urgent need for modernizing legacy billing and reconciliation systems. Digital solutions like the Flywire-Workday Student integration are increasingly seen as indispensable tools for improving cash flow management, significantly reducing administrative overhead, and ultimately elevating the overall financial experience for students and their institutions.

In conclusion, the integration of Flywire with Workday Student marks a pivotal advancement in higher education financial management. By combining robust payment processing with comprehensive student information systems, this partnership is set to empower institutions with greater efficiency, transparency, and global reach, while providing students and families with a more convenient and secure payment experience.