How one of England's oldest schools brought its finance function into the modern age
King’s Ely has stood in the shadow of one of England’s finest cathedrals for over a thousand years. It is one of the oldest schools in the world — and one of the most forward-thinking when it comes to how it runs.
From the state sector to independent education – and the gap in between
With more than 1,150 pupils from age 2 to 18, a complex mix of fee-paying families, boarders, and bursary recipients, and a finance team expected to provide fast, accurate answers to senior leaders and governors, Chief Financial Officer and Deputy COO Fiona Sanders-Hewett needed a school finance system that could genuinely keep up.
Fiona came to King’s Ely from the state sector, where she had relied on PSF – a system she trusted and knew well. Moving into independent education meant leaving that behind and finding something capable of handling a very different set of financial demands: fee management, bursary tracking, and granular per-pupil cost allocation.
Most accounting software wasn’t built with schools like King’s Ely in mind. Fiona needed something that was.
“I would say absolutely get iFinance in to give you a demo. You won’t be disappointed.”
The answer:
iFinance
King’s Ely implemented iFinance around four years ago. For Fiona, it filled the gap left by her state-sector tools – and then some.
“I wanted something that would work for me in a similar vein, but obviously would factor in things like the fees, bursaries – and iFinance was that product.”
Hear from Fiona: How King's Ely transformed its finance reporting
Hear from Fiona: How King's Ely transformed its finance reporting
Watch Fiona Sanders-Hewett, CFO and Deputy COO at King’s Ely, talk through the move from state-sector finance systems to iFinance — and the impact it’s had on reporting speed, pupil-level insight, and day-to-day confidence in the numbers.
What changed
Pupil-level insight, pulled in seconds
When governors or senior leaders ask how much funding a specific child has received – and what costs have been allocated against them – the answer used to take time. Now it doesn’t.
“When people come to me and want to know, for example, how much specific funding has been received for a child – I can pull that really quickly, see how much funding they’ve had and see the costs that have been allocated against that specific child.”
For any school managing bursaries or targeted support packages, this kind of per-pupil visibility isn’t just useful – it’s essential.
Reporting by section, not just by school
Schools aren’t one entity. They’re made up of departments, year groups, and sections – each with their own budgets and activity. iFinance reflects that.
“If I want to run the accounts for a specific section of the school, I can do that.”
Year-on-year comparison in moments
Comparative reporting – last year versus this year, budget versus actuals – is one of the most common demands on a finance team. It’s also one of the most time-consuming, unless your system is built for it.
“If I want to look at last year compared to this year, I can do that so quickly.”
An implementation built around the school
The system is only as good as the setup. Fiona’s experience of the iFinance implementation stood out – and she says so unprompted.
Too often, schools are expected to adapt to their software. iFinance adapts to them.
“I found the implementation to be really good and catered to exactly what we needed, and set it up in the way that we wanted it to work – which is quite novel, I would say, with accounting systems.”
The result: a reporting life transformed
The cumulative effect of all of this is straightforward – less time buried in financial admin, more confidence in the numbers, and faster answers when it counts.
“It’s really made my reporting life much easier”, said Fiona.
About iFinance
iFinance is iSAMS’s purpose-built school accounting software for independent schools — designed around the way bursars and finance teams actually work. Key capabilities include:
Fee and bursary management – track income, awards, and funding at individual pupil level
Departmental and section-level reporting – run accounts by cost centre, year group, or section
Budget vs actuals and year-on-year comparison – without manual data manipulation
Purchase order and invoice management – digitise approval workflows end to end
Bank reconciliation – intelligent posting based on recurring transactions speeds up month-end
GL Explorer – snapshot views of budget vs actual with drill-down for quick answers
Because iFinance integrates directly with the iSAMS MIS, pupil and staff data flows between systems automatically – no duplicate entry, no manual reconciliation between platforms