Education | 10 Jun 2023

Case Study: St Edmunds Catholic Academy

St Edmund’s is an aspirational learning community committed to the personal, spiritual and academic growth of all young people in their care. St Edmund's students acquire knowledge, skills and academic excellence not simply for their own personal advancement, but with an awareness of how this will benefit their community and the wider world.

Emergency Cards for School trip

Managing the financial actions of any school, trust or academy can be tricky, especially when it comes to trips in the UK and abroad – we get it. And it only gets worse when you have a trip coming up at short notice.

Previously, St Edmunds Catholic school, part of the St Francis & St Clare Catholic MAC, managed school trips by giving cash to staff to use for lunches, items to buy for the classroom and general expenses. But quite often staff would still have to use their own cash or debit cards, and sometimes the money would be lost or even stolen. Reconciling receipts at the end of a trip was a hassle, with currency conversion presenting a particular headache. And with another trip coming up in just a few days, they needed to find a solution quickly.

Just in Time Cards

Wanting a robust solution, St Edmunds turned to Caxton. As a leading expense management provider within the school sector, supporting over 500 UK schools, the setup was simple – and crucially, though delivery of the cards would normally take 3-5 business days, in this case we were able to ship quicker, ensuring that the school gained access in time for their trip.

Caxton delivered 2 emergency cards to the school within 2 days, meaning that staff could load the card with the currency they needed and safely spend whilst abroad. It also meant they could top up the card when spending was getting a little close to their budget too – all done back from the central finance team at the school.

Coming home, it meant no awkward missing receipts or paperwork to fill in, the staff had simply scanned the receipts on the Caxton app and uploaded it the system, saving everyone time and money.

“Caxton have been terrific, not only did they get the cards to us within two working days but they took away the painful process of providing our staff with a safe way to spend abroad and no lost receipts, they were so supportive. The team are friendly, approachable and respond really quickly to any queries so I would highly recommend Caxton to my colleagues!” - Donna Watson, Senior Financial Manager