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In the post-pandemic world, universities’ edtech spend has been thrown into the spotlight.

More than ever, institutions are investing in software and digital technologies to deliver a teaching and learning experience that meets student expectations.

Demand for edtech has been “accelerated by the pandemic” and the sector grew 72 per cent in the UK in 2020, according to data from the Digital Economy Council. At the end of 2021, the industry was worth an estimated £3.4 billion.

Natasha Gabriel, manager of UK regional marketing at Soldo, a spend management platform, says the pandemic has “fundamentally changed the way universities have to operate to be competitive”.

“Edtech has given opportunities to remove boundaries and make things available that weren’t before,” Gabriel says. “With university fees increasing but distant learning becoming more popular, it is understandable that students and regulators are expecting to see more detail of where money is being spent.”

With an increasing amount of technology being purchased, universities will have to manage, monitor and review their spend, says Charlotte Heatley, account manager at Soldo.

“They will need a system to manage all those systems. Software to manage the software,” Heatley says. “A university might use one system across different departments. If these are purchased independently of each other, the universities aren’t going to be taking advantage of bulk discounts.”

Soldo gives budget holders more control and transparency over spending. Backed by Mastercard, the platform links physical and virtual cards with a system that tracks spending in real time. Finance teams are given an instant view of departmental spending, allowing them to monitor, forecast and budget smarter. An insights function provides accessible reports.

“It’s less reactive, more proactive,” Heatley says. “Departments might not always communicate as they should. If you centralise how you monitor spending on edtech, you’ve got that oversight to control it. You can have more granular insight into what you’re spending on, how frequently, which departments are using it and focus on bringing those value-add edtechs across the institution. With Soldo, if you spend it, you can see it.”

The platform reduces the time finance teams spend on administrative tasks such as processing receipts and expense reports, freeing them to be proactive in finding financial efficiencies that benefit the university’s bottom line. This could include something like grouping together subscriptions for a piece of edtech being used by multiple departments.

“If you looked across the university and found you were using four different edtechs for seminar delivery, with Soldo all of a sudden, the finance team would have a clear view of this. They could talk to those teams, get feedback on each edtech and see if it’s worth moving to one provider and getting a bulk discount for using it across the different parts of the university,” Gabriel says. “When people get that power from the insights, they can really make the best use of the edtech they have.”

about Soldo.