The Indian market has dozens of “school ERP” products. Most demos look similar on day one — the differences show up in month three when real workflows hit the system.
Start With Roles and Permissions
Ask how data is isolated between schools (multi-tenant) and between staff (RBAC). Can an accountant delete invoices? Can a teacher see another section’s fee data? Weak answers here are disqualifying. Our student data security guide lists what to verify.
Fee Management Depth
You need partial payments, sequential receipts, defaulter reports, and reminder automation — not just “fee module yes/no”. Demand a live walkthrough with your actual fee heads (tuition, transport, exam, activity).
Attendance and Parent Alerts
Teachers will adopt only if marking takes under a minute. Principals need same-day summaries. Parents need reliable SMS, not buried WhatsApp threads. Read WhatsApp vs SMS for School Communication before you decide.
Communication and Auditability
Look for template variables, scheduling, delivery logs, and exportable history. Boards and parents increasingly ask “prove this notice was sent”.
Total Cost of Ownership
Include SMS costs, training time, data migration, and support SLAs — not just licence price. Pathshala is built for 300–1,500 student private schools with a 48-hour go-live target; talk to us for a scored comparison worksheet you can reuse in your committee meetings.