At the FCIS Annual Convention 2025, I had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with a group of business officers who had gathered around our booth, discussing the usual challenges that the schools face – tuition billing, fundraising reports, reconciliation struggles, and the never-ending need for accurate data.
One of them said with quiet sincerity, “We wish our finance, and fundraising systems were fully connected.”
Something about the way they said it made me pause. Not frustrated. Not demanding. Just genuinely hoping for things to work a little more smoothly.
And it hit me: so many schools are navigating incredibly complex workflows with tools that were never designed to work together in the first place. It’s nobody’s fault – schools grow, needs evolve, and suddenly you have five different systems trying their best, but not really communicating. What starts as a manageable setup gradually becomes disconnected, and staff end up working twice as hard just to keep everything aligned.
So I found myself explaining why MentisSoft was created and what makes FINACS and FundThrive a little different.
FINACS is our school accounting and tuition management system – built to simplify billing, support flexible payment plans, and give finance teams the clarity they need. FundThrive, on the other hand, focuses on the heart of the school community: donors, campaigns, relationships, and fundraising goals.
But what often surprises people is that both products were designed with one key principle in mind:
“Schools shouldn’t have to connect the dots on their own. Their systems should do that for them.”
Each is strong on its own, but the real value comes from how intentionally the two are designed to work together. And that’s where the integration between FINACS and FundThrive truly matters.
- A donation recorded in FundThrive appears instantly in FINACS—mapped to the right fund and ledger account, and posted directly as a real-time journal entry in the school’s General Ledger. It’s one of those moments where everything just happens effortlessly within the system
- For schools, all parents and sponsors from FINACS can be transferred into FundThrive as donors, and students can also be brought over to help maintain the right donor–student associations. Alumni can even be treated as donors when needed.
- Every contribution and pledge from FundThrive is automatically associated with the correct FINACS chart of accounts, so the school’s financial records stay accurate without extra reconciliation work.
- And when it comes to reporting, FundThrive focuses only on donor and contribution insights—not accounting. So schools get clear fundraising reports like LYBUNT, SYBUNT, top donors, contribution lists by donor, campaign, event registrations, student soft credit, pledges etc. All the actual financial reporting continues to live in FINACS, exactly where it belongs.
And the best part? Neither the finance team nor the advancement team has to move data around anymore — the integration handles it quietly and reliably in the background.
The goal is to create a smoother, more connected way for schools to operate—one that allows teams to spend less time working through data issues and more time supporting students and families. This approach focuses on simplicity, consistency, and meaningful impact rather than adding unnecessary complexity.
FCIS 2025 highlighted that integration is no longer optional; it is becoming the foundation of healthy school operations. When systems work together, collaboration strengthens, communication improves, data becomes more reliable, and families experience a more coordinated and supportive school environment.
For us at MentisSoft, it was encouraging to see how many schools are ready for this shift. And it was even more meaningful to know that our approach—thoughtful, steady, and genuinely supportive resonated with them.
If you’d like to see this level of seamless integration firsthand, we’d love to walk you through it.
Schedule a demo and explore how FINACS and FundThrive can help your school build a more unified and future-ready ecosystem.
