CINCINNATI, April 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Abre.io
(Abre), K–12's leading administration platform provider, and Pay
Theory, a Family Tech company that provides payment solutions for
school districts, childcare, and families, announce their
partnership to help them better achieve their shared mission of
breaking down socioeconomic and technical barriers to
education.
Abre is a K–12 platform comprised of education and community
apps that, when grouped, form solutions to streamline experiences
for all stakeholders. For example, its Plans App allows schools to
develop education plans for students and professional plans for
teachers. Abre's new Payments App, powered by Pay Theory, will give
families and partners a financially inclusive and secure payments
experience that is fully integrated with student records and other
district systems to increase automation and efficiency. Through
this partnership, Abre is going to be able to offer school
districts across the country the opportunity to give its families
and partners a financially inclusive and secure payments
experience.
The COVID–19 pandemic has laid bare the educational disparities
and issues facing families from lower-income and underbanked
backgrounds. With Abre and Pay Theory, schools and school districts
have a simple solution with which to bring holistic inclusion to
their families.
"Together we believe we are creating a better experience for all
stakeholders," says Eric Fulkert,
Pay Theory co-founder and chief technology officer. "Abre and Pay
Theory are poised to change how schools and families interact about
money. Abre has a vision for changing how schools work, and we are
excited to be part of that vision."
The Abre / Pay Theory partnership was a natural fit from the
outset. Both fixtures of the Cincinnati startup scene, the two companies
share a vision to improve education administration and
accessibility for everyone.
The integrated platform will help families of K–12 students to
facilitate education-related payments and other household
management functions. Schools will see reduced funding gaps from
unpaid fees. In all, Abre and Pay Theory's joint tools will create
a digital educational administration ecosystem for all parties,
bridging connections between schools, districts, and families.
"We're excited to partner with Pay Theory as it helps us get
even closer to delivering on our audacious goal of better
supporting student success by removing fragmented experiences to
all stakeholders in and out of school," says Abre CEO James Stoffer.
Using a credit/debit card, checking account details, or Pay
Theory's digitized cash payment tool, families can access the Abre
/ Pay Theory platform to make school-related payments such as field
trips, athletic participation, and tests such as the Advanced
Placement exams safely and securely.
Families that prefer to make payments in cash can select that as
an option in the platform during the checkout process. They will
then receive a barcode in the Abre platform with encoded
information unique to their transaction. They can then take that
barcode to one of more than 65,000 retailers throughout the US,
including Dollar General and Walgreens. After the cashier scans the
code, the user can complete the transaction in cash. The Pay Theory
platform executes the transaction immediately; with Abre recording
receipt of payment for students and families.
School districts and families alike get the benefit of having
accounts in one place. Abre also supports partners outside of
school and, as such, will be able to facilitate payments and
donations back into the district. The platform can help power and
manage vital programs such as corporate matching, school
fundraisers and carnivals, managing cash functions such as raffle
tickets and silent auction bids.
Some school systems see as much as 30 percent of school fees
going uncollected.
By paving a way for the roughly one third of US families that
are underbanked, school districts can help close this bookkeeping
gap. Pay Theory's digitized cash payment tool means a safer, more
secure school for teachers and students that comes with a cash-free
campus, but with the financial inclusivity that comes with meeting
everyone's needs. In addition, the Abre platform provides
integrations with existing school management and accounting
systems, creating a harmonized platform that benefits students,
families, schools, and districts.
"Abre is in a unique position to change how schools manage
parent relationships. Abre brings the ability to unify access to
all the platforms in a school, as well as a CRM to help schools
manage and nurture these connections," Fulkert continues. "Our
partnership with Abre will help schools increase financial
inclusion through better communication about money, and ease of
access for banked and unbanked families alike."
Fulkert, a 15-year-plus veteran of the EdTech industry, had
known about and respected Abre as a K–12 administration platform,
as well as has a strong working relationship with Chris Rose, its co-founder and chief technology
officer. The timing of Pay Theory's minimum viable product
completion along with Abre's onboarding earlier this year of
Stoffer as its new CEO — who has more than 15 years in scaling
EdTech companies in his own right — the timing for the integration
was optimal.
"Given Eric's deep experience, Pay Theory immediately earned our
trust by proving the team gets the K–12 space," says Stoffer. "The
various use cases Pay Theory is already supporting and other ones
they are building are unique among payments solutions."
To learn more about Abre, please visit abre.io. To learn more
about Pay Theory, please visit paytheory.com.
About Abre
Abre.io provides a leading education
management platform that delivers software solutions designed to be
easily adopted and used by everyone in the learning community.
Administrators and teachers can spend more time focusing on student
growth and less time on navigating multiple software platforms.
Families and community partners increase their engagement with
schools through easy access to the information they need most.
Learn more at abre.io.
About Pay Theory
Pay Theory is a family tech company
that breaks down barriers between vital service providers and the
families they serve through a platform of simple, responsive and
impactful financial solutions. For schools and other family service
providers, we build tools to help them save time by integrating
with their systems and processes. For parents, we offer cash
access, ease of use, and simple ways to see and manage balances. We
envision a world where cashless schools and underbanked families
coexist, saving everyone time. To help build our vision, our team
has a background in EdTech and payments. Our goal is to make the
difficult conversations around school fees simple and painless.
Learn more at PayTheory.com.
Contact: Anne Szustek Talbot,
anne@bx3.io
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SOURCE Pay Theory