8 Questions to Ask a Vendor Before You Sign

By the time a vendor proposal reaches the President's desk, the demo is done, the features have been compared, and the price sits somewhere near the back.

What's usually missing is the part that decides whether the system will still be working for the school in three years.

Most advice on how to choose a school management system starts with the feature list. Features matter less than they look. Almost every system on a shortlist can enroll a student and print a report card. What separates them is what happens to your data, your enrollment peak, your compliance and your support line when something goes wrong.

This is our answer to how to choose a school management system: eight questions to put to every vendor before you sign, grouped by what they protect. Ask for the answers in writing, so they can sit alongside the contract.

Questions about the data you already have

Any guide on how to choose a school management system should start with the records you already have, because they're the hardest thing to replace.

1. How will you move our existing records, and who checks them?

Data migration is the part of choosing school software that schools most often underestimate. Ask who does the work, how many years of records come across, and who signs off that the migrated grades and balances match the originals. A good answer names a process, a person on each side and a check before go-live. A vendor that calls migration effortless hasn't done many.

2. What happens to records that don't fit your structure?

Every school has them: irregular students, transferees, old grading scales, a curriculum revised twice. Ask to see how the system handles your own exceptions, not a clean sample. The records that don't fit are the ones your registrar will be asked about later.

Questions about what happens at enrollment peak

3. What happens on the first day of enrollment, when everyone logs in at once?

Enrollment week is when a system earns its keep or loses the school's trust. Ask about uptime during peak periods specifically, not as a yearly average. Ask how the system handles heavy load, how outages are communicated, and whether you can speak to a school of your size about its last enrollment season. Peak behaviour rarely shows up in a school management system comparison, because demos run on a quiet day.

If the school takes online enrollment or online payments, ask the same question about the payment gateway and the guardian portal. A system that stays up while payments fail still leaves a queue at the cashier.

This is the question most buyers skip, and it's the one parents and students will judge the school on.

Questions about compliance and reporting

For the board, compliance is the part of how to choose a school management system that carries legal weight.

4. How do you meet the Data Privacy Act, and who is your data protection officer?

Student records are personal information, and the school stays accountable for them whoever holds them. Ask where the data is stored, who can access it, how access is logged, and how a breach would be reported. Ask whether the system has been independently security tested. DPA compliance should be answered with specifics, not a logo on a slide.

5. Which CHED and DepEd reports does the system produce, and who updates them when the format changes?

CHED reporting and DepEd school forms change, sometimes mid-year. Ask who updates the templates, how quickly, and whether it costs extra. This year's move to the three-term calendar is a fair test: ask each vendor what they changed for it and when.

Questions about support, and who answers

Ask any registrar how to choose a school management system and the answer usually comes back to support.

6. When something breaks, who answers, and how fast?

Ask for the support SLA in writing: response times by severity, the hours support is available, and how issues are escalated. Ask whether support is based in the Philippines and works in your time zone, and whether it's included in the price. Put that answer in the school system evaluation next to the licence fee. A registrar at the counter with a queue of parents needs an answer that day, not a ticket number.

7. What does training cost after go-live, and who trains new staff?

Staff change. A registrar retires, an IT head moves on, a new cashier starts in June. Ask whether training for new staff is included for the life of the contract or charged per session. A system the school can't train its own people on becomes a system only one person can run.

Questions about what happens if you leave

8. If we leave, how do we get our data out, in what format, and at what cost?

No one signs a contract planning to leave, which is exactly why this question gets skipped. It's the least comfortable part of how to choose a school management system, and the most revealing. Ask whether you can export all of your records, including grades, balances and history, in a standard format, and whether there's a fee. Ask what happens to your data after the contract ends. Ask, too, what the contract says about price increases at renewal. Leaving is hardest when the school learns the new price only after years of records are already in the system. A vendor confident in its system will answer this one easily.

How to read the answers you get

A school management system comparison built on these eight questions looks different from one built on features. A few patterns help when reading the answers:

• Specific beats general. A process, a name and a timeframe are worth more than "we'll handle that for you".

• References should look like you. Ask to speak to a school of your size and type, not only the biggest name on the client list.

• Watch the price, not just the rate. A per-student price leaves out migration, training and support. Compare what the school will pay over the life of the contract. 

• Written beats verbal. If an answer matters, it belongs in the proposal.

Any school system evaluation that covers these eight will take longer than a demo. 

It's still the quickest way we know to see how to choose a school management system on what holds up after go-live, and to keep choosing school software from becoming a decision the school revisits in two years.

We'd expect you to put all eight to us as well. Our answers start with what we can point to: an Import Wizard for moving records from legacy systems, Data Privacy Act compliance and a DPO seal, independent vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, a Philippine-based support team, and lifetime support and help desk. You can see what Edusuite K12 and Edusuite UNI cover before the call.

If you're working out how to choose a school management system for school year 2027-2028, book a demo and bring this list. We'll go through each question with your registrar and IT head.

The cheapest system to buy is not always the cheapest to run, and these eight answers show the board which is which.