Our mission is for students to have greater access to Higher Education and help make it affordable and convenient. We also believe technology is going to help us get there, making it easier for campus staff to be more effective and efficient.
Many campus leaders, and their technology partners, work hard to offer convenient ways to get goods like course materials, supplies, and food – especially for those eligible for support and financial aid. However, behind the scenes, it’s common to hear of staff who handle those transactions using manual or partly automated processes, which is a hassle. Others are stretched to their limit – bogged down by inefficiency.
Watchman powers solutions that eliminate those hassles while ensuring compliance with all campus and regulatory requirements. This improves the campus experience, strengthens institutions, supports vendors, and leads to greater student success.
The foundation for Watchman Payment Systems started in early 2016 when a group of former business partners who had worked together in a point-of-sale business decided to build something innovative and different that could benefit a broader range of colleges and students. We saw a significant hole in student payments, and we quickly found ourselves immersed in the world of campus transactions.
We noticed the challenges brought on by even the simplest-sounding transactions. If a student could not pay out-of-pocket, purchases could become complex and problematic. Sometimes going out of pocket wasn’t an option, especially for expensive items like course materials. Good solutions existed, both campus-built and from software suppliers, but coverage was often patchwork and the solutions were often semi-manual workarounds that were limited in scope.
Our goal became to fill these holes and give students and staff a simple, hassle-free way to handle ALL purchases made with student funds. We wanted to make the experience as painless as possible for everyone in the transaction flow.
Some of our milestones include:
Through this experience, we have created the most comprehensive, robust Student Educational Payments platform in the industry. We call it STEP. STEP enables educational institutions to provide low-cost, highly accessible course materials to students – without increasing the burden on staff in the campus store, IT, Business Office, Bursar Office, or Financial Aid office. STEP meets the highest standards for data security. It powers all the services we offer, from IA Billing, to AR Services, to building better interfaces to support Food Insecurity – and whatever problem we solve next.
We’re rolling out more information every day about our services and solutions here. If you have questions about information we haven’t added, yet, or you want to talk to us directly, Please reach out to us at info@watchmanpaymentsystems.com for more information. Additionally, please watch this space – there is more information and more announcements coming soon.