How Plymouth Public Schools Streamlined Extra Pay

Adam Blaisdell, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and School Operations for Plymouth Public Schools, didn't set out to overhaul payroll from the start. His initial frustration began with fundraising requests during a period when the district lacked administrative support, leaving him to track every detail manually in a spreadsheet.

"After a fundraiser was done, we then had to reach out to the person who started the fundraiser and ask for what their receipts were. So it all had to be manually entered," Blaisdell recalled. "I thought, this is crazy that I'm having to enter this information manually. There must be a better way."

The burden was even greater for timesheets and additional compensation. The business office was inundated with paper, requiring staff to manually enter every additional pay form into Munis. Blaisdell knew the manual process was ripe for errors and began searching for a more efficient solution.

Fixing the workflow, not just the form

The district turned to Informed K12 to build a better process, but the real transformation was in the workflow. Timesheets now follow a digital approval chain before they ever reach the payroll desk. Verification happens closer to the source of the work, and account numbers are attached during the routing process—tasks that once fell exclusively on the central office. Today, payroll simply imports a formatted spreadsheet directly into Munis.

"That is making things much more accurate, much more quicker," Blaisdell said. Describing the impact on his team's workload, he noted that the weekly "stack of papers" used to cost his staff hours of manual entry every week.

The same efficiency has transformed fundraising. Instead of chasing down individual staff members with phone calls and follow-up emails, the business office can now send a single reminder to everyone with outstanding receipts at once. Blaisdell notes, "it's much quicker."

Building in accountability

Before digitizing, extra time was often logged into Plymouth's student information system based on verbal reports. "Someone could go up to the admin assistant and say, 'I did two extra hours today covering for a teacher,' and they would just put it into Aspen," Blaisdell said. "There was no sign-off. There was no approval."

The new digital system closed that gap. Approvals are now routed directly to an employee's district email.. Furthermore, built-in formulas now handle the math, allowing payroll to focus on spot-checks rather than manual reconstruction.

The transition took time and careful planning. Plymouth phased in the digital timesheets over a full school year, setting a firm cutover date while providing computer access for staff without a computer. Blaisdell's advice for other districts is that while adoption isn't instant, a clear deadline combined with accessible hardware can move even the most resistant buildings forward.

A model for the whole district

The takeaway from Plymouth's experience is that the solution wasn't just about moving paper online; it was about creating a repeatable way to route, verify, and account for requests. This shift in thinking has changed how the business office approaches new problems. As Blaisdell put it, the focus is now on the end result: "What do you want from it?"

Plymouth's journey highlights how Informed K12 provides business offices with a unified system to manage approvals and data verification before it ever hits an ERP. 

Quotes are drawn from a recorded Informed K12 webinar featuring staff from Plymouth Public Schools.