Allovue Budget

Finance system software for schools and school districts is categorically awful. Budgeting systems, when they’re in place, are often worse. Many districts still email around spreadsheets with last year’s budget and tell the principals “Just make sure your budget is under $X amount. You're on your own.”

Allovue Budget is used by small districts with several thousand students and huge districts with several hundred thousand. It allows principals to easily plan, budget, and submit their budgets. It’s been used to plan budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

My goal for the product was to make as its features self-explanatory, to make observing the connections between these complex entities straightforward, and to be a single set of patterns that can replace a myriad of bespoke budgeting processes. I met some principals in person who had to use Budget for the first time to plan next year’s budget. I expected revolt laced with scathing critique. Instead I received the best product reviews of my life:

“It was honestly pretty easy. I was able to just figure it out. It took about a day or two then I was done.”

Budget is a complex product that unfortunately shows its age. We’re working on bringing the best parts of it into our new app and finally building ideas and requests we’ve had for years.

I’m proud of what we accomplished and I now know “I was able to just figure it out.” can be the sweetest words.