Frequently Asked Questions

Basic setup takes less than 24 hours. Once you provide your school's branding, classes, and staff list, our onboarding team will configure the system for you. Full data migration (if moving from another system) typically takes 3 to 7 days depending on the volume of historical data.

No. SmartSchool.Africa is 100% cloud-based. You and your staff only need a web browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari) on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The only optional hardware is for biometric attendance (fingerprint scanners), which we can recommend and help integrate, but manual attendance works perfectly out-of-the-box.

Absolutely. If you have your student, staff, and parent data in an Excel spreadsheet, CSV, or another software format, our support team will securely import it for you at no extra cost during the onboarding phase.

None at all. Our pricing is transparent and billed annually. We do not lock you into long-term multi-year contracts. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your subscription at the end of any billing cycle.

Yes! We integrate deeply with local payment gateways depending on your country. This includes MTN MoMo & Airtel Money (Uganda/Tanzania/Ghana), M-Pesa (Kenya), Paystack & Flutterwave (Nigeria), and PayFast or SnapScan (South Africa). Parents pay, and the bursar is updated instantly.

No limits on our Professional and Enterprise plans. You can add unlimited students, staff, and parents. Our Startup plan is designed for schools with up to 300 students, but you can easily upgrade as your school grows.

Completely. You can upload your school's logo, motto, and principal's signature. More importantly, our system allows you to customize the grading scales, subject groupings, and comment sections to perfectly match your local ministry of education's exact layout.

SmartSchool.Africa handles complex subject combinations effortlessly. Students can be assigned to specific streams (e.g., Sciences, Arts, Business) and the system will automatically generate timetables, mark sheets, and report cards showing only the subjects relevant to that specific student or stream.

Security is our top priority. We use enterprise-grade cloud hosting with SSL encryption, daily automated backups, and strict role-based access controls. Your data is stored securely and complies with regional data protection regulations (like POPIA in South Africa or NDPR in Nigeria).

Because we are cloud-based, an active internet connection is required for real-time updates. However, our offline-capable modules (like offline biometric attendance check-ins) queue the data locally and automatically sync to the cloud the moment your connection is restored.

We offer multi-channel support including live chat, email, WhatsApp, and direct phone calls. Enterprise clients receive a dedicated account manager and priority SLA support. We also provide comprehensive video tutorials and an internal knowledge base for your staff.