Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. To answer some of your questions, our program has been running for 14 weeks. We started with groceries only and then did one big christmas order (retailers)which was tremendous. We do not give tutition credit yet. However, it has been discussed and I know a software package should be purchased. For now I do everything on Excel. I thought a software program might be quicker to use and more efficent.

We use a smaller scrip organization called UnitedScrip ( www.unitedscrip.com ) They have their own software that is very reasonable, provide an orderform to share with your families in multiple formats (excel, pdf, word). Their customer service is wonderful. I have used their software for 1 1/2 years and it makes managing our program very easy. You can load family information from an excel file or enter each family as they order. It will let you track different campaigns (we do a field trip campaign where each family keeps 1/2 the profit to help pay for field trips) We also return 100% of the profit for a teacher's personal order for them to use in their classroom. The software will work with inventory orders or with weekly orders. I hope this helps

We use hte Quickbooks not to track for tuition credit directly, but our Scrip program is mandatory unless you do the buyout. Using hte percentages that scrip gives you, each family is required to make a minimum purchase each week so the school gets a minimum of $2.50 per week. So basically our program is set up to ensure that each family is meeting their goal

Yes I do track the scrip for tuition reduction for families( the only way I could give school credits is if half goes to families and half goes to our parish) - quickbooks has made that lot easier BUT it did take a long time to set up and get everything entered. We are a small school (180 kids) we only had a few people participating but now we have about 50 families and from Sept - Dec $815 is being applied to students accounts. It's a little time consuming but it's working. It would be a lot easier to just sell them but the tuition credits are a big incentive. Good Luck Jane [img]smile.gif[/img]

slady - we just got started with scrip, and so far have done it all on excel/manual logs. BUT, my question for you: does your scrip program earn tuition credits for your parents? In other words, do you need to tie each family's individual profit back to that family? If so, I can see how the accounting gets complicated very quickly. We don't do that, so once the cards are delivered, it seems that's the end of the transaction. Are we in for a rude awakening if our program takes off?

We use Quickbooks too. The only drawback to using quickbooks is that it is very time consuming to set the whole thing up. Once set up it works great. I would like to try one of those listed on the GL website, but we just cannot afford it either. Good luck and let us know if you do try a Scrip specific software.