FEASE FOR PASTEL
Your Pastel books,
synced to Fease
automatically.
Fease connects to the accounting system you already use, so fee collection runs on the numbers your books already have - no re-capturing, no second ledger.
Keep Pastel, add Fease
Nothing about how you keep your books changes. Fease adds a collection layer on top of it.
No new system to learn
Keep working in Pastel exactly as you do today. There's nothing new to capture and no extra step in your routine.
Your books stay the source of truth
Fease reads your data on a schedule. It never edits an entry in Pastel.
Fease adds the collection layer
Reminders, Promise to Pay, and reporting run alongside your existing books, not instead of them.
How the Pastel integration works
A lightweight connector sits between Pastel and Fease. It reads your debtor data on a schedule, encrypts it, and syncs it to Fease in the cloud.
Your Pastel books
Secure connector
Cloud sync
Fease
What Fease sees
Schools consistently ask what leaves their accounting system. Fease works with your debtor information only - it does not pull your general ledger, your payroll or your supplier records.
Synced to Fease
- Account details - code, name and category
- First name, surname, ID or passport number, where captured
- Postal and residential address
- Mobile, home and work phone numbers, and email address
- Date the account was created
- Transactions on the account and the resulting age analysis
Never leaves Pastel
- General ledger and journal entries
- Payroll records
- Supplier records
Because Fease works from your account records, the quality of what you see depends on the quality of what's captured in Pastel - see "Getting your Pastel data ready" below.
What you need on your side
Most schools running Pastel already have everything required. There's nothing to buy and nothing to install yourself.
- Sage Pastel running on a Windows 10 machine or server at your school
- An internet connection that lets the machine reach the internet securely
- The machine left switched on and signed in during the school day, so information can keep flowing
- Your finance team posting and updating batches in Pastel as they normally would
Our integration partner handles installation and setup remotely. Your finance team doesn't need technical knowledge, and isn't involved beyond granting access for the once-off setup session.
Getting started
From yes to live
1
We agree the details
You sign up for Fease with the Pastel integration included. We confirm your Pastel setup is compatible.
2
We introduce you to our integration partner
We pass your details to Cloudsolve, who will contact your school within two working days to arrange the setup session.
3
The connector is installed
Installation happens remotely on the machine where your Pastel data lives. It's a short session, and no school hardware changes are needed.
4
Your data is checked
Before anything goes live, your information is validated against your Pastel records so you can trust what you see in Fease from day one.
5
Your team is trained
Once your data is flowing and verified, we set up your Fease dashboard and walk your team through it. From there, you're live.
Getting your Pastel data ready
A short conversation before you go live. Pastel gives schools a lot of freedom in how they capture information, so no two schools set it up quite the same way. Before your first automated message goes out, we walk through a handful of questions with you. It takes one meeting, and it makes all the difference.
Whose name is the account in?
In Pastel the account is captured in the learner's name, with the parent details held elsewhere. We check this together so your messages reach the right person and read the way you intend.
Are contact details complete?
Mobile numbers need their country code, and email addresses need to be correctly formatted. We check these upfront so every message reaches its destination.
How is your billing structured?
We confirm whether you invoice monthly, annually or quarterly, and which journal you use for school fees. This is what allows Fease to read your age analysis the way your finance office reads it.
Which accounts should be left alone?
Accounts already handed over, and learners who have left, should sit outside your follow-up flows. We set that up with you rather than leaving you to discover it later.
Are your school details complete?
Your school name, contact details and finance settings appear on everything Fease sends on your behalf. We complete these together during setup so your communication looks and sounds like your school.
Financial year-end
One date to plan for each year.
When Pastel rolls over into a new financial year, it creates a fresh set of books. The connection between your books and Fease needs to be pointed at the new year so your information keeps flowing.
This is a quick task, and our integration partner handles it — but it does need to happen before your Pastel Period 13 closes, usually in the second half of January. We reach out ahead of time so it's booked rather than remembered.
Year-end is also a good moment to run a data integrity check on your books, which most schools do as part of their normal rollover.
Support
You always start with us.
If a figure looks wrong or something isn't behaving as you expect, you contact Fease. You never have to work out whether the issue sits with your accounting system, the connection or the platform - that's our job.
Where the answer lies on the Pastel side, we bring our integration partner in and stay with the query until it's resolved. Nobody at Fease logs in to your financial system - any investigation inside your Pastel environment is carried out by our partner, with your knowledge.
Privacy and security
Your data, handled carefully.
- The connection is read-only. Nothing is ever written back into your Pastel books.
- Only debtor information is shared. Your general ledger, payroll and supplier records stay where they are.
- Information is encrypted while it travels and while it's stored.
- Access to the integration environment is restricted to authorised Fease and partner staff. No parent or school user has access to it.
- Our agreements cover POPIA, and GDPR where it applies, and set out clearly that your data remains yours.
- If you ever leave, your information is retained for 90 days in Fease and six weeks in the integration environment, after which it's removed.
Good to know
Two things worth knowing upfront.
How online payments reconcile with Pastel
Fease works with your Pastel information for statements, reminders and reporting. Payments can be collected online through our third-party payment provider. Since Pastel doesn't sync online payments automatically, the provider gives your team a payment summary to upload. If your school also uses the d6 School Administration Management System, that reconciliation happens automatically instead.
Family views work a little differently.
Pastel holds a single account record rather than a link between a paying parent and each of their children. Fease works beautifully with your accounts as they're structured, and we walk you through what that means for your school during setup.
Questions schools ask
Do we have to move off Pastel to use Fease?
No. Fease works with your existing Pastel books. Nothing needs to be migrated.
Will this change anything in our accounting records?
No. The connection only reads from Pastel and never writes back to it.
Who installs it and how long does it take?
Our integration partner installs it remotely in a single short session, usually within a few days of signature
How current is the information in Fease?
It refreshes automatically through the day, and your team can request an on-demand sync at any time.
Does someone need to be at the computer?
The machine where your Pastel data lives should be switched on and signed in during the school day so information can keep flowing.
Why is my recent transaction not showing?
Only posted batches come across. Once your finance team has updated the batch in Pastel, it will appear in Fease.
What happens at financial year-end?
The connection is pointed at your new set of books. We contact you ahead of time to arrange it.
Who do we call if something looks wrong?
Fease, always. We take it from there.
Can we collect payments through Fease?
Yes, through our third-party payment provider. Because Pastel doesn't reconcile online payments automatically, the provider supplies your team with a payment summary to upload. Schools using d6 School Administration Management System get this reconciliation automatically.
Using d6 School Administration Management System instead of Pastel?
Online payments reconcile
automatically.
See it working with your own books.
We’ll walk you through Fease, answer the practical questions about your Pastel setup, and give you a straight answer on whether it’s the right fit for your school.