Tamsworth Education Trust / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Tamsworth Education Trust · 23 Feb 2026 15:30
On the 23 Feb 2026 discovery call, Mandy Quinn and Colin Entwistle described fourteen schools on disconnected systems and slow manual reconciliation. Tom Ashdown recommended Growth and proposed a Solutions Engineer session.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026On the 23 Feb 2026 discovery call, Mandy Quinn and Colin Entwistle described fourteen schools on disconnected systems and slow manual reconciliation. Tom Ashdown recommended Growth and proposed a Solutions Engineer session.
What happened: Tom Ashdown ran discovery with Mandy Quinn (Head of Business Systems) and Colin Entwistle (Finance Director). They described fourteen schools with separate finance, student records, HR and learning systems.
Customer view: Colin said consolidated reporting means manual pulls and reconciliation that take a long time. Mandy wants dashboards on budget versus actual, pupil outcomes and staff retention.
Commercial: Tom recommended the Growth tier for its connectors, dashboard builder and quarterly reviews. No price, decision or timetable was agreed, and the transcript ends before Colin's start question is answered.
Watch: Source systems are varied and partly bespoke, so connector scope needs technical input.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Who was there
BG-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom Ashdown books a Solutions Engineer session on architecture and the customer's Snowflake.
- Tom Ashdown confirms a start date with Colin Entwistle and Mandy Quinn.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Bespoke student records and spreadsheet-based finance may make connector scoping harder.
- No budget, decision process or timetable was discussed on the call.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A Growth subscription with implementation across the trust's schools and systems.
- Dashboard builder and quarterly reviews match the stated reporting needs.
Transcript
Tom AshdownHi Mandy, Colin, how are you both? Thanks for taking the time. I wanted to chat about how you're managing data across the trust.
Mandy QuinnSure. So we're a multi-academy trust, fourteen schools across the region. Each school has its own finance system, student records are in a central system, and we've got HR systems that don't talk to each other. It's a mess.
Colin EntwistleAnd from my side, we're trying to do consolidated financial reporting across the trust. Right now, that means manual pulls from each school's system, reconciliation, making sure the numbers add up. It takes a long time.- Tom AshdownHow many people are involved in that?
- Colin EntwistleFinance staff at trust level, maybe a handful spend a good chunk of their time on that reconciliation work.
- Mandy QuinnAnd we're trying to get better at dashboarding: understand budget versus actual by school, monitor pupil outcomes, staff retention. But the data's locked in the systems.
- Tom AshdownWhat systems are we talking about?
- Mandy QuinnStudent records in a bespoke system we've had for years. Finance is Microsoft, spreadsheets mostly, some accounting software. HR is separate. And we use a learning management system for lessons and results.
- Tom AshdownSo if I'm hearing right, you want one place to ask questions about budgets, pupil progress, staff. Something that lets your people stop wrestling with data and focus on strategy.
- Colin EntwistleThat's it exactly.
- Tom AshdownRight. Given the complexity: multiple schools, different systems, consolidated reporting, Growth tier would be my recommendation. It's got the connectors you need, the dashboard builder for your teams, and quarterly business reviews to keep everyone aligned.
- Mandy QuinnOkay. And how long would implementation take?
- Tom AshdownGrowth is about two months. We'd scope the connectors, make sure data's clean, run a training day with your teams. You'd be live well within that timeline.
- Colin EntwistleAnd when could you start?
- Tom AshdownI'd want to get someone technical in to walk through the architecture: how we'd connect your systems, where your Snowflake sits, all that. That'd be our Solutions Engineer. Happy with that?