AAT Streamlines Bursary Application Process with Automation

Client Overview 

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) is a professional body dedicated to supporting the accounting and finance sector by providing industry-recognised qualifications and resources. A key initiative of AAT is its bursary programme, designed to remove financial barriers for aspiring accountants and bookkeepers. However, the existing bursary application process was manual and time-consuming, creating delays for approved applicants and burdening the membership staff with data entry. To address these issues, AAT partnered with PSP to automate the process, making it faster and more user-friendly. 

Challenge 

Before engaging with PSP, the bursary application process required significant manual effort. Once a student’s application was approved, AAT’s staff had to manually enter each applicant’s details into the CRM system, often resulting in a lengthy delay before students could access their bursary benefits. This laborious approach not only slowed down the onboarding process for approved applicants but also diverted valuable time away from membership staff. AAT needed a solution that could automate data input, streamline workflows and enhance the overall user experience, all while meeting tight deadlines to launch the new process in time for the upcoming academic year. 

Solution 

PSP’s business analysts (BAs) led the project by focusing on simplifying the user journey and reducing manual workloads for staff. They began by mapping out the existing bursary application process and identifying key pain points for both applicants and staff. The BAs then reimagined the process to automate the manual data entry tasks and ensure a smooth integration between the web application forms and the CRM system. 

A key part of the solution involved redesigning the online bursary application forms to be more intuitive and user-friendly. PSP’s BAs ensured that the forms captured all necessary data while remaining simple and straightforward, reducing the risk of user error. Once an applicant’s bursary is approved, the new system now automatically updates the CRM with the relevant details and applies the bursary deductions to the student’s account without requiring staff intervention. This automation has dramatically accelerated the process, providing students with quicker access to bursary support and freeing up staff to focus on other critical tasks. 

Given the tight timeline, PSP also planned for a phased rollout, delivering a functional solution for the new academic year while documenting additional recommendations for future improvements. The software testing team validated the integration by conducting rigorous API testing, ensuring that data flowed seamlessly between the student portal and the CRM and that all fields were correctly populated. 

Results 

The automated bursary application process has significantly improved both the student and staff experience at AAT. For approved students, what was once a lengthy waiting period is now a swift, automated process, allowing them to receive bursary benefits much sooner. AAT’s membership staff no longer need to manually enter data into the CRM, saving considerable time and effort each week. This automation has streamlined operations, reduced the potential for errors and enabled staff to focus on providing direct support to students rather than on administrative tasks. 

With the initial implementation successfully meeting the academic year deadline, AAT is already seeing the benefits of a more efficient process and an enhanced user journey. The solution has laid a solid foundation for further improvements in the next phase, as recommended by PSP’s business analysts, to continue optimising the bursary management process. 

Conclusion 

PSP’s automation of AAT’s bursary application process delivered a streamlined solution that significantly reduced manual workloads, improved data accuracy and enhanced the user experience for both applicants and staff. By focusing on user journeys and simplifying the web forms, PSP created an efficient system that integrates seamlessly with AAT’s CRM. The success of this project demonstrates PSP’s ability to deliver high-impact digital transformations under tight deadlines, supporting AAT’s mission to make industry qualifications more accessible to aspiring professionals.