In the fall of 2000, James Deacon, the Principle of a college with two campuses in the Lower Mainland and one in the Okanagan, realized the school was past its deadline to send an Unearned Revenue Report to PCTIA. This could have serious repercussions because PCTIA has the authority to close schools.

The school's record keeping was seriously fragmented. Payment information was stored in ACCPAC but registration information was in Excel at each of the three campuses. To gather all the data and produce the report was taking weeks, with staff trying to keep up with their regular duties as well as work on the report.

But while the Unearned Revenue Report was an immediate concern, Peter also saw the next Annual Accreditation Report looming on the horizon. In past years, a consultant was hired at a very cost to pull together all the disparate information. In future, the cost was going to be significantly higher because the government was no longer funding an agency to produce employment follow-up statistics for graduates.

Peter approached Seann Lyncaster who was teaching their Internet Professional Program. The school could not afford the full cost of development, so Seann proposed to build the system, retain copyright, continue development, and market the system to other schools.

Thus the Student Administration System was born. With the PCTIA reports in mind, SAS collects into a single database all the information required:

• Registration data - student name, program, start and end dates, tuition costs, etc.
• Payment data - student, payment date, amounts split into several categories

For the Placement Report, SAS takes the student employment follow-up information and shows the status of graduates at 30, 60 and 90 days, divided by domestic and international students.

For the Annual Accreditation Report, SAS produces the report once specified by PCTIA (it's still their preferred format). Included are numbers and percentages for starts, attrition, incompletes and graduates.