What is the best school management system for Ethiopia?

VISCO is a multi-tenant SaaS school management system built specifically for Ethiopian schools, with first-class ETB finance, Amharic, integrated adapters for Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, ArifPay and Stripe, MoE-aligned calendar, Ethiopian Calendar (E.C.) support, and parent SMS in the languages parents actually answer in (EN, አማ, AR, OM, SO, TI, FR, AA).

How does VISCO handle data for multiple schools?

Every record carries a tenant_id (school) and where relevant a branch_id (campus). Database-level row guards plus application-layer middleware ensure no cross-tenant leakage. Each school owns its data and can export or anonymise it on demand.

Which payment gateways are supported for Ethiopian school fees?

VISCO ships provider-agnostic adapters for Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, ArifPay, and Stripe, plus journals for cash and bank transfer. Configure one or several from /admin/payments-providers; webhooks are signature-verified per provider, idempotent, and produce ledger-friendly receipts in ETB or USD.

Can parents pay school fees with Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, or ArifPay?

Yes. Each invoice can route to whichever provider you have configured. Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, and ArifPay are integrated as hosted-checkout adapters; the parent portal generates a one-tap link and the receipt is reconciled automatically when the webhook arrives.

Can our staff add new dropdown options without engineering?

Yes. Any select field can be marked extensible. Staff press the inline "+" to add an option (e.g., a new guardian relationship type or a local sub-city). The new value enters a pending-approval queue and is auto-translated for Amharic if missing.

Does the AI assistant ever touch our production database?

No raw SQL. The assistant uses an allowlisted set of read-only analytics tools tied to your tenant. Bulk-impact actions always require explicit human approval; every query is logged.

What languages does VISCO support?

VISCO ships first-party support for English and Amharic (with Noto Sans Ethiopic typography). Arabic, Afaan Oromo, Somali, Tigrigna, French, and Afar are available through a Google Translate language bridge in the app shell. Arabic renders right-to-left automatically. Form labels and dropdown options can be authored in both English and Amharic side-by-side.

Does VISCO work for multi-branch / multi-campus school groups?

Yes. Branches are a first-class concept — students, attendance, exams, fees, and reports can all be scoped per campus, and a school group can manage multiple branches from a single tenant workspace with branch-level roles.

How does VISCO handle weak connectivity in some campuses?

Teacher attendance can be entered offline and synced when connectivity returns. Submissions carry a clientId for idempotent replay, and bulk operations queue retries via BullMQ.

Built for African school groups

Run every school operation from one intelligent OS

VISCO unifies admissions, attendance, fees, exams, staff, communications, parent portals, and governed AI analytics in one secure multi-tenant platform for modern schools.

Quick setup
Secure by design
Mobile friendly

VISCO School OS

Good afternoon, Hana

Attendance rate

92.6%

+3.4% this term

Fees collected

ETB 428K

+18% this term

Open applications

12 new this term

Fee collection

Recent activity

New application received for Grade 6
Payment batch reconciled and ready
Attendance submitted for Section 7-B

Tenant isolated

Admissions

Configurable forms

People

Students, staff, guardians

Finance

ETB-first fee engine

Security

Tenant-isolated data

Designed with school groups operating across multiple regions

Addis LyceumBahir Dar AcademyHawassa InternationalMekelle HeightsAdama STEMDire Dawa BilingualJimma GreenfieldGondar RoyalAddis LyceumBahir Dar AcademyHawassa InternationalMekelle HeightsAdama STEMDire Dawa BilingualJimma GreenfieldGondar Royal

Operating system for schools

Drag fields to reorder. Drop new ones from the palette. Capture national ID front and back with the live camera. When a registrar needs a new option that doesn't exist in a dropdown, they press + and it lands in a pending-approval queue — no engineering ticket.

Section/field reordering with keyboard, mouse, and touch.
Live camera capture with switch front/back, retake, multi-shot.
Inline "+" on any select to add school-specific values with approval flow.

Student registration · v3 draft

Demo Academy

Live preview

Full name (Latin)
text · required
Full name (አማርኛ)
text · required
Date of birth
date · required
Guardian relationship
select · optional · + inline add
+ option
Guardian phone
phone · optional
National ID — front
camera · optional · Live camera
National ID — back
camera · optional · Live camera
Student photo
camera · optional

Capture · National ID front

Capture · National ID back

Tip · grab any row and drop to reorder. New fields land at the bottom.

Ethiopia-first by design

Powerful for admins.
Simple for every family.

VISCO is not an imported template translated last-minute. It's a school OS designed around the calendar, channels, currencies, and language realities of Ethiopian education — and ready to expand across the continent.

EN·አማርኛ·ETBChapaTelebirrSantimPayArifPayStripe

Role-based access for school owners, admins, teachers, parents, and students.
Works offline for attendance and queues safely when connectivity is weak.
Scales from one campus to multi-branch school groups without rebuilding workflows.

Parent portal

Welcome back, Hana

Live

English + አማርኛ everywhere

Forms, dropdowns, report cards, SMS templates and the dashboard render in either language. Noto Sans Ethiopic ships from day one.

ETB-first, multi-gateway finance

ETB and USD ledger views with adapters integrated for Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, ArifPay and Stripe — plus cash and bank-transfer journals. Ledger-friendly receipts make tax reconciliation simple.

Local channels

In-app and email alerts are included on every tier. Phone SMS (Twilio / Africa's Talking) is a paid add-on at carrier cost — plus optional Telegram and WhatsApp hooks on Gold+.

MoE-aligned structure

Grade levels, terms, calendar, and reporting templates aligned with Ministry of Education conventions out of the box.

Term update

Report card published

The roadmap

From paper office to digital school OS.

VISCO rolls out in practical stages, so schools can launch the core quickly and unlock advanced workflows without interrupting the term.

Step 1

Setup

Tenant, campus, academic year, roles, and owner account.

Step 2

Admissions

Public applications, registrar queue, and custom forms.

Step 3

Mobile portals

Teacher, parent, and student workflows with offline attendance.

Step 4

AI insights

Read-only analytics assistant for attendance, fees, and risk.

Step 5

Integrations

Payments, SMS, exports, and API access for larger groups.

Premium tier

A school-data assistant that cannot go off the rails.

VISCO's AI assistant queries only read-only, allowlisted analytics tools — never raw SQL, never your production tables. Every action is tenant-scoped, every output is cited, and bulk actions need explicit human approval.

Read-only & tenant-scoped

Allowlisted metric tools, never raw SQL.

Anomaly detection

Absenteeism, payment drop, grade decline.

Charts & summaries

Cited data provenance, exportable.

Evaluation harness

Golden questions guard regressions.

VISCO Assistant

Tenant: your school · Scope: read-only

Approved

Which grade had the steepest absence increase last week?

Grade 9-A rose from 6% → 14% absences, mostly Tue–Thu. Three students account for 60% of the increase.

attendance.by_gradelast_7d3 anomalies

Try one of these

› Which grade had the steepest absence increase last week?
› What is the Chapa fee collection rate by class for March?
› Show students at risk of failing math this term.
› Which campus has the most unresolved discipline incidents?

Subscription tiers

Choose the level that fits your school today.

Start simple, grow into multi-campus operations, and graduate to enterprise-grade governance when your institution needs deeper controls. Every paid tier includes a 7-day free trial after VISCO reviews your application. Phone SMS is not bundled — schools enable it as a paid add-on at carrier cost (e.g. Twilio ~$0.008/message).

Bronze

Start organized

ETB 4,800per month

One campus — attendance, students, fees, and report cards.

Best for a single campus going digital this term.

1 branch · 600 students
Daily attendance
Fees, invoices, receipts
Basic exams & gradebook
In-app & email notifications
Phone SMS add-on (carrier cost)
5 GB storage

Scale operations

ETB 11,200per month

Multi-branch schools with admissions and parent portals.

Most schools choose Silver for Form CMS and online fees.

Up to 10 branches
Form CMS + camera capture
Admissions pipeline
Chapa & Stripe payments
Parent & student portals
Phone SMS add-on (carrier cost)
50 GB storage

Gold

Run the group

ETB 25,000per month

AI, HR, transport, library, clinic, and API access.

Adds governed AI and full operations modules.

Unlimited branches (fair-use)
MeriAI assistant (metered)
Payroll · transport · library
WhatsApp / Telegram hooks
Phone SMS add-on (carrier cost)
Custom roles & SSO
500 GB storage

Platinum

Enterprise

Customcontract

School groups, NGOs, and ministries with bespoke quotas.

Contract pricing with platform-owner entitlements.

Everything in Gold
Cross-campus analytics
Dedicated success manager
SMS at contract / carrier pass-through
Unlimited AI (fair-use)
2 TB storage included
Custom data residency

All tiers include audit logs, role-based access, and tenant isolation. Premium covers enterprise-ready school groups while the signup contract is finalized for a dedicated Enterprise plan.

Schools on VISCO

What campuses tell us after go-live

“VISCO replaced our paper registers and scattered WhatsApp fee tracking. Attendance, invoices, and parent updates now live in one place — and our team actually uses it every morning.”

Babuselam School

School leadership

“Bilingual forms and guardian portals finally match how our families communicate. Report cards go out on time, and teachers spend less time chasing missing marks.”

Future Hope School

Academic administration

“Fee collection with local payment rails and clear ledgers changed our term close. We see who paid, who is overdue, and can follow up without rebuilding spreadsheets.”

Luqman Academy

Operations & finance

Security & compliance

Built on guardrails, not goodwill.

Student data deserves more than a checkbox. VISCO bakes tenant isolation, audit logging, consent workflows, idempotent payments, and least-privilege portal scopes into the core.

Tenant isolation

Row-level guards + tenant_id on every record.

Encryption at rest

Sensitive fields encrypted; S3-compatible storage.

JWT + refresh

Rotating tokens, session revocation, 2FA option.

Impersonation audit

Support actions require reason + audit record.

RBAC + custom roles

CASL policies; Premium tier custom roles.

Data export & delete

Subject-access workflows for guardians & students.

FAQ

Answers before you ask

VISCO is a multi-tenant SaaS school management system built specifically for Ethiopian schools, with first-class ETB finance, Amharic, integrated adapters for Chapa, Telebirr, SantimPay, ArifPay and Stripe, MoE-aligned calendar, Ethiopian Calendar (E.C.) support, and parent SMS in the languages parents actually answer in (EN, አማ, AR, OM, SO, TI, FR, AA).

Ready when you are

Bring every campus into VISCO this term.

Apply in minutes with your school profile. VISCO reviews every application, then activates your 7-day free trial so you can invite your team and configure forms the same week.

Run every school operation from one intelligent OS

All the tools you need.One intelligent platform.

Configurable form CMS

Premium AI assistant

Tenant-isolated by design

Provider-agnostic school payments

Teacher mobile attendance

Exam & gradebook workflows

Timetable with conflict detection

Data-warehouse-ready events

Every school is different.VISCO bends to their reality.

Powerful for admins.Simple for every family.

From paper office to digital school OS.

Setup

Admissions

Mobile portals

AI insights

Integrations

A school-data assistant that cannot go off the rails.

Choose the level that fits your school today.

Start organized

Scale operations

Run the group

Enterprise

What campuses tell us after go-live

Built on guardrails, not goodwill.

Answers before you ask

Bring every campus into VISCO this term.

Choose the level that fits your school today.

Start organized

Scale operations

Run the group

Enterprise

All the tools you need.
One intelligent platform.

Every school is different.
VISCO bends to their reality.

Powerful for admins.
Simple for every family.