Best Hostel Management Software in 2023 for Your Business

What is the hostel management system?

In the past few years, there has been a rapid change in the educational system. Students nowadays prefer to study far away from their home town and stay in hostels. It is believed that boarding makes the students disciplined, self-sufficient and better prepared for adult life. So, there has been an immense increase in the number of students who are opting to stay in residential schools and colleges. This results in a lot of strain for the hostel coordinators to allocate hostel rooms and to track the student’s life in the hostel, especially if there are thousands of students and numerous hostels in the campus. Online hostel management system comes handy in such situation.

With the advancement of technologies, new hostel management software are developed which have an efficient system that is GUI (Graphic User Interface) oriented and is user-friendly. The new-era hostel software is developed to overcome all the drawbacks of the existing system. This software has a set of pop-up menus which allows users to access the registration forms of different users by showing details of different hostels.

Registration in a hostel

The hostel management software simplifies the process of registration in a hostel. The software provides an online form which may be filled by the students and later is printed and submitted to the hostel authorities who will verify the content later and allocate the respective hostel. This simplifies the process of hostel allotment.

How it works

Hostel management system makes use of a unique integrated database which runs from a central server. The benefit of making use of such a system software is that it helps to prompt discipline in a hostel by bringing transparency in the entire management of the system and therefore helps in developing trust between the management and the students.

Benefits of hostel management software

Managing hostels can be a tiresome, time-consuming and a difficult task. However, hostel management software makes it effortless and hassle-free. The software facilitates the school administrators with an omnibus control over the entire hostel workflow and processes. It assists the school's administrators to add, remove, access details and manage all the hostels in their school’s campus from a single point. Hostel management software is an authorized system which keeps a check over various hostel aspects such as mess, bed allocation, room, resident’s fees, complains, requests, attendance, disciplinary log, check in and check out so as to streamline the task of hostel management. It is a dynamic and a practical approach that helps in maintaining numerous hostel activities. Hostel Management software can also provide task management software features built-in.

A hostel software is growing in popularity day by day, bestowed to its amazing features. The software provides access to information such as all the recent updates, student’s detail and attendance only to the authorized people like parents, students, and management staff.

The hostel management system has several advantages over the traditional system of hostel management: 

• It is less time-consuming in comparison to the cumbersome traditional method.
• The process of updating the data is fast.
• The updated data is more accurate than a traditional hostel management system.
• It offers better security than the traditional system
• The backup of data is carried out quickly.
• It is automatically maintained which reduces considerable time and efforts.

Apart from this, some other perks of hostel management system are listed below:

• The software offers comprehensive mess management. It facilitates the mess manager to effectively carry out multiple tasks from preparing a menu to tracking the daily attendance of students in mess, stocks and other mess-related data. 
• The software even serves as hostel booking software whereby students can book their bed, room etc. It facilitates the hostel manager to allocate a room to the students at any point in time and from any place, just by accessing the software on his/her device. 
• A robust online hostel management system empowers the hostel manager to carry out his daily operations on the go. The manager can access all the hostel data and manage the workflow and other hostel processes right from his device.  
• The hostel management system facilitates the hostel manager to carry out corrective maintenance of log.
• The hostel software is updated with data in real-time. It also sends daily updates and notifications related to hostel attendance and student’s status to the parents.
• It provides easy and quick access to final account details.
• The software offers computerized fee calculation and automation of various schemes.
• The hostel software helps in proper identification of areas of concern so that they can be addressed in the earliest. 
• A robust hostel management software allows facility of change management or hostel vacating.
• The software helps in setting up reasonable fees as per the amenities provided by the hostel.

A robust online hostel management software facilitates in keeping an eye on various reports like joining reports, fine reports, allocation lists, etc.

Must have features in a hostel management system

Every hostel manager, administrator or student has different expectations from hostel management software. However, in general, an “ideal” hostel software is the one that offers a set of essential facilities for proper hostel management. These are as follows:

1. Hostel Records

The ideal hostel management software will empower hostel managers to easily add and delete the list of hostels as and when needed. So, the administrators can have a look at the existing hostels in their campus and allocate the rooms accordingly. They can also access hostel data and other information of individual hostels in the campus.

A hostel software also makes it easy for the administrators to plan and implement the business expansion. With the growth in an educational institution, you’d want to expand your campus and build more hostels. A robust hostel management system allows the administrators to add, manage and delete hostels in the system. It streamlines the task of managers and saves his/her time and efforts.      

2. Room Assignment

Room allotment is an essential part of hostel management as compatibility in roommates is very important to offer a comfortable stay to the students. In this sense, the different school follows the different methodology for room allotment. While some schools use a questionnaire to match the students with similar answers, other schools use random assignments and experiments to allocate the room. In such a scenario, the room assignment feature is necessary to be a part of the hostel management system. This feature enables the hostel managers to access details of various hostels from a single system and to allocate the rooms accordingly. It makes it easy to assign a room, to keep a track on student’s life, access the room change requests as well as complaints and solve them on time.

3. Fee Collection

The calculation of hostel fees and its collection in a timely manner in itself is a tedious task. This task is made easy with an online hostel management software. Furthermore, the hostel is the second home of the students so they also try to avoid the consequences of defaulting. Using the hostel management software, the administrators can notify the students of their fee dues. They can keep a record of the hostel fees of students, payment status and update the payment status in real-time. It also facilitates the administrators to access the list of defaulters so as to create strategies that ensure regular cash flow.       

Features of Ideal hostel

• Mutual kitchen: A mutual or a common kitchen can be very beneficial for effective hostel management. There are many students who are on a tight budget, so a common kitchen with minimal charges will suffice their budget. Also, there are people who like to make their food on their own and a common kitchen is perfect for them. A common kitchen is easy to maintain over multiple kitchens. It even serves as the best place for the students to meet and build connections. With the help of hostel software, the administrators can easily manage the common kitchen.
• Hostel sanitation: Proper hostel sanitation is imperative to ensure a comfortable stay. Many hostels face cleanliness problems and are dirty because cleaners are not supervised properly. To avoid such situations, designing the hostel facilities properly from the beginning can be of great help. Furthermore, a hostel management software, empowers the managers to manage this aspect of hostel effectively
• Separate 24-hour talking area- It is best if the hostel has a separate room for people where there is minimal disturbance so that people can talk. Every ideal hostel definitely has such a place where the guests can talk 24 hours without disturbing other guests and neighbors. The allocation of this room is facilitated by the hostel software.
• Safekeeping lockers- Every room should possess one security locker for each guest, which should be large enough for keeping expensive belongings or gadgets like laptops and cameras. Hostel room should also have proper cupboards for keeping other belongings. In many hostels thefts take place. So to avoid these thefts, there should be cameras installed in the corridors so that even if the theft takes place, it is easy to find the culprit. A hostel software facilitates in making this task easy.
• Activity controller and manager- Hostel administrators should keep a check and manage the hostel activities. A hostel coordinator is a person who has to keep a check on hostel sanitation, mess, and kitchen and whether the students staying in the hostels are comfortable. A robust hostel software makes it easy for the administrators to control these activities easily.