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Case study Payments platform

How ACS Abu Dhabi stopped losing part of every online gift to processor fees.

The American Community School of Abu Dhabi took online donations through third-party payment providers, which kept a share of each gift. Provis built a payments platform connected directly to ADCB, the school's bank. Donations, tuition, fees, exams and trips are all paid on it today.

  • Payments platform
  • ADCB bank integration
The ACS payments page: links to pay the application fee, registration fee, HS exams, general payments, tuition and make a charitable gift
The ACS donation form on a phone: name, email and the donation amount in AED
Client: American Community School of Abu DhabiNonprofit school, KG1 to Grade 12, since 1972
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What the platform delivers

What changed for the school.

Payment types and fee lines: checked live on payment.acs.sch.ae, 9 October 2026. Donation fee terms: the school's terms with ADCB.

100%
of each online gift reaches the school
ADCB charges the school no card fee on gifts; Provis built the direct connection that lets them land in full
7
kinds of payment on one platform
tuition, application and registration fees, exams, trips, general payments and gifts
Live
taking every payment type today
checked on payment.acs.sch.ae on 9 October 2026

At a glance

  1. Problem

    Third-party payment providers kept a share of every online gift, and the school had no direct link to its own bank.

  2. Solution

    A Laravel and Vue.js payments platform connected directly to ADCB, with every transaction on record for finance.

  3. Result

    Families pay tuition, fees, exams, trips and gifts in one place, straight into the school's own account.

Client
American Community School of Abu Dhabi
Industry
Education (nonprofit school, KG1 to Grade 12)
Market
UAE (Abu Dhabi)
Platform
Web, on desktop and phone
Services
Custom web platform, payment integration, design, support
Built with
Laravel, Vue.js, AWS, Figma, ADCB payment integration (card numbers never stored on the platform)
Engagement
Design, build and support after launch

Running an online store or a SaaS product? The same pattern applies: payments that land in your own account, one record of every order or payment, and card fees handled your way, absorbed or passed on. In a SaaS product that means billing tied to your own bank or gateway, with every transaction in your own records.

Vivek has been very instrumental in helping me get up to speed with several applications that he developed for my predecessor. He's also helped me to make modifications to our applications based on new requirements. When we have an issue that needs his attention, he's on it right away, and always explains what the issue was and makes sure that it doesn't happen in the future.

Christina David Technology Director, American Community School of Abu Dhabi Vivek Sharma is Provis's founder.
Watch Christina say it 1 min · March 2022
The situation

A gift should arrive whole. Online, it didn't.

The American Community School of Abu Dhabi is a nonprofit school teaching about 1,300 students from more than 80 countries. Gifts from parents, alumni and friends fund its programmes, its faculty and its spaces.

Before the platform, an online gift took the route below.

How an online gift reached the school

  1. A family gives onlineto programmes, faculty or the school's spaces
  2. A payment providersits between the donor and the school
  3. A fee comes offa share of every gift is kept
  4. Paid out laterby the provider, not straight into the school's bank
  5. Records held outsidewith the provider, not in the school's systems

Highlighted steps are where money or records left the school's hands.

The problems, and what fixed each

The form was the easy part. The bank was not.

Anyone can put a donation form online. Getting the money safely into the school's own bank account is the work.

  1. A share of every gift kept by the provider, and no way into the bank

    Third-party payment providers deducted a service fee from each online donation, so less reached student programmes, scholarships and cultural initiatives. The school had no way to connect its own payment pages to ADCB.

    What Provis builtA direct ADCB integration, built in Laravel

    The payment pages connect straight to ADCB's systems, with encryption and authentication to protect donor data. Card details go straight to ADCB to authorise each payment; the platform never stores card numbers. Gifts land in the school's own ADCB account, with no card fee on them. Donors choose what the gift supports, how they want to be recognised, or to give anonymously.

  2. Payments that were hard to trace

    With a processor in the middle, tracking and reporting on gifts was slower and less transparent, which made audits harder.

    What Provis builtEvery transaction on record

    Donor contributions and transaction records in one place, for finance, reporting and audits.

  3. Card fees on what the school bills

    Paying tuition, fees, exams and trips by card carries a fee. Taken out of the payment, it leaves the school short of what it billed.

    What Provis builtThe fee shown before anyone pays

    On tuition, fees, exams and trips, the card fee is shown as its own line and added to the total, so the parent sees it before paying and the school receives the full amount billed.

How the work ran

Designed, connected to the bank, tested, then supported.

  1. DesignPayment pages designed in Figma in the school's brand, then built in Vue.js
  2. ADCB back endLaravel, connecting the pages straight to ADCB
  3. SecurityEncryption and authentication; card details go to ADCB and are never stored on the platform
  4. ReportingDonor and transaction records for finance and audits
  5. TestingSecurity testing, performance work and user acceptance testing
  6. Live and supportedLaunched on ADCB, then changed as the school's requirements changed
  • Connected for other clients: Zoho inventory and Razorpay payments for TrueWholesale, Megaventory for Cosmetology.co.za and NowCommerce for Natural Uniforms. Using another ERP, CRM or payment gateway? Tell us which, and we'll say plainly whether we've connected it before.
  • In short cycles: the work ran in Agile iterations, so the school saw each part working before the next began.

Also built for the school

  • Car Spotter

    A dismissal app for the school gates, built during COVID-19: guards saw arrivals on their phones, live tracking ran on screens around campus, and every student was dismissed in under 30 minutes (figure from the Car Spotter case study). Read the Car Spotter case study

“Provis Technologies has refined our practice and created some systems that really have made an impact on our campus.”

Derek SwansonDirector of Learning Innovation and eLearning, ACS Abu Dhabi Video, April 2021
The payment pages

One place for every payment a family makes to the school.

What parents and donors see, in the school's own brand. Select a page to enlarge it.

  • The payments home: application and registration fees, HS exams, general payments, tuition, a charitable gift and two trip programmes
    All eight payment links on one page (seven kinds: trips have two)
  • The donation form: amount in AED, giving levels from Friend to Leadership Giving Circle, what the gift supports, recognition and an anonymous option
    Donations: no fee line. ADCB charges the school no card fee on gifts.
  • The HS exams page with one AP exam ticked: subtotal 525.00 AED, Third-Party Processing Fee 8.97 AED, total 533.97 AED
    Exam fees: 525.00 + 8.97 card fee = 533.97 AED. “Third-Party Processing Fee” is the page's label for that card fee, paid by the parent.
  • Viper Ventures, the high school's trip programme: a student and grade, then each trip with a full or half option and its price in AED
    School trips (Viper Ventures), priced per student

Captured from payment.acs.sch.ae on 9 October 2026. On the exam page one exam is ticked to show the fee; nothing was submitted.

Where ACS is today

Live today, taking tuition, fees, exams, trips and gifts.

The school's Giving page links straight to the donation form, and families pay tuition, fees, exams and trips on the same platform. ACS has since moved to a new campus on Saadiyat Island; “Our New Campus” is one of the causes donors can choose.

See it live:payment.acs.sch.ae (opens in a new tab)The ACS Giving page (opens in a new tab)

After launch

Supported after launch, through a change of director.

Provis supported the platform after it went live and changed it as the school's requirements changed. When the school's technology director changed, Provis took the new director through the applications built for her predecessor; she said so on video in March 2022. The engagement ended when the agreed work was complete, and the platform still takes the school's payments today.

Provis has delivered 200+ projects since 2012, with a team of 25+ engineers, designers, QA and project leads.

Want a team that stays on? Provis has run The Vault since 2012 and still runs TrueWholesale.

How every Provis project runs

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Start a conversation

Losing part of every payment to fees, or taking payments outside your own systems?

Tell us how payments reach you today and where they end up. We will come back within two working days with an approach, a rough timeline and a rough cost range. No charge, no commitment.

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