A FACTS SIS alternative for Islamic schools and madrasahs
FACTS is enterprise school-administration software built for large private and parochial schools, with tuition management to match. MarkTrack is aimed at the Islamic school, madrasah and Hifz academy that wants the same rigour without the enterprise footprint — and with Qur'an progress treated as a real record.
Updated August 2026
FACTS is enterprise software. That is not a criticism — it is the category. It is built for large private and parochial schools with a business office, a registrar, and someone whose job includes owning the system. If that describes your school, an enterprise suite may well be the right shape.
Most Islamic schools we talk to are not that. They are between forty and six hundred students, the "business office" is a principal and one administrator, and the software has to be usable by a teacher who is a volunteer on Saturdays. The gap is rarely capability. It is overhead.
Self-serve instead of an implementation project
Enterprise suites are typically implementation-led: a scoped onboarding, a timeline, a configuration phase, training. It is thorough, and for a large school it is worth it.
MarkTrack is self-serve on purpose. You create the organization, add your classes, invite your teachers and import your families — most schools do it in an afternoon. There is a 30-day free trial, so the evaluation is "put your real data in and see", not a slide deck. If the import is the thing standing in your way, the AI import reads whatever export or spreadsheet you already have rather than making you produce a formatted file first.
The Islamic programme is first-class, not a custom field
This is the difference that does not show up in a feature matrix. A mainstream SIS can be configured to hold almost anything, so on paper it can hold Hifz progress. In practice the school ends up with a custom subject called "Qur'an", a percentage nobody can explain, and the real record living in a spreadsheet.
In MarkTrack, sabaq, sabqi and manzil are their own fields with their own history. Juz-by-juz progress, mistakes, hesitations and a projected completion date come out of the daily record rather than being maintained separately. Qāʿidah lessons are recorded in whichever notation the teacher uses — a chapter, a page and line, or a tajwīd rule. Parents see all of it live in the portal and the mobile apps.
Tuition, without a second product
Tuition management is a mature, separate product line in the enterprise world, and integrating it with enrollment is a project in itself.
MarkTrack sets tuition up inside the enrollment form. The application collects the registration fee, keeps the card on file, and starts the recurring schedule the moment you accept the application — so the arrangement is made when the parent is most willing to make it, rather than chased in October. Autopay can be off, offered or required per form; rates differ per child and per campus; schedules end automatically at year end. Billing is family-level, so a parent with children across your academy and your weekend programme gets one invoice.
Where you should still choose the enterprise suite
Be honest with yourself about three things. If you need deep integration with a specific accounting package your board has already standardised on; if you have a dedicated registrar who will use advanced scheduling and transcript machinery daily; or if a procurement process requires a vendor of a particular size — an enterprise suite is the safer answer, and MarkTrack is not trying to be one.
If instead you are paying for scale you never use, and the thing your software genuinely cannot do is track Qur'an and run your weekend programme, that is the trade MarkTrack is built to win. You can see how one school made it in the Kufah Institute story.
Side by side
The MarkTrack column describes what ships today. The second column describes what software in this category typically does — we deliberately do not assert specifics about another vendor's current release, because those change without notice. Confirm the details with FACTS SIS before you decide.
| MarkTrack | Enterprise private-school SIS suite | |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Islamic schools, madrasahs, maktabs, Hifz academies and weekend programs, from a dozen children to several hundred | Large private and parochial schools with a dedicated administrative team |
| Hifz and Qaidah records | Built in, with parent-visible progress in the portal and the mobile apps | Not a standard feature of a mainstream SIS suite |
| Setup | Self-serve — create the organization, add classes, invite teachers, import families from a spreadsheet | Enterprise suites are typically implementation-led with a scoped onboarding project |
| Tuition billing | Registration fee, card on file and recurring tuition set up from the enrollment form itself; autopay can be off, offered or required per form | Tuition management is a mature, separate product line |
| Islamic school calendar | Eid, Ramadan and your own closures sit on the school calendar and drive attendance and scheduling | Calendars are configurable, so this is a matter of setup rather than a difference |
| Parent experience | One login across every child and every program, native iPhone and Android apps | Varies by module and configuration |
| Behaviour and infractions | Built in, with staff control over what parents see and when | Typically supported |
| Price shape | Straightforward subscription, 30-day free trial, no implementation project | Enterprise pricing, usually quoted per module |
Questions schools ask us
01 Is MarkTrack big enough for a several-hundred-student academy?
Yes. Multi-campus organizations, per-campus tuition rates, role-based staff permissions, a full report builder and nightly encrypted backups are all in the product. What you avoid is the implementation project — most schools set themselves up in an afternoon.
02 What about tuition management specifically?
Tuition is set up at the point of enrollment rather than as a separate exercise: the application form collects the registration fee, keeps the card on file, and starts the recurring schedule once you accept the application. Rates can differ per child and per campus, and schedules end automatically at the end of the year.
03 Can families with children in two programs get one bill?
Yes. Billing is family-level, so a parent with a child in the full-time academy and another in the weekend program has one login, one card on file and one invoice.
04 How current is this comparison?
The MarkTrack column describes what ships today. FACTS is a large, actively developed suite and the second column describes what enterprise SIS suites typically look like rather than asserting specifics about their current release — confirm details with the vendor.
Other comparisons
See it with your own school's data
Start a 30-day free trial, or bring the spreadsheet you already keep and we will show you what it looks like once it is imported. No card required to start.