Education Consultancy CRM: The Complete Guide for Nepal (2026)

Every education consultancy in Kathmandu, Pokhara or Butwal runs on the same three tools: a spreadsheet, a stack of WhatsApp groups, and a counsellor's memory. It works until it doesn't — usually around the 80th active student, when an IELTS score goes missing, a CoE deadline passes unnoticed, and a university commission arrives that nobody can match to a counsellor.

A CRM built for this work replaces all three. This guide explains what that means in practice, what separates a real consultancy CRM from a generic sales tool with a coat of paint, and how to choose one.

What an education consultancy CRM actually does

A generic CRM tracks deals. A consultancy CRM tracks journeys — a student moving from first enquiry to visa grant through a sequence of stages that each carry documents, deadlines and money.

The core of it:

A visa pipeline, not a sales funnel. Enquiry → Counselling → Documents → Application → Offer → Visa Lodged → Visa Granted. Every student sits at exactly one stage, and the whole office can see the board at once. When a student has been stuck at "Documents" for 12 days, that shows up without anyone asking.

Documents tied to the student, with expiry. Passports, transcripts, IELTS reports, bank statements, police clearance — each uploaded once, attached to the student, and flagged before it expires. An IELTS result is valid for two years; a bank statement used for a UK application must show funds held for 28 days. A system that knows this is the difference between catching a problem and explaining it to a family.

Country checklists. Australia needs a Confirmation of Enrolment, a Genuine Student statement and OSHC. Canada needs a Provincial Attestation Letter and a GIC. The UK needs a CAS and a tuberculosis test. A consultancy CRM materialises the right list the moment a student chooses a destination, so nothing is discovered missing at lodgement.

Commission that follows the application. Each application knows its university, course, intake and counsellor. When the commission arrives, it is matched, not guessed — and the counsellor's incentive is computed from it rather than from a memory of who "handled" the file.

A student portal. The 11 PM "mero application kaha pugyo?" message stops when the student can see their own stage, their own missing documents, and their own next step.

What it is not

It is not Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho with custom fields. Those tools are excellent at what they were built for, and consultancies that adopt them spend the first three months building the pipeline, the document model and the commission logic that a purpose-built system ships with — then maintaining it forever. The cost isn't the licence; it's the consultant you pay to keep it working.

Features that matter, ranked

Not everything on a feature list carries the same weight. In rough order of how often their absence costs a consultancy money:

1. Document expiry alerts. One missed IELTS expiry in a peak intake can cost a family a semester.
2. Stage-based deadlines. Intake deadlines by country and university, surfaced per student.
3. Commission reconciliation. Expected vs received, per university, per counsellor.
4. Automatic follow-ups. A lead untouched for three days should generate a task, not a regret.
5. A student-facing view. Fewer status messages, more referrals.
6. Team visibility. The owner sees which counsellor has 40 students and which has 12.
7. Mobile access. Counsellors work from fairs, cafés and university visits.
8. Sub-agent tracking. If you take referrals from partner agents, their commission needs its own ledger.

What it costs — and how to compare pricing

Pricing models differ more than features do, and the model matters more than the number.

| Model | Typical range | Watch for | |---|---|---| | Per user, per month | ₹2,000–₹3,500 per seat | A 10-counsellor office pays 10×. Growth is penalised. | | Per consultancy, flat | NPR 5,000–15,000 per month | Unlimited seats. Confirm student limits. | | Annual licence | ₹1.5–5 lakh upfront | Often plus implementation fees. |

For a Nepali consultancy with six to fifteen staff, flat per-consultancy pricing is almost always cheaper by a wide margin, and it removes the quiet incentive to share logins — which is how audit trails die.

Ask directly: Is there a student cap? Is storage extra? What happens to my data if I leave?

Moving from Excel and WhatsApp without losing students

This is the part that stops most consultancies, and it should not. The migration is a morning's work if done in order:

1. Export the master spreadsheet. One row per student is enough. Name, phone, email, target country, current stage, assigned counsellor.
2. Import it. A good CRM imports Excel directly, detects duplicates, and assigns stages from a column.
3. Do not migrate old documents on day one. Upload documents for active students only, as their files are next touched. Archived students can stay in the old folders.
4. Move the pipeline before the paperwork. Once every active student has a stage, the team can work from the board immediately. Documents follow over the next fortnight.
5. Turn WhatsApp into a notification channel, not a database. The group stays; decisions stop living in it.

Consultancies that try to migrate five years of history first never finish. Migrate the present, archive the past.

Questions to ask before you buy

• Can I see a student's full document set and expiry dates on one screen?
• Does the system know the Australia / Canada / UK / US checklists, or do I build them?
• When a commission arrives from a university, how many clicks to match it to a counsellor?
• Can a student log in and see their own status without calling us?
• What does a counsellor see on their phone?
• What is the price for my headcount, not the starting tier?
• Where is my data hosted, and can I export all of it?

If a vendor cannot answer the last one clearly, that is the answer.

Where Qylantis fits

Qylantis CRM was built in Kathmandu for exactly this office. It ships with the visa pipeline, country document checklists for fifteen destinations, commission reconciliation, a student portal, and native Android and iOS apps — priced flat per consultancy with unlimited users and students, and a free month to move your real data across.

Start a free trial or read how it compares.