Institution
Public
Location
Queensbury, New York
Level
2-year
Students
About 2,600
Office
Student and Residential Life
Launched
August 2026
WEBSITE
sunyacc.edu
Background
At SUNY Adirondack, the engagement platform is also the finance system
Clubs, athletics teams, the Residence Hall Association and facilities staff all spend from budgets held by the college’s FSA office. Every purchase starts as a purchase request. Senior Account Clerk Patty Southworth described the path: the student submits it, an advisor reviews it, it moves to Harley Bradley’s office in Student Life for approval, and then she and Brandon Hunt in the FSA office pay it and close it out.
The college ran this on Anthology Engage, which students knew as Pack Life. Connor Gannon, Director of Student and Residential Life, called the way it handled budgets “kind of an odd way to budget.” When the college picked a replacement, money came first: “We just really heavily rely on it for the financial piece.”
Challenge and solution
Four problems, in the team’s words, and how each was fixed
Edits meant starting over
“When there is an edit needed for a purchase request, the student or whoever made the purchase request, they actually have to completely delete it and restart over.”
Harley Bradley, Assistant Director of Student Life
Fix one item and resubmit
A reviewer sends the request back with a note, and the student fixes that one item on their phone. Reviewers can also approve a lower amount.
Tickets bought in person
“A big complaint is that students have to come in and physically buy their ticket.”
Harley Bradley, Assistant Director of Student Life
Tickets sold in the app
Students pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay, and the money goes through Stripe to the FSA account. The first paid event ran in October.
“How much is in our budget?”
“We have a lot of inquiries from advisors and students like, well, how much is in our fundraising budget?”
Patty Southworth, Senior Account Clerk
Balance shown on every request
Students see what’s left in each budget when they start a purchase request. Fundraising money sits in its own budget, apart from Senate allocations.
Every request looked the same
“Now there’s like 10 in there from student life so I have to keep clicking into every single one.”
Harley Bradley, Assistant Director of Student Life
A Form ID on every request
Each request now shows a short ID in every forms table and export. Lounge shipped it on October 26, after Harley asked.
What changed for students, Student Life and the FSA office
Fixing a purchase request
Delete it and start over
Fix one item and resubmit
Checking a budget balance
Ask Student Life or the FSA office
Shown on the request
Day-trip tickets
Bought in person
Bought in the app
Event data
Not tracked
254 events posted since June
Source: SUNY Adirondack Student Life and FSA staff, implementation calls January to July 2026; Lounge dashboard, November 9, 2026.
Impact
$100,399 spent from four budgets by early November
By November 9, SUNY Adirondack held four 2026-27 budgets in Lounge worth $895,437.94: athletics, the annual club budget, fundraising and residence hall facilities. Approved purchase requests had drawn $100,399.10. More than half of that, $52,945.49, came from athletics, whose teams pay for travel, officials and away games from their own accounts.
Students and staff posted 254 events between June and November 9, 101 of them in the last 28 days, and reviewers took an average of 3.15 days to approve an event. In October the college ran its first paid event through the app.
Some gaps remain. A purchase that draws on two budgets, such as a team’s allocation and its fundraising, still takes two separate requests, which staff called one of the most common questions from students and advisors. Lounge is building single requests across budgets.
Why it worked
Three moves behind a one-summer setup
Finance
Finance staff trained first
Patty, Brandon and Director of Administration Lottie Jameson joined the first training in June, before students saw the app.
Budgets
Budgets loaded before leaders
Many clubs had no officers until fall elections, so every group got a lounge and budget in summer.
Setup
Staff built their own workflows
Harley built every event type and form in May, then turned on two-step finance review in July.
How the rollout ran
