Heartland School Solutions has acquired School-Link Technologies Inc., a privately-held provider of K-12 school nutrition and point-of-sale solutions.

Heartland’s suite of front- and back-of-the-house K-12 school nutrition and POS technology solutions automate and streamline inventory management and menu planning, as well as track purchases and manage Free and Reduced Meal Applications, among other things.

Parents can pay for school meals, view their child’s lunchroom purchases, and get nutritional information in one central place. This functionality can be expanded to pay for things beyond the lunchroom, such as athletic tickets, yearbooks, t-shirts and school store items.

The acquisition follows the past 10 months of Heartland also acquiring three other providers in the same K-12 space including LunchBox, an integrated school nutrition and POS management application.

Other acquisitions include Comalex Inc., software for school nutrition programs and POS systems, and MySchoolBucks.com, a Web site and online service for parents to pay for their child’s school meals and student activity fees.

Heartland now serves more than 19,000 K-12 public schools across the U.S., representing almost 20% market share.