Billing students

Billing turns the fee structure into invoices against real students. Until you bill, nobody owes anything.

Billing a term

Go to Finance → Student Billing.

1. Choose the term and the classes.
2. Confirm the structure shown is the one you intend to apply.
3. Select Bill.

Every student in those classes gets an invoice for their class’s structure. Students admitted later are billed when you re-run for their class — already-billed students are not double-billed.

Bill once, early in the term, and let the exceptions be handled individually. Repeated whole-school billing runs to catch a few stragglers is how duplicate invoices appear.

Individual billing

For one student who differs from their class — a bursary, a scholarship, a mid-term joiner, a one-off charge such as a replacement textbook — use Individual Billing.

Search for a student before entering an individual charge or waiver.

Choose the student, the votehead, the amount and the term, and add a note explaining why. The note is the important field: in six months, “Bursary — board approved 15/02” answers a query that “adjustment” does not.

Waivers and bursaries

A waiver is a negative individual bill against the votehead being waived. Recording it this way keeps the full charge and the waiver both visible, so the school can report on what it gave away. Reducing the original invoice instead hides it.

Bill by Excel

For a large one-off billing that does not follow the class structure — a trip, an examination fee for a subset of students, a uniform order — use Bill by Excel.

The Bill by Excel screen lists uploaded billing batches and their outcome.

1. Download the template.
2. One row per student: admission number, votehead, amount.
3. Upload. Rows that cannot be matched to a student are reported and not applied.
4. Fix and re-upload the rejected rows.

As with any import, test on a few rows first.

Other invoices

Other Invoices bills someone who is not a student — a hall hire, a supplier recharge, an old boys’ association.

Sending invoices

Invoices can be sent to guardians by SMS or email from Invoice Notifications.

For a term with Other Levies billing, the sender must choose School Fees only, Other Levies only, or Combine School Fees + Other Levies. The combined option groups invoice lines by ledger, shows the two balance subtotals and a grand total, and uses the same selection for text messages, PDF links, and statement emails. Terms that contain only School Fees continue directly with the normal Fees invoice.

Sending is covered with the other statements in Balances and reminders.

Checking a billing run

Immediately after billing, before parents start paying:

• Open Balances and compare the class total against students × structure total. A mismatch means students were missed or double-billed.
• Spot-check one boarder and one day scholar in the same class.
• Check that mid-term joiners and leavers are billed correctly.

Catching an error here costs an hour. Catching it after two hundred receipts costs a great deal more.