Other income, refunds and payments out

Other income

Money the school receives that is not school fees — hall hire, farm sales, donations, uniform sales, bus hire — goes through Finance → Other Incomes.

Other income is listed with its date, payer, category, amount and payment method.

Record the payer, the amount, the method and reference, and the account it belongs to. The account is what puts it in the right line of the income and expenditure statement; income posted to a vague “other” account tells the board nothing.

Assign View other incomes when someone should search, inspect and print these receipts without recording, editing or reversing them. Access other incomes is the operational role for recording and editing income and requesting a reversal; approval remains with a finance administrator.

Refunds

A refund returns money to a payer — usually an overpayment, or a student who has left with a credit balance.

Refunds show the student, reason, amount, method and approval status.

Record who is being paid, how much, which votehead the credit sits under, and the authority for the refund. A refund reduces the student’s credit and posts to the ledger, so it must be approved before it is raised — the screen is not the approval.

Payment vouchers

Money going out of the school — suppliers, casual labour, utilities, reimbursements — is raised as a payment voucher under Finance → Payment Vouchers.

Payment vouchers include the payee, account, amount, workflow and payment status.

A voucher records the payee, amount, the account being charged, the reason and the supporting document. It follows the school’s approval route before payment, and posts to the ledger when paid.

Vouchers arising from purchase orders and supplier bills come through the inventory module rather than being raised here, so the goods received and the payment stay connected.

Staff with View expenses and suppliers can inspect and print payment vouchers and the connected supplier records without creating expenses, paying suppliers, editing vendors, processing cheque actions or requesting reversals. Access expenses is the operational role for creating and editing ordinary expense vouchers.

Petty cash

Finance → Petty Cash manages the small-cash float on an imprest basis: the float is set at a fixed amount, spending is recorded against it, and the float is topped back up to its original level by a payment voucher.

The petty-cash workspace guides the initial float setup before transactions can be recorded.

Record every disbursement as it happens, with a description and an account. Reconcile the float — cash in the tin plus vouchers held should equal the float — before each top-up, and never let it run as an unrecorded pot of money.

Pocket money

Boarding schools holding pocket money for students use Finance → Pocket Money. It is a separate account per student: money deposited by parents, drawn down as the student spends, with a running balance.

The pocket-money list shows each student’s deposits, withdrawals and balance.

This is the school holding money on behalf of a student, not school income. Keep it out of the fee account, issue a receipt on deposit as you would for fees, and refund the balance when the student leaves.