Fees and finance

Structures, then invoices

A fee structure says what a class pays and when. Invoices are raised from it. Getting the structure right before raising a term's invoices is much less work than correcting them afterwards.

An invoice is not edited

Once issued, an invoice stands. A change is an adjustment against it, so the original bill and the correction are both on the record.

This is not awkwardness for its own sake: a school has to be able to show what it billed and what it then agreed, years later.

The ledger is append-only

Every payment, adjustment and refund is an entry. Nothing is overwritten and nothing is deleted. If a figure looks wrong the answer is in the entries, not in a corrupted total.

Money is held to the paisa — never as an approximate number — so totals reconcile exactly.

Receipts

Issued on payment, downloadable by the family, and available for past years.

Reminders

Fee reminders are sent on the milestone, not daily — a family is chased when something changes, not every morning until they pay. That is deliberate; a daily chase is how a school teaches families to mute it.

Refunds

Where your school uses maker-checker on refunds, one person raises and another approves. One person cannot do both, which is the control.