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Collecting fees

Taking money at the counter, issuing the receipt, and chasing what is still outstanding. Under a minute per payment once fees are set up.

Sidebar → Finance & Fees → Fees Management → Collect Fees

If nothing appears for a student, their fees have not been assigned yet — that is the usual cause, not a fault.

Taking a payment

  1. Find the student by admission number or name
  2. You should now see every outstanding installment, with its due date and any fine
  3. Enter the amount against each installment being paid — part payment is allowed, just enter less than the full amount
  4. Apply a discount against a line if one is due
  5. Fill in the payment details and save
FieldNotes
Payment modeCash, Card / POS, QR / UPI, Cheque, Bank Transfer
Payment dateDefaults to today. Backdate it if you are entering yesterday's counter
Transaction IDFor anything not cash — the UPI reference, cheque number
Bank accountWhich of your accounts the money went into
School receipt noYour own paper receipt number, if you run a manual book alongside
Special noteAnything the receipt should record

There is also a wallet option, if the family has credit on account.

Rapid collect for a queue at the counter

There is a faster screen for busy collection days — search, see the dues, take the money, next. It skips the full profile view. Use it on fee day; use the normal screen when you need to see detail.

Receipts

A receipt number is generated automatically, in a per-year series, and cannot collide even when two people collect at the same moment.

The series follows the payment date, not what you are looking at

Backdate a payment into last year and it takes last year's receipt series. Viewing an old session does not change the numbering of a payment made today. That is deliberate — financial numbering must not depend on what someone happens to have open.

Receipts can be printed or downloaded, and each has a link you can send to a parent.

Fixing a mistake

Payments are reverted, never edited or deleted.

Reverting a deposit puts back everything it changed — the paid amount, any fine collected, and any discount applied — and returns the installment to unpaid or partly paid.

Reverting is restricted, and should stay that way

Only a school admin, or someone explicitly granted the revert permission, can reverse a payment. Do not hand that permission to everyone who collects money — the whole point is that a reversal is a decision somebody is accountable for.

Collecting while viewing a past year

If you have the topbar session indicator switched to an old year, you cannot collect for a student who was not enrolled in that year. You will see "This student is not enrolled in 2025-26 — return to the current session to collect this fee."

Switch back to the current session and collect normally.

Chasing what is outstanding

Fees Management → Search Due Fees lists everything unpaid, filterable by class and section, with a summary of the totals.

Teachers see a version of this for their own classes only, so a class teacher can follow up with their own parents without seeing the school's whole debtor list.

Automatic reminders

Two scheduled jobs run on the 1st of each month:

  • Fee invoices are generated and sent
  • Fee due reminders go to parents

No cron, no reminders — and no error

Both run through the scheduler. If the cron job is not set up on your server, invoices and reminders simply never send, and nothing anywhere reports a problem.

If parents say they never hear from you about fees, check the cron before anything else.

Letting parents pay online

If your provider has enabled online fee payment for your school and connected a payment gateway, parents can pay from the parent app or the web.

Those payments appear under Fees Management → Online Transactions, and update the student's dues automatically — no counter entry needed.

New schools have online payment switched off by default. Turning it on is a conversation with your provider, because the gateway account and its charges are part of it.

Real example

Apex Academy's fee day, first Monday of the month:

  • Two staff on the rapid collect screen, both on Cash and QR / UPI
  • One person on the normal screen handling part payments and concessions
  • Receipts printed on the spot; parents who wanted a copy got the link on WhatsApp
  • At close, Search Due Fees filtered to the day's classes to spot who had not come

Reverts that month: three, all genuine keying errors, all done by the principal rather than the counter staff.

Common problems

What you seeCause
A student has no fees to collectNo fee group is assigned to them
The dues look wrong for the yearFees are not filed by academic year. Check which fee group they are on
"This student is not enrolled in …"You are viewing a past session. Return to the current one
Two receipts with the same numberShould be impossible — numbering is locked per school. Report it
A payment was entered twiceRevert one of them. Do not delete anything
Parents get no reminders or invoicesThe cron job is not running
A fine appears that the parent disputesFines are calculated from the due date and the fee group's fine rule. Check both
Online payments do not appearOnline fee payment is off for your school, or the gateway is not connected. Ask your provider
A discount was applied at the wrong rateRevert the payment and re-collect with the correct discount