Part 2. Journeys
2.9 Billing a term
A year's fee schedule drafted, adjusted by rules, published and split between the payers.
Written forBusiness manager
What this journey achieves
The business manager sets what the school charges, for whom and when, and decides who pays each charge. Kestrel keeps that record and does not keep the ledger. The invoices, receipts and payments stay in the school's finance system, so this journey ends with a published schedule and each student's payers recorded.
A fee schedule is a draft until it is published. Once published, a version never changes: a mistake is fixed by publishing a correction, and bills already made under the old version stand.
The steps in order
- Business manager
Open the fee settings. Give the "Year", the "Name" and the "Currency" and choose "Start a year". Add the billing periods with "Add a period": the number, name, first and last day, and the day it is due.
/app/settings/fees5.5 Module settings - Business manager
Make sure the charge categories the lines need exist under the school's vocabularies.
/app/settings/vocabularies5.1 Settings and setup - Business manager
On Fees, choose "Add a line" for each charge. Give the "Code", "Name" and "Amount", and choose what it is "Charged for" (each student, each family or each unit), when it "Falls", its category and its year level. Choose "Save it".
/app/billing3.12 Billing - Business manager
On the Rules tab, choose "Add a rule" for each discount or holding fee. Choose the kind, the order it applies in, what it takes off and, for a sibling rule, the child number it starts from.
/app/billing3.12 Billing - Business manager
Read the draft once more, then choose "Publish". The dialogue says the version is never changed after this.
/app/billing3.12 Billing - Business manager
Open a student's page and the "Fees" section. Under "Who pays", split a category between payers with "Add a payer", give each a "Share" (or "Split evenly") and choose "Save the split".
/app/people/[id]3.1 Students and households
Things to watch for
What happens next
Invoices, receipts and payments are handled in the school's finance system, outside Kestrel. Kestrel owns the charge model, the rules and the payers, and the ledger stays outside it.