Sibling discounts, scholarships and one-off charges without a side spreadsheet

Ask any bursar which families are on a special arrangement and they will tell you from memory. Ask them again in March, after two new families and a staff change, and the list is shorter than it should be. The arrangements were real; they just were never attached to the child.

The problem in a Belize school day

Small schools are generous in a dozen quiet ways. The third child in a family pays half. The caretaker's daughter pays nothing. A family going through a hard year has had their fee reduced until June. A church sponsors four children on a scholarship. None of this is complicated, but all of it is exceptional, and exceptions are exactly what a monthly fee list handles badly.

The usual answer is a spreadsheet beside the real records: a column called "actual fee" that one person maintains. It works until that person is away during billing week. Then a scholarship child's mother gets a fee reminder for BZ$250 she was promised she would never see, and the school spends a morning apologising.

How it works in Scholar

Scholar puts the arrangement on the child, where the office will find it next March.

Open a student's record and press Edit. Under Fees there are two fields. On a scholarship is a tick box that records the fact: it shows on the child's page and lets you find every scholarship child later. It does not change what they are billed by itself, because a scholarship can be full or partial and the school should say which.

Own fee per invoice is where you say which. Leave it blank and the child is billed the standard fee for their level and the family's payment schedule. Type 0 and the child is billed nothing at all. Type any other amount and that is what goes on each invoice for this child, instead of the list price. A half-fee third child is a number in that box; a sponsored child is a zero. Press Save changes and it applies from the next billing run.

One-off charges go the other way, on the family. Open the family's statement under Billing → Families and use Add a charge: pick the billing month, a type such as Materials, Late fee or Discount, write a description, enter the amount and press Add charge. A discount subtracts; everything else adds. Because the charge is added to that month's invoice, it appears on the parent's portal and on their printed receipt with the description you wrote, not as a mystery number.

Both changes show up where the money is counted. The monthly run reports how many children were billed nothing because their own fee is zero, so the office can confirm that the four scholarship children are the four it expected.

What to expect

A child's own fee is per invoice, which matters if the family is on a quarterly or annual schedule: BZ$100 in that box means BZ$100 on each invoice, however often invoices come. The editor says this beside the field, and the family's current schedule is shown on their statement, so it is worth a glance before you type.

Arrangements that end, end by hand. When the hard year is over, clear the box and the child goes back to the standard fee from the next run. Scholar will not quietly restore the full fee on a date you did not choose.

A scholarship child's family still appears in Billing, still has a statement, and can still receive a receipt for anything they do pay (a materials fee, say). What they will never receive is a reminder for money they do not owe, because reminders are driven by the balance.

Four arrangements, and where each one lives

The third child pays half. On the third child's record, under Fees, type half the level's fee into Own fee per invoice. The first two children are billed the standard fee; the family's one invoice shows three lines, the third at half. If the family is on a quarterly schedule, type half the quarterly price instead; the box is per invoice.

A fully sponsored child. Tick On a scholarship and type 0 in Own fee per invoice. The child appears on the family's invoice as a line for nothing, which is deliberate: the family can see the school is carrying the fee rather than forgetting it. The monthly run's result bar counts the child among those billed nothing.

A reduced fee until June. Type the reduced amount, and make a note in the family's record of when it ends. In June, clear the box. The system will not do that date for you, and should not; a hard year does not end on a schedule.

A one-off cost, or a one-off kindness. On the family's statement, Add a charge: Materials for the new textbook, Late fee if the school charges one, Discount for the raffle prize or the goodwill gesture. Each sits on that month's invoice with the description you wrote, and on the receipt.

All four show up in the parent portal exactly as entered, which is the point: the family and the office are reading the same line.

See it with your own school

Bring the list from memory. We will show you how it looks once each arrangement is attached to the child, and how the next billing run proves it. Book a free demo.

Related: Monthly, quarterly or annual fees: letting families choose without losing track, Switching school software mid-year: carrying arrears across cleanly, and the features page.