It happens every month. A parent pays Rs 6,000 against a Rs 5,500 challan because they did not want to wait for change. Or a family pays three months at once because they are travelling. Or a father pays the whole year in September.
If the extra money is simply written on the receipt, the school will lose track of it. Months later the family will look like a defaulter on the next list, and the parent will be right to be upset.
The three outcomes for extra money
- Keep it as an advance. The extra stays on the family's account and is used against the next challan.
- Apply it to another open challan. If the family has another unpaid month or another child with dues, settle that first.
- Refund it. If the parent wants the money back, return it and record the refund against the student.
Whichever you pick, the rule is the same: a challan should never take more than it is worth, and the extra should not disappear.
A worked example
This is an example only. A challan is Rs 5,500. The parent pays Rs 6,000.
- The challan is paid in full: Rs 5,500.
- The extra Rs 500 is kept as an advance on the family's account.
- Next month a new challan of Rs 5,500 is made. The advance of Rs 500 is used against it.
- The parent now owes Rs 5,000 for that month.
Why a paid family can look like a defaulter
A common mistake is to record an advance as a separate payment that is not matched to any challan. The family has paid, yet its current challan still shows as unpaid. The dashboard, the defaulter list and the parent app all count it as overdue. The fix is to match the advance to open challans straight away, not only when the next batch is generated.
Paying a year in advance
A family that pays for the whole year needs the money applied to each month as it is billed. Record the payment as an advance, and let each month's challan draw on it. Do not mark the months as paid before they are billed, because a discount change or a fee rise during the year will make the numbers wrong.
Refunds
If a refund is needed, record the student's name, the amount, the date and the reason. A refund that shows only a challan number cannot be explained to a parent a year later.
Doing this in Skoo
At the fee counter, a payment settles the oldest challans first across the children. If the amount is more than the family owes, the extra is kept as an advance. A challan never takes more than it is worth, including a payment made offline in the app and synced later. In the Collect dialog, Skoo tells you when the amount is more than the challan needs and shows the extra kept as an advance.
An advance settles open challans straight away: when it is recorded, when you generate challans, and with a Use for open challans button for older balances. Because of this, a family that paid in advance no longer shows as a defaulter on the dashboard or in the parent app. A refund shows the student's name. Every receipt has its own number. Fee income in the accounts is recorded when money is received. Read more in one payment for all the children of a family.