Plenty of parents still pay at the school office, by bank transfer, or on the POS machine. edunile only knows about those payments when you tell it. Recording them keeps every parent's balance correct, keeps your collection figures honest, and stops the system chasing somebody who has already paid.

Steps

Step 01

Open Finance and stay on the Payments tab

From your dashboard menu, click Finance. The hub opens on the Payments tab, which is where you track who has paid and who hasn't.

Check the Term selector at the top is showing the term the payment is for. If a parent is settling last term's arrears, switch to that term first. Otherwise you'll record the money against the wrong term.

The Finance hub with the Payments tab selected — Finance → Payments

Step 02

Click Record payment

Click Record payment. It is the big button at the top of the Finance page, beside the page title, so it is there before anything else has loaded.

A small window opens with a search box. Start typing the student's name (or their admission number) and pick them from the list. You don't need to know their class.

The Payments tab, with the Record payment button at the top of the page — Find the student who paid

Step 03

Check it is the right bill

If the student has one unpaid bill (which is the usual case), edunile opens the payment form on it for you. If they have more than one, it lists them with the amount outstanding on each, and you click the one this payment is for.

Either way the form shows their bill number, the total, what they have already paid and the balance still outstanding, so you can check you have the right person before you type anything.

If the student doesn't come up, see Common issues below. They may already be fully paid, or never billed for this term.

Step 04

Enter the amount and how they paid

Fill in:

Amount: how much they actually handed over. edunile fills in the full balance to start with; if a parent is paying in instalments, change it to just this instalment. edunile works out the new balance. If the parent paid more than the bill, type what they paid: see When a parent pays more than the bill below.
How they paid: already set to Cash, because most money over the counter is. Change it to Bank transfer, POS, Cheque or Other if it wasn't.
Notes (optional): the teller number, transfer reference or POS slip number. This is the field that saves you during a dispute months later, so it's worth the extra few seconds.

Click Record payment.

Step 05

Give the parent their receipt

The window now says Payment recorded and shows the new balance. The parent is usually still standing in front of you, so the receipt is right there:

Send receipt to parent: sends it to the phone number and email on the student's record, by WhatsApp and email. edunile tells you which one got through. One tap is enough. If the screen says Could not confirm, tap Try again: if the first one did go, it says Receipt already sent at 3:42 pm instead of sending it twice, with a Send again button for when the parent did not get it. If the email went but WhatsApp did not, tap Try WhatsApp again: the email is not sent a second time. If today's WhatsApp limit has been reached, the email goes now and the WhatsApp goes by itself tomorrow morning.
Print receipt: opens the receipt in a new tab, ready to print or save as a PDF.
Done: closes the window.

The student's balance updates straight away. The Payments tab's totals and the class figures move with it. For a full list of everything taken in (across cash, transfers, POS and online payments), switch to the Reports tab. That is where you go at the end of a day or a week to reconcile against your own book.

When a parent pays more than the bill

Type the full amount the parent handed over. edunile tells you straight away how much more it is than the bill, for example ₦5,000.00 more than this bill. Keep it as credit for Ada's next bill?

To keep it, click Record payment as normal. The bill is marked paid and the extra is kept as credit on the child's account.
If you typed too much by mistake, click No, record ₦45,000.00 only (it shows this bill's balance) and the amount goes back to the balance.

The credit comes off the child's next bill automatically, the moment you send fees for the next term. You don't have to do anything, and the parent sees the smaller amount on their bill. Payments a parent makes online that go over the bill are kept as credit in the same way.

If the child already has credit, the payment window shows it under the balance as Credit from earlier.

To see a child's credit and what happened to it, open the student's profile and choose the Finance tab. The Credit card shows how much is left, and each time it was kept, used on a bill, or handed back.

Hand money back to a parent

Sometimes the school gives money back: a parent paid on the wrong child's bill, paid twice, or a child leaves with credit left. edunile does not send the money for you. Pay the parent in cash or by bank transfer as you normally would, then record it so the account stays right.

Money paid on a bill. Open the bill (on the Payments tab, click View Students for the class, then the student). Click Hand money back, enter the amount, choose Cash or Bank transfer, and add a note if you like, such as the transfer reference. Click Hand back, then Hand back again to confirm. The bill's balance goes back up by that amount, so it shows as owed again. You can hand back at most what has been paid on that bill.

A child's unused credit. Open the student's profile, choose the Finance tab, and click Hand back on the Credit card. The whole credit is filled in; change it if you are handing back only part. Choose Cash or Bank transfer and confirm.

Either way, the bill's payment history and its receipt show the entry as Handed back, with the date and who recorded it. Payments show as Paid, credit used on a bill as Paid from credit, and extra kept for later as Kept as credit. Recording money handed back can't be undone, which is why edunile asks you to confirm it.

Only the bursar and school admins (staff who manage fees) see Hand money back and Hand back.

Let parents pay part of a bill online

If a lot of your instalments come in at the office, you can let parents pay part of a bill from their payment link instead. It stays off until you switch it on.

Open Settings from your dashboard menu and choose Money.
On the Part payments online card, switch on Let parents pay part of a bill online.
To set a floor, type it under Smallest amount, for example 10000. Leave it blank to accept any amount.
Click Save changes.

Parents then see an Amount to pay now box on their payment page, with the full balance already filled in. A parent who wants to pay less changes the amount, down to your smallest amount, and pays that. If a payment charge applies, the payment page shows it before they pay, and your school still gets the amount they chose. If what they owe is already below your smallest amount, they pay it in full. Every payment gets its own receipt, the bill shows Partial until the rest comes in, and you can still send a reminder for what is left.

Only the school's Owner or staff who manage fees can change this.

Common issues

I found the student but it says they have no outstanding balance

The picker only shows bills that still owe something for the selected term. If there are none, one of three things is true:

They have already been recorded as fully paid. Check the Reports tab.
They were never billed for this term. Fees have to be sent to the class before a payment can be recorded against a bill.
You're on the wrong term. Change the Term selector on the Payments tab and look again.

Sending the receipt says the parent has no phone number or email saved

The receipt goes to the phone number and email on the student's record, and this student has neither. Print the receipt for the parent now, then add their number or email on the student's profile so next time it can be sent.

Sending the receipt says WhatsApp is switched off for your school

The parent's phone number may well be saved, but WhatsApp sending is turned off in your school's settings and there is no email for this parent. Print the receipt for the parent now. To send receipts on WhatsApp, go to Settings, open Notifications and turn on WhatsApp. Only staff who can change the school's settings can do this. Or add the parent's email on the student's profile.

I typed the wrong amount

Don't record a second, negative payment to cancel it out. That leaves two confusing entries on the parent's account.

Open the bill itself (from the student's profile, or from the class list you reach with View Students on the Payments tab), find the payment you entered, and correct it there. If you can't undo it, message us on WhatsApp with the student's name and the bill number and we'll sort it out.

A parent paid for two children in one transfer

Record it as two separate payments, one against each child's bill, splitting the amount as the parent intended. Put the same transfer reference in the notes on both so they can be tied back to the one transfer later.

A parent paid for next term in advance

If you have already sent next term's fees, switch the Term selector to that term and record the payment on next term's bill.

If next term's fees haven't been sent yet, record the whole amount on this term's bill. edunile keeps whatever is more than this term's balance as credit, and takes it off next term's bill automatically when you send those fees.

A parent paid twice for the same bill

Nothing is lost. If both payments are recorded, the second one is kept as credit for the child's next bill. If the parent wants the money back instead, record it with Hand back on the Credit card on the student's profile (Finance tab).

The parent says they paid but I can't find the money

Check the Reports tab first. If they paid through the edunile link it will already be there and no action is needed from you. If it isn't, ask them for the teller or transfer reference and confirm with your bank before recording anything. Once recorded, a payment counts as received.