How to set up Fees/Transaction Types to make entries in the student ledger:

 

About Transaction Types:

In Gradelink “Fees” refers to stock transactions which are set up to allow for faster entries when you are entering a charge or payment in the student ledger. It is best to configure any transactions that your school might apply to a student ahead of time, because when you make an entry in the student ledger, you will need to select from one of the transaction “types” that have been configured for your school. Most schools will need to set up fees for items such as “Tuition”, “Registration Fee”, “School Yearbook”, or “Summer camp charge” for example.

To set up your fees and types and thus make them available to you as entries in the student ledger, click on the “Admin” tab at the top of your screen. Once you click the “Admin” tab, you can then click on the “Fees and Types” button which becomes available on that page.

This is the page where you will list all your available fees. An individual transaction that you create cannot simultaneously be both a charge and a payment. In the student ledger, you will need to enter in one transaction as a charge and another transaction as a payment for that charge. You may choose to create a unique payment transaction-type for each type of charge you enter into the student ledger. For example, you may create a “Charge” called “New Registration Fee” and a separate “Payment” called “New Registration Fee- Payment”, which could then both fall under a Billing Category called “Student Registration Fees”, for example. This would allow you to track both charges and payments associated with those billing categories in your school.

 

Another option you have is to create a generic transaction called a “Payment” without designating it as a payment for a particular fee. (If you do this, be sure to leave the amount blank as this will allow different amounts to be entered into the student ledger each time you make use of the generic “payment” transaction). If you choose to create a generic “Payment” transaction for all your payments, however, you will not be able to assign payments to separate billing categories, as you will need to choose one billing category when you  configure the generic “Payment” transaction. Therefore, creating a generic payment transaction is a time-saver, but is only beneficial to those schools that do not need to internally track school-wide subtotals for different Billing Categories.

In order to add a new transaction type:

  1. From within your students section, click the “Financial” tab at the top of your screen. Then click on the button that says “Fees/Types”. Click “Add” on the right hand side of the screen to add a new transaction type.
  2.  Type the title of the fee or transaction. This title will appear on the statement, so choose a descriptive title that will make sense to parents.  Remember, you are not applying a particular fee to a particular student on this page. You are merely creating a stock transaction which will be available as an entry option on the student ledger. For example, I may create a fee called “Textbook Fee”, which will be applied to multiple students, perhaps multiple times.
  3. Choose the “Billing Category” from the drop down menu. The next box is “DB/CR Type”. This stands for “debit/ credit type”. Debit refers to charges taken from the parent whereas credit means the parent is making some sort of payment to the school (or the school is “giving” money credit to the parent).Note: Under “DB/CR Type”, a “credit memo” is awarding money to the student’s account, so you could also use this feature to apply a “discount” by charging the normal amount for a particular transaction and then awarding the student a “credit memo”.
  4. Next, type in the amount and choose the appropriate billing session. Click “Add”.

Copying Fee Types:

To copy the Fee Types for a new session or school year, simply set the Receivables Edit Status under Financial->Admin->Sessions to “Open”. This will copy from the session immediately prior and won’t overwrite any current Fee Types set up in the new session. Click Here to learn more about Billing Sessions.