Scenario:

1. Why are my Family Batch Transactions always assigned to the youngest child?

2. How do I control which sibling Batch Transactions are associated with?

3. Is there a way to force Batch Transactions to only apply to the oldest student in a family?


Solution:

In Gradelink, all transactions need to be associated with a student, even Batch Transactions that are created Per Family. As a result, Gradelink needs a way to determine which sibling within a family to assign the transactions to. Gradelink does this through the "Sibling Setting" that appears in the Admin section of the Financial tab. The "Sibling Setting" allows administrators to automatically assign Per Family Batch Transactions to either the Oldest or Youngest sibling in each family.


To get started:

  1. Go to the Financial tab
  2. Select the "Admin" sub-tab
  3. Click "Settings"



The Batch Transactions Sibling Setting is the last option in the "Billing Admin Settings" panel on the left. There are only two choices: "Youngest Active Sibling" or "Oldest Active Sibling".


You might be wondering, how does Gradelink determine which sibling is the youngest/oldest?


Broadly speaking, Gradelink determines sibling age based on two pieces of information:

  • First, Gradelink looks at whether or not a birth datehas been recorded for each student in the Demographics section of the Students tab. If each student has a birthdate, then Gradelink simply compares them to look for the oldest student.
    • If some students have a birth date and others don't, Gradelink assumes that students without birth dates are older than students with birth dates.
  • Second, when looking at students that don't have birth dates, Gradelink compares their Student IDs. All students in Gradelink have a Student ID, so comparing them is easy.
    • Gradelink assumes that students with a smaller/lower Student ID are older. This assumption is based on the idea that younger students will join the school after their older siblings, and as a result will have a larger or 'more recent' Student ID.


Some schools like to personalize their Student IDs, so if you want to avoid any issues with accidentally assigning a Batch Transaction to the wrong sibling, your best bet is to make sure that all students have a birth date recorded on their profile.