School fees · M-Pesa & bank · Kenya
Fees collected to the school’s own account
Your fee structure, your letterhead, your paybill, your bank. The admission number is the reference on the note, the account number on M-Pesa and the identifier the parent signs in with — written once, at admission.
From a fee structure to money in the account
A structure per grade, published once. Tuition, lunch, boarding, transport, development levy — per grade and per category, uploaded from a spreadsheet or typed in. Exceptions are data, not code: a fourth sibling’s discount or a staff-child waiver is configured per school and shows as its own line on the bill, so a parent can see why they were charged what they were charged.
Invoices are previewed before they are posted. You see exactly who is billed and the total before anything is written. Numbering is gapless. The same screen bills a whole school, one class, or one learner — a replacement jersey does not have to be billed to a grade.
The fee note is a document, on your letterhead. Your crest, your colour, your bank details, your paybill, and the head teacher’s signature. A parent downloads it as a PDF from their own phone; the office prints the identical note from the learner’s record. A fee note that looks like it came from a software company is one a parent queries at the office instead of paying.
Three ways to pay, one ledger. The school’s bank account, its M-Pesa paybill with the admission number as the account number, or an STK prompt sent to the parent’s phone from the portal. Cash at the office is receipted into the same place. Money posts only when its source confirms it — for M-Pesa, Safaricom’s callback, never the prompt.
Allocation is not a guess. A payment is applied to the oldest invoice first and, within it, line by line in priority order — so tuition settles before the trip and a statement can show what settled what. A payment whose reference matches no child waits in suspense rather than being attached to somebody.
What a bursar gets
- An arrears list that is true — a family paying to an agreed plan is not on it
- Ageing — measured from the oldest unpaid instalment, not the invoice date
- Receipts — numbered, for every payment, whatever route it came in by
- Statements — every invoice and payment since the child joined, downloadable
- Separation of duties — setting a fee structure and collecting against it are different rights
- An audit log — every adjustment, waiver and reversal attributed. A wrong receipt is reversed, never edited
Questions we are asked
- Where does the money go?
- Into the school's own bank account or its own M-Pesa paybill. Never through us. The school's account details and paybill are printed on every fee note, with the child's admission number as the reference either way.
- How does the system know an invoice is paid?
- A payment arrives — paybill, an STK prompt, cash at the office, or a bank slip — and money only enters the ledger when its source confirms it. It is then allocated oldest invoice first, line by line in priority order, and the invoice becomes part-paid or paid. A payment whose reference matches no child goes to suspense and is never guessed onto a learner.
- Can a parent pay part of the fees?
- Any amount, any day. Part payments are normal in Kenya and the ledger is built for them: whatever arrives is applied to the oldest item first, and the parent's balance updates as soon as Safaricom confirms it.
- Does an instalment plan stop a family being chased?
- Yes. Arrears are measured against the agreed plan rather than the invoice date, so a family paying as agreed is not on the arrears list — which is the difference between a list a school acts on and one it ignores.
- Can parents get their own fee statement?
- In the parent portal: every fee note as a PDF, a full statement of invoices and payments with a running balance, and the school's bank details and paybill on the same screen. The office sees the identical documents from the learner's record.