Fee Management for K-12 Schools

Per-school configurable. Typical US/UK independent-school structure: full fee for first child, 10-15% discount for second child, 20-25% for third, 25-50% for fourth+. Indian K-12 schools commonly have 5-10% sibling discount per additional child. UK ISBA fee guidance gives general principles. The platform auto-detects when multiple children from the same family enrol (via family-record linking at admission), applies the discount on invoice generation, and shows the saving on the parent statement. Discount applies across boarding, day, and ancillary fees per school policy.

Multiple scholarship pools handled in parallel: merit-based (academic, sports, arts), need-based (financial aid), denominational, foundation-funded, externally-funded. Per-pool application workflow with scholarship-committee review. Once awarded, the scholarship reduces fee balance on invoice generation (the parent sees "Tuition $25,000 / Scholarship -$8,000 / Net Due $17,000"). For US NAIS-accredited schools using SSS (School and Student Service for Financial Aid), the SSS-calculated parent-contribution figure imports automatically; the school decides the final aid award which then applies to the fee balance. Audit trail per scholarship for committee-decision documentation and audit purposes.

Fee data is part of the education record under FERPA — only the student's parents (or the eligible student themselves at age 18 or in higher education) plus authorised school staff have access. The platform applies FERPA-aligned access control: role-based access per user, immutable access log per record-view, parental-consent workflow for disclosure to third parties (Pell programs, state aid, scholarship foundations, college counsellors). Directory-information rules (which can be disclosed without consent per FERPA Section 99.31) configurable separately. School districts remain responsible for their own FERPA program; the platform provides the technical controls.

Per-country region. US: Stripe (cards + ACH), FACTS Tuition Management for needs-aid disbursement. UK: Stripe, Wise, major UK bank merchant gateways. India: Razorpay (cards, UPI, net banking, wallets), PayU, Cashfree, direct NEFT/IMPS reconciliation. Africa: Paystack and Flutterwave (cards + bank transfer + mobile money), M-Pesa for Kenya, MTN MoMo for Ghana, Interswitch / Remita for Nigeria. GCC/MENA: Mada (Saudi), KNET (Kuwait), QPay (Qatar), Network International, PayTabs, Tabby for instalment buy-now-pay-later. International: Stripe multi-currency, Wise for SWIFT-equivalent at lower cost. Custom gateways can be integrated via the openeducat_payment_gateway framework.

Per-school configurable. Typical structure: reminder at -7 days before due, due-date reminder, +7 days first late notice, +21 days second notice with hold-warning, +45 days fee-hold. Late-fee rules: flat fee per missed payment (typical $25-$50 in US, £25-£50 in UK, Rs 250-500 in India), or percentage of outstanding balance (1-2% per month is common). Fee-hold actions per institution policy: blocks report-card release, locker access, library borrowing, extra-curricular participation, exam-result issuance. Per best practice, holds should not deny meal access or other child-welfare-related services; the platform allows per-school configuration but flags the meal-denial action as a best-practice warning.

Yes for US schools. FACTS Tuition Management handles needs-based aid disbursement, payment-plan management, and direct-debit setup for many US K-12 independent schools. The platform integrates with FACTS via API: family records sync, fee-balance updates flow bidirectionally, FACTS-collected payments post back to the platform with auto-reconciliation. Schools migrating from FACTS-only to OpenEduCat-plus-FACTS retain the FACTS payment-collection workflow while gaining the integrated SIS-plus-fee-management on the OpenEduCat side. Schools choosing to consolidate can run native online payment via Stripe and retire the FACTS workflow.