Finance
Price list, instalments, invoices with a payment QR code, payments and who owes what.
Money and staff
Financial aid
Money a student does not have to pay, and money the school pays back. Discounts and scholarships act before the invoice, fee waivers on what is already owed, and payouts after the payment - each with its reason, and none of them ever rewrites an issued invoice.
- Discounts and scholarships as rules
- Fee waivers approved by a second person
- Refunds and aid paid out by a SEPA file
What it does
Three screens in the office, beside Finance: Discounts and scholarships, Fee waivers and Payouts.
- Discounts and scholarships reduce what a student is charged, by rule, the moment a charge is raised.
- Fee waivers let a student off a charge or an invoice that is already owed, in full or in part.
- Payouts pay money out to a student: a refund of their credit, or aid paid from the school’s aid funds.
- It works on Finance: the same charges, invoices, payments and credit notes, the same numbering and the same history.
Discounts and scholarships are rules
Written once, a rule finds the charges it applies to by itself.
- A percentage or an amount off the items of the price list it names - or every item.
- For whom: one named student, the holders of a special status from the student file, a programme, or everybody - between two dates.
- Its own line on the invoice. When a charge is raised - by hand, by charging a whole year, or by a paid exam attempt - the rule adds its reduction beside it, once, however often the year is charged. A charge cancelled before it is invoiced takes its reduction with it.
- From the day it is saved. Charges raised earlier are not rewritten; the office applies a rule to the year’s open charges on purpose, and is asked first.
- A scholarship may name its sponsor, for the reader and the export; the invoice still goes to the student’s account, or to the payer set up in Finance.
- How much each rule has given is on the rule, and the year’s total is a line of “The year in figures”.
- A disciplinary measure never changes a discount or a scholarship.
Fee waivers, with four eyes
“Let her off the second instalment”, “charged by mistake”, “the dean waived the late fee” - a decision about money already owed, with the reason kept.
- On a charge or on an invoice, in full or in part.
- A second person approves by default; the school can let small amounts up to a limit it sets go through at once.
- An open charge is reduced or cancelled. On an issued invoice the waiver becomes a credit note - a draft until the accounts release it - so the invoice stays as it was issued.
- Never more than is still to pay, so a waiver never gives money back: that is a refund.
Refunds and aid paid out
Money that leaves the school goes through four steps, and two people.
Asked for
“Students with a credit” lists those whose payments no invoice has used - the money a refund can pay back. The clerk chooses a refund or aid, the student, the IBAN, the amount and the purpose, the words on the student’s bank statement. A refund is never more than the credit.
Approved by somebody else
The person who asked may approve their own payout only with a reason - a setting of the school. A refund takes the credit at approval, so it can neither be paid twice nor used for the next invoice.
In a SEPA transfer file
Approved payouts go into the next credit-transfer file (SEPA, pain.001), which the school uploads to its bank. Nothing is sent to a bank from Wise Ed.
Marked paid
When the bank confirms, the payouts are marked paid. A payout cancelled before it is paid gives the credit back.
For the accountant
- A discount is already a line of its invoice, with its own account, so the invoice lines export carries it.
- The payouts’ accounting lines are a file of their own - date, kind, student, amount, account, IBAN, the transfer’s reference and the file - never part of the general accounting export. Taking them out is a right of its own on the school’s roles, and every export is logged.
- Several campuses: payouts and their transfer files follow the campus of the reader’s role.
What the student sees
- In “My student file” on the student portal the student sees “My discounts and scholarships” and “Money paid out to me”: refunds and scholarships paid out, with where each payout stands. The IBAN is shown by its last four digits only.
Questions about financial aid
Is financial aid part of Finance?
It is a module of its own, beside Finance, with its own three screens in the office menu. It works on Finance’s charges, invoices and payments.
Does a scholarship change the invoice?
It adds its own line to it. The charge and the reduction are two lines of the same invoice, so the student and the accountant both see what was given.
Can one person pay money out alone?
Not without a reason. A payout is approved by somebody other than the person who asked for it; approving one’s own needs a reason, which is kept.
What is the difference between a waiver and a refund?
A waiver reduces what is still owed and never pays money back. A refund pays a student’s credit back to their bank account.
Works with
Each module works on its own. These are the ones it does more with.
Student file
Special statuses, support entries, disciplinary cases and attendance alerts.
Curriculum and records
Programmes, subjects, the curriculum and the student record, every change kept.
Administration
Switching modules, roles per menu item, code lists, campuses and languages.
See Wise Ed on your own school
Book an online presentation. We will walk through how your student office works today and show you the same job in Wise Ed — with your programmes, not a demonstration dataset.