CloudNotte — Accounting

Fixing Fee Mistakes

A wrong amount, a fee that shouldn't be there, a payment recorded against the wrong student. What to do in each case, what happens to money already paid, and the safe way to re-issue a whole class's fees.

Find your situation first

There are four different tools here and they do genuinely different things. Picking the wrong one usually means more clearing up, not less. Start with this table.

What's wrongHas anyone paid?Use
One student has a fee they shouldn'tNoDelete on their fee list
One student's fee is the wrong amountNoEdit the amount on their fee list
One student, and money has gone inYesReverse the payment
A whole class or term is wrongEitherSettings → Accounting → Remove Fees
Running accounting again will not fix anything

It is the first thing most people try, and it never works. Running accounting only adds fees a student doesn't already have — it never re-prices or removes one they do. The wrong fee has to come off first. Everything below is about doing that safely.

1

Work out which situation you're in

Two questions decide it.

  • Has any money been paid towards this fee? Open the student's fee list and look at what's been paid against it. Even a small part-payment counts.
  • Is it one student, or many? Two or three students can be done one at a time. A whole class, or a fee item across the school, needs the bulk tool.
Check before you start, not halfway through

If a parent pays while you're working, the bulk tool will notice and stop rather than act on out-of-date figures. That's a safety feature, but it means you start again — so do this at a quiet time.

2

Nothing paid, one student: edit or delete the fee

From the student's fee list.

Each fee row has a Delete button. Use it to take a fee off completely. You can also correct the amount if the fee simply has the wrong figure on it.

Both are refused once anything has been paid

CloudNotte will tell you a transaction exists for that fee. This is protecting you: changing an amount underneath a payment would quietly make the receipt you already gave the parent wrong. Move on to Step 3.

A deleted fee does not take the money with it

Because deletion is only allowed on unpaid fees, there is nothing to return. If you find yourself wanting to delete a fee a parent has paid, what you actually want is a reversal or the Remove Fees tool — both of which give the money back.

3

Money already paid, one student: reverse the payment

Puts the money back into their wallet and takes the fee off.

Reversing a fee payment does three things at once:

  • the money paid goes back into that student's wallet balance;
  • the payment records are cleared;
  • the fee itself is removed from their account.
Read that third point again

"Reverse payment" does not mean "undo the payment and leave them still owing". The charge goes too. The student ends up owing nothing for that item and holding the money in their wallet instead.

If you meant "this payment was recorded in error and they still owe", you will need to re-create the fee afterwards.

Reversing asks for your Accounting PIN, and — if your school uses two-factor — the 6-digit code from your own phone, so the record shows who did it.

4

A whole class or term: use Remove Fees

Settings → Accounting → Remove Fees.

This is the tool for "we charged the whole of JSS 1 the wrong tuition". The screen describes itself plainly: it takes fees off students' accounts so you can correct them and give them out again.

a. Narrow down to exactly what you mean

Choose Sessions, Terms and Classes. There is a further Narrow it down (you do not have to) section if you need to pick particular fee items or students.

Always set the session as well as the term

Your school keeps one "First Term" that every session reuses. Choosing a term without a session can reach into years you did not intend.

b. Read the preview carefully

Before anything happens you are shown exactly what will occur:

FigureWhat it tells you
FeesHow many charges will be removed.
Total billedWhat those charges came to.
Already paidHow much families have actually paid towards them.
Back into walletsWhat will be returned to students as credit.
Discount taken backDiscount change previously paid into wallets, which is reclaimed so nobody gets it twice.
Of that, paid by transfer or cardHow much of it came in as real money through CloudNotte, rather than cash at your desk.

There is also a per-student table showing exactly who is affected and how much goes back to each of them. Read it before confirming.

c. Confirm by typing the figures back

The confirmation asks you to type the two figures exactly as they are shown — the number of students and the total already paid. This is deliberate friction on an action that cannot be undone.

If anything changed between your preview and your confirmation — a parent paid in the meantime — CloudNotte stops and asks you to preview again rather than acting on an out-of-date picture.

Some fees are skipped on purpose

Fees tied to a course enrolment, and fees with a payment still being processed, are left alone and reported to you as skipped. That is protecting a paid enrolment or an in-flight payment from being stranded.

If the tab isn't there, or refuses you

Remove Fees has to be switched on for your school by CloudNotte support. It also requires two-factor verification set up on your own phone — the shared Accounting PIN is not enough, because a bulk removal has to be traceable to a named person. The screen offers to take you to the setup if you haven't done it.

5

Correct the price and re-issue

The part people forget — and the one that saves parents paying twice.

Once the wrong fees are off, do these three things in this order:

  1. Fix the class fee. Settings → Accounting → Fee Structure → Class Fees. Correct the amount for the right term and session, and read it back.
  2. Run accounting again for that class and term. The fees are created fresh, at the corrected price. (They were removed, so this time the run will create them.)
  3. Use the wallet balances. Accounting → Summary → the Total Wallet Balance card → choose Everything they owe (oldest bills first) → Process All.
Why step 3 matters so much

The money you refunded is sitting in families' wallets. Step 3 puts it straight onto the corrected bills. Without it, every parent sees a fresh bill and a credit balance, and your phone rings all week. With it, most families see the whole thing settle itself and never need to know anything happened.

Two things that are never affected

It is worth knowing what these tools deliberately leave alone, so you are not looking for changes that aren't coming.

  • Money already paid out to your school. Refunding a student moves money inside your school — it does not claw back a payout already sent to your bank. The preview tells you how much of the money involved has already been settled to you, so you know where you stand.
  • Your school's online balance. That balance records money arriving, not fees being settled. Putting a refund into a student's wallet doesn't change it, and it shouldn't.

Preventing the next one

Three habits that prevent nearly all of this
Read fee amounts back before saving. There is no upper limit anywhere in CloudNotte — a stray nought will be accepted without complaint.
Let the class price the fee. Don't type a fee onto a student by hand when their class already prices that item; a hand-typed amount wins permanently and no later run will correct it.
Run accounting for one class first, check a couple of students, then do the rest.

Common questions

Why can't I just edit the fee to the right amount?
You can, as long as nobody has paid anything towards it. Once any payment has been recorded against a fee, editing and deleting are both refused — because changing an amount underneath a payment would quietly make the receipt you already gave the parent wrong. For fees that have been paid, reverse the payment or use Remove Fees, both of which return the money properly.
Where does money go when a fee is removed?
Into that student's wallet balance at your school. It is not sent back to the parent's bank account and it does not leave your school — it sits as credit against that family's future fees. The school's own balance and any payout already made to you are left untouched, which is deliberate.
If I remove a fee, does the student still owe it?
No. Removing takes the charge off entirely. If you want the student to still owe something, you need to create the fee again at the correct amount — usually by fixing the class fee price and running accounting again.
We corrected a fee and now families have credit sitting in their wallets. What now?
Run accounting to create the corrected fees, then go to Accounting → Summary, click the Total Wallet Balance card, choose Everything they owe (oldest bills first) and click Process All. The credit you refunded is used to settle the new fees automatically, so nobody has to pay twice.
Why does Remove Fees ask me to type numbers back?
Because it is not reversible and it affects many students at once. You're shown exactly how many students and how much money is involved, and asked to type those two figures back. If anything has changed since you looked — a parent paid in the meantime — it stops and asks you to preview again rather than acting on a stale picture.
I can't see the Remove Fees tab.
It has to be switched on for your school by CloudNotte support, and it also needs two-factor verification set up on your own phone — because removing fees in bulk has to be traceable to a named person, which a shared PIN cannot do. If the tab is missing, contact support. If it's there but refuses you, set up Two-Factor Auth first.
A parent paid into the wrong child's account. How do I fix that?
Don't reverse the payment — that would remove the fee it paid. Instead go to Accounting → Summary, click the Total Wallet Balance card, and use the transfer option to move the balance from one student to the other. If the money has already cleared fees on the wrong child, reverse that fee first so the money returns to their wallet, then transfer it.