Giving Students Their Fees | CloudNotte Guides

What "running accounting" actually does

Setting up your fee structure only tells CloudNotte what things cost. It doesn't put anything on a student's account. Running accounting is the separate step that does — it looks at your fee setup for a term and creates the actual bills.

In one run, CloudNotte:

gives every student the required class fees for their class and the term you picked;
gives students their student tag fees, if they belong to a tag that has fees for that term;
applies any discounts attached to those tags.

The one thing to understand before anything else

Running accounting only adds fees a student doesn't already have. It never changes, re-prices or removes a fee that is already on their account — whichever way that fee got there.

So it is completely safe to run twice. And it is completely useless for correcting a mistake. Nearly every confusing thing about accounting comes back to this one rule.

Finish your fee setup first

The run uses whatever is set up at the moment you press the button.

Nothing is re-checked later, so anything missing now simply won't be charged. Go through this before you start:

Class fees are priced for the exact term and session you're about to run.

Those class fees are switched on, and marked Required (Optional fees are deliberately skipped).

Student tags have the right students in them, and their fees are set for this term.

Any tag discounts you want applied are set up and active for this term.

You have NOT yet added discounts for individual students — those come after the run.

Why individual discounts wait

A discount given to a single student is applied immediately, to the fees that student already has. If they have no fees yet, there is nothing for it to attach to. You'll notice the Add discount button on a student's profile is greyed out when they have no fees at all — that's the same rule showing up on screen.

Open Run Accounting and choose the term

Settings → Accounting → Run Accounting. This is Step 1 of 3 on that screen.

The screen asks "Which term do you want to run accounting for" and notes that accounting will be computed for the selected term in the current session. Pick the term from Select term.

Check the term, every time

Your school keeps one "First Term" that every session reuses. The session is taken from whichever session your school is currently in, so if your school has not yet been moved into the new session, you will be charging fees against the old one. Confirm your current session is correct before running.

Choose who it is for

Step 2 of 3 — 'Who do you want to run accounting for'.

You have three options:

Choose	Use it when
`A specific class`	Start of term, class by class — the safest way, because you can check each class before moving to the next.
`Selected students`	A student who joined mid-term, or a few who were missed. Search for them by name.
Neither — leave both empty	The whole school in one go. Fastest, but check one class first.

You can only use one of these at a time. Picking a class and students together will be refused.

Read the checklist and run it

Step 3 of 3 — 'Review before you run accounting'.

CloudNotte shows a short checklist reminding you to confirm class fees, discounts and tag fees are correct for this term and session. Then click Run accounting.

A confirmation appears asking you to agree — including that this process is final and cannot be undone. Click I AGREE, CONTINUE and enter your Accounting PIN.

What 'cannot be undone' really means

It means the run itself can't be rolled back with a single button. It does not mean a mistake is permanent — fees can be removed and re-issued, and money already paid goes back into the student's wallet. That's covered in our guide on fixing fee mistakes. But it is a great deal more work than checking the term first.

Check it actually finished

Scroll down to 'Accounting Computations History'.

This is the step most people skip, and it's the important one. The message that appears when you press the button only means CloudNotte accepted the request. The work happens in the background afterwards, and on a large school it can take several minutes.

The history table below the form shows every run, with:

Status — processing, completed or failed.
Term & Session — confirm this is the period you meant.
Reason — if it failed, this says why.
Run By and Date — who ran it and when.

Don't announce fees until it says completed

A run can fail quietly. If you tell parents their bills are ready while the status still says processing — or worse, failed — you'll spend the next day fielding calls. Refresh the history and wait for completed.

Using CloudNotte on your phone?

The simplified mobile view shows a success screen as soon as the run is accepted, and it doesn't show the history table. To confirm a run really finished, check Run Accounting on the full version.

If the run didn't do what you expected

Work down this list in order — it's roughly how often each turns out to be the cause.

Check	What you're looking for
1. Do the students already have that fee?	Open a student's fees. If a charge for that item is already there — even one typed in by hand, even for a different amount — the run left it alone. This is the answer most of the time.
2. Did the run finish?	`Accounting Computations History` — status and reason.
3. Right term and session?	The history row shows both. A term on its own is not enough — every session reuses the same term names.
4. Are the class fees switched on?	A disabled class fee is never charged.
5. Are they marked Optional?	Optional fees are skipped by design. Give them out from the student's profile with `Assign Optional Fee`.
6. Are the students archived?	Archived students are never given new fees.
7. Are they in a class?	A student who hasn't been placed in a class yet is skipped silently, because a class fee needs a class.

The expensive version of check 1

If somebody typed a fee onto a student's account by hand before accounting ran — say a Tuition charge with a nought too many — that hand-typed amount wins permanently. The run sees "this student already has Tuition" and moves on, every time, forever. Worse, because part-payments go to the oldest unpaid bill, every naira that parent pays can disappear into a bill that can never be cleared.

CloudNotte now blocks you from typing in a fee by hand when the student's class already prices it, and tells you to run accounting instead. If you have older accounts with wild balances, this is very likely what happened — see our guide on fixing fee mistakes.

Common questions

I ran accounting and nothing happened. Why?: Work through the checks above in order. The most common cause by far is the last one people think of: those students already have a fee for that item, so the run left it exactly as it was. Before that, confirm the run reached completed in the history table and that you chose the right term.
I changed a fee amount and re-ran accounting, but the old amount is still there.: That is expected, and it catches a lot of schools out. Running accounting only ever adds fees a student doesn't already have — it never re-prices one they do have. To correct an amount already charged, the fees have to be removed and the run repeated. See our guide on fixing fee mistakes.
Can I run accounting twice by mistake and charge students double?: No. The run checks whether each student already has a charge for each fee item and skips them if they do. Running it twice for the same term is safe and simply does nothing the second time. What it will not do is correct anything already there.
Should I set up discounts before or after I run accounting?: It depends on the type. A discount attached to a student tag is picked up by the run itself, so set those up first. A discount you give to one individual student is applied at the moment you create it, and only to fees that already exist — so for those, run accounting first, then add the discount. Added too early, it will not attach to anything.
The success message appeared straight away. Is it really finished?: No. Accounting runs in the background and on a large school can take several minutes. The message only confirms the request was accepted. The only way to know it finished is the Accounting Computations History table, which shows completed, processing or failed, with a reason if it failed.
Why were some students skipped?: A student is skipped if they are archived, if they haven't been put into a class yet, or if they already have a fee for that item. Archived students keep any fees they already had but are never given new ones — that's how leavers stop accumulating bills.
Can I run it for one class and one student at the same time?: No. You choose either a class, or selected students — not both. If you need both, run it twice.

Choose

Use it when

A specific class

Start of term, class by class — the safest way, because you can check each class before moving to the next.

Selected students

A student who joined mid-term, or a few who were missed. Search for them by name.

Neither — leave both empty

The whole school in one go. Fastest, but check one class first.

If the run didn't do what you expected

Work down this list in order — it's roughly how often each turns out to be the cause.

Check	What you're looking for
1. Do the students already have that fee?	Open a student's fees. If a charge for that item is already there — even one typed in by hand, even for a different amount — the run left it alone. This is the answer most of the time.
2. Did the run finish?	`Accounting Computations History` — status and reason.
3. Right term and session?	The history row shows both. A term on its own is not enough — every session reuses the same term names.
4. Are the class fees switched on?	A disabled class fee is never charged.
5. Are they marked Optional?	Optional fees are skipped by design. Give them out from the student's profile with `Assign Optional Fee`.
6. Are the students archived?	Archived students are never given new fees.
7. Are they in a class?	A student who hasn't been placed in a class yet is skipped silently, because a class fee needs a class.

The expensive version of check 1

Common questions

I ran accounting and nothing happened. Why?

Work through the checks above in order. The most common cause by far is the last one people think of: those students already have a fee for that item, so the run left it exactly as it was. Before that, confirm the run reached completed in the history table and that you chose the right term.

I changed a fee amount and re-ran accounting, but the old amount is still there.

That is expected, and it catches a lot of schools out. Running accounting only ever adds fees a student doesn't already have — it never re-prices one they do have. To correct an amount already charged, the fees have to be removed and the run repeated. See our guide on fixing fee mistakes.

Can I run accounting twice by mistake and charge students double?

No. The run checks whether each student already has a charge for each fee item and skips them if they do. Running it twice for the same term is safe and simply does nothing the second time. What it will not do is correct anything already there.

Should I set up discounts before or after I run accounting?

It depends on the type. A discount attached to a student tag is picked up by the run itself, so set those up first. A discount you give to one individual student is applied at the moment you create it, and only to fees that already exist — so for those, run accounting first, then add the discount. Added too early, it will not attach to anything.

The success message appeared straight away. Is it really finished?

No. Accounting runs in the background and on a large school can take several minutes. The message only confirms the request was accepted. The only way to know it finished is the Accounting Computations History table, which shows completed, processing or failed, with a reason if it failed.

Why were some students skipped?

A student is skipped if they are archived, if they haven't been put into a class yet, or if they already have a fee for that item. Archived students keep any fees they already had but are never given new ones — that's how leavers stop accumulating bills.

Can I run it for one class and one student at the same time?

No. You choose either a class, or selected students — not both. If you need both, run it twice.