School fee collection app: invoice parents and collect payment online

Send tuition invoices straight to a parent's phone, let them pay online, and see at a glance which families have paid and who still owes.

Who it's for

For a private school with a preschool, grade school and junior high, run by the owner-directress with a registrar, a cashier and the class advisers. The problem bites on payment deadline week. A line forms at the cashier window, parents message the Viber group asking for their balance, and three advisers are each holding a different list of who has settled.

The problem today

The cashier keeps the ledger and a spreadsheet that only she understands. Invoices are printed and sent home in the student's bag, so half of them never reach the parent. Parents pay by GCash or bank transfer and send a screenshot to whoever is online, and the cashier hunts through chat threads to match the proof to the right student. When the owner asks who still owes for this month, nobody can answer the same day. Some families are not reminded at all until exam week, and by then the balance is big enough that they ask for an extension.

What the app does, screen by screen

1. Parent sign-in and statement of account — The parent signs in on their phone and sees each child, the fees billed for the term, what has been paid and the balance left.
2. Pay now — The parent pays the whole amount or part of it online, and gets a receipt right away instead of sending a screenshot to anyone.
3. Fees and invoices — The owner or registrar sets the tuition and other school fees for each level, then sends invoices to every family in that level at once.
4. Cashier desk — The cashier records cash and over-the-counter payments against the right student so the parent's balance updates the same way an online payment does.
5. Who owes what — The owner sees collections for the period and a list of families with an unpaid balance, by level and by how long it has been outstanding.
6. Reminders — The registrar sends a polite reminder to the families still unpaid, with the child's name and the balance already filled in.

Who uses it and what it keeps track of

• Families and students — Student name, level and section, school year, parent or guardian name, mobile number, email, and which children belong to the same family. The parent sees only their own children. Advisers see their section. The owner and registrar see everyone.
• Fee plans — Tuition and other school fees per level, how it is split across the year, due dates, discounts for siblings or scholars, and whether the fee is required for the term. Set by the owner, visible to the registrar and cashier.
• Invoices — Which student, which fees, the amount due, the due date, amount paid so far, remaining balance and whether it is settled, part-paid or overdue. The parent sees their own, staff see all.
• Payments received — Date, amount, how it was paid, who recorded it, which invoice it was applied to, and the receipt sent to the parent. Visible to cashier and owner.
• Reminders sent — Which family, which balance, when the reminder went out and who sent it, so nobody is reminded twice in one day and nobody is forgotten.

What it changes for the business

Invoices reach the parent instead of staying in a school bag. Parents can check their own balance any time, so the cashier stops answering the same question all day and the Viber group stops being a payment desk. Payments land matched to the right student, with no screenshots to chase. Reminders go out on time and politely, so balances are settled while they are still small. The owner can see collections for the month without waiting for the cashier to finish the ledger. Fewer families reach exam week owing a whole term.

The one decision that matters

The decision that matters is whether a parent can pay only the exact amount due, or any amount they can manage toward the balance. Exact-amount only keeps the books tidy and every invoice is clean once settled. But many families here pay what they have on payday, then the rest later. If the app refuses a partial payment, those parents go back to GCash and screenshots and you are back to manual matching. Allow partial payments. Keep the running balance per invoice, show the parent what is left, and let the cashier apply any payment, cash or online, to the oldest unpaid fee first. The books stay tidy because the app does the arithmetic, not the cashier.

What to build first, and what can wait

Start with the student list, the fee plan per level, invoices sent to the parent's phone, online payment, the cashier recording cash, the owner's view of who owes what, and reminders. That is the whole painful job. Promissory notes, exam permits and clearance, scholarship approvals, grades and enrolment forms can wait. Add them after one payment deadline has passed cleanly, so the first version is judged on collection alone.

How BooDoo builds it

You describe the school, the fees per level and who should see what, in plain words, and BooDoo builds it. It builds the database and sign-in behind it, with parents, cashier, registrar and owner each landing on their own screens. The same request gives a website on its own live address and an Android app you can publish to Google Play under the school's account, with the school domain connected. Online payment comes in through a ready integration. When the fees change next school year, you describe the change.

How you'll know it works

On the deadline, most payments are already in before the cashier window even opens, and when a parent asks for their balance in the chat group the registrar just tells them to open the app. The owner can answer who owes what for this month from their phone, without calling the cashier.

Build it

Paste this in and it gets built.

I run a private school with preschool, grade school and junior high. I want an app where I set the tuition and other fees for each level and the due dates, then send invoices to the parents for each student so they get it on their phone instead of in the child's bag. A parent signs in, sees each of their children, the fees billed, what they have paid and the balance left, and can pay online in full or part of it and get a receipt. My cashier records cash payments on the same screen so the balance updates too. I want a view that shows me collections for the month and which families still owe, by level and how overdue, and a way to send a polite reminder to those families with the child's name and the balance already in it. Parents should only ever see their own children.