Family balances and the ledger

Why this exists

When balances are kept by editing figures, nobody can say later why a family owes what they owe, and corrections cause disputes. For finance staff and admins, every charge, payment and credit is a line on the family's ledger, and mistakes are corrected with a new line rather than an edit. You and the family see the same history, so a question about a balance has a clear answer.

Each family has one ledger: a list of every charge, payment, credit and refund. Balances are worked out from it every time, so they cannot drift.

Before you start

You need the billing.edit permission. The page is Finance > Family balances.

See a family's balance

1. Open Billing.
2. Search by family name, or filter to families that owe money or are in credit.
3. Each row shows the net balance and any unpaid invoices.

How lines get there

• Marking the roll charges the lesson. Un-marking it withdraws the charge, and marking again charges afresh.
• A group lesson charges each family its own share.
• Payments, refunds, pack sales and top-ups each add a line.
• The weekly invoice run puts the lines not yet invoiced onto an invoice.

Correcting a mistake

Nothing on the ledger is ever edited or deleted. If a line was wrong, a new line cancels it, and both stay visible. The family sees the same thing on their statement: a line cancelling the mistake, not the original disappearing.

Good to know

• A prepaid account's two pots (money the family paid in, and bonus credit for resources) are never added together.
• A charge records the billing settings in force when the lesson happened, so you can always answer "why was I charged this".
• If a charge cannot be posted when a roll is marked, the mark still saves and the roll tells you why.
• Withdrawing a charge that an invoice already shows needs the invoices.edit permission.

Related

• Recording a manual adjustment
• Sending invoices and recording payments
• Credit notes and voiding an invoice