Collecting school fees with mobile money

For many families, paying school fees used to mean taking a day off work, travelling to a bank, queueing and bringing a slip to the school. Mobile money lets a parent pay from anywhere, at any time, in instalments that fit their income. Schools that accept it well usually collect more of their fees, earlier in the term.

But mobile money also creates new problems for the bursar: payments arriving on a personal phone, messages without the learner’s name, parents paying the wrong amount or the wrong number, and hours spent at the end of the term matching payments to learners. The difference between a smooth system and a headache is in how payments are received and recorded.

The most important rule is that money should never land on a staff member’s personal line. Open a merchant account with MTN (MoMo Pay) and with Airtel Money in the school’s registered name, linked to the school’s bank account. This protects staff from suspicion, protects the school from loss, and gives you statements you can audit.

Ask each network about its charges and settlement times. Some charge the payer, some the school, and some share it. Tell parents clearly whether they need to add a charge to the fee amount.

A payment you cannot match to a learner is almost as bad as no payment at all. Give each learner a unique reference that never changes, such as a registration or admission number, and ask parents to use it every time.

• Print the reference on every invoice, report card and fees reminder.
• Prefer a system where the parent starts the payment from a link or a prompt, so the reference is filled in for them.
• Keep parents’ phone numbers up to date, because matching by phone number is the next best thing when a reference is missing.

A parent who pays should receive a receipt within a minute, with the learner’s name, the amount, the new balance and a receipt number. This one message ends most of the phone calls to the bursar’s office.

In a connected school system, the receipt is sent automatically by SMS when the payment is confirmed, the learner’s fees page updates, and the payment appears in the cash book. Cash and bank payments recorded at the fees desk should produce exactly the same receipt, so parents see one consistent record whatever way they paid.

Most unpaid fees are not refusals; they are forgotten or postponed. Short, polite reminders sent at the right moments work better than a long letter at the end of term.

1. 1At the start of term, send each family the term’s invoice and the payment reference.
2. 2Two weeks before the deadline, remind families with a balance, showing the exact amount.
3. 3After the deadline, follow up personally with families who have not paid anything; a call often reveals a problem the school can help with.
4. 4Before exams or reporting day, remind families of the school’s policy on balances, kindly and clearly.

Each week, compare the school’s merchant statements with the payments recorded in the system. With automatic matching this takes minutes: you only look at the few payments that could not be matched, usually because of a missing reference, and assign them to the right learner.

Keep fees money and the school’s spending in the same books. When fee receipts flow straight into the cash book, the bursar’s monthly report and the head teacher’s dashboard always agree, and the auditor’s visit is short.

• Using a staff member’s personal mobile money line for fees.
• Accepting payments without any reference to the learner.
• Typing mobile money payments into Excel by hand at the end of term.
• Sending receipts only on paper, which parents lose.
• Letting fee reminders depend on one busy person remembering to send them.

In IWAT School Solutions, each school connects its own MTN MoMo and Airtel Money merchant accounts. Payments are matched to learners, receipts go out by SMS from the school’s own account, balances update immediately, and the payment lands in the cash book. Bursars can find any payment by learner, parent’s phone, receipt or transaction number, and send reminders to every family with a balance in one step. IWAT never holds school money. You can try it free with your own school.