The Guardian Folder is used to add, modify, delete and manage all important information about your guardians. Every guardian in your school will has their own folder regardless of whether they are a parent, primary guardian, grandparent, friend, authorized to pick up, or an emergency contact.
This Guardian Folder and Student Folder link together to create your families. If you have already entered your Guardian information when creating relationships from the Student Folder, then you may only need to access the Guardian Folder to make updates and to add some secondary information not available when creating relationships (e.g. photos).
To access the Guardian Folder, click on Families, then Edit Guardian Folder, or click on the Guardian Icon on the main toolbar.
Regardless of how many relationships a guardian has with students in your school, each guardian is entered into SchoolLeader only once. In other words, each Guardian has one and only one folder. Within each folder you define the "relationship" rules to other Students (and their folders). It is the relationship rules that time the various guardians and students together and ultimately define the "family". You never need to enter duplicate information in SchoolLeader.
One of the basic accounting concepts in SchoolLeader is that every student will be assigned one, and only one, Primary Guardian. The primary guardian is the person identified as being financially responsible for the student's charges. Although the student may incur the charges, the primary guardian is responsible for the bill. For this reason, even if a mom and dad are happily married, you need to identify one of the parents as the primary guardian. The primary guardian does not have to be a parent; the primary guardian can be any adult who is financially responsible for the student's account. Normally, the person who signed up the student and/or filled out the necessary paperwork is made to be the Primary Guardian.
The primary guardian's account information is located on their Payment Account Tab and is only accessible for posting when you are viewing a Primary Guardian's folder. In addition to the Guardian Folder, you can view the same Primary Guardian account information from the associated Student Folder. It is important to realize that this is an alternative view of the same account. Making changes from the Students folder is the same as making the changes from the Primary Guardian's folder. They are the same account and SchoolLeader offers you the access alternative as a mere convenience.
The address of the primary guardian becomes the mailing address of the student. Students are not directly associated with addresses or contact numbers. All contact information for a student is from the Guardian folders.
There are no limits to the number of moms, dads, step-parents, grandparents, and secondary guardians for that student. The only restriction -- as mentioned above -- is the need for one and only one primary guardian.
Siblings can be assigned to different primary guardians. The Last Name of the student does not have to be the Last Name of the Primary Guardian. This can be useful if two students come from a divorced family and one parent pays for the bills one student. You can also use the Third Party Sponsor feature to help you manage divorce situations.
As discussed in the chapter Introduction to FrontDesk Manager, the Guardian Folder contains the same look and feel as all other SchoolLeader folders. When you first bring up the Guardian Folder, it will automatically display the COVER information for all Active Guardians. If you need to display information about a non-active guardian, then simply click on the down arrow next to 'active guardians', and select the category of guardians you'd like to display. SchoolLeader refers to this as a folder filter, and is used to minimize the amount of data that is to be displayed in the 'VIEW GUARDIAN list'.
The folder filters for the Guardian Folder are:
All Guardians - every guardian entered into SchoolLeader will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Active Guardians - guardians of attending students will be displayed under 'View Guardian'. This list includes both primary and non-primary active guardians.
Active Primary Guardians - guardians financially responsible for students' charges will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Active Non-Primary Guardians - guardians of attending students that are not designated as the Primary Guardian will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Disenrolled Guardians - guardians whose students no longer attend the school will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Waiting Guardians - guardians of students on the enrollment waiting list will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Prospective Guardians - guardians of students who have expressed an interest in your school, but have not yet enrolled their child will be displayed under 'View Guardian'.
Prestart
Primary Guardians - guardians who is associated with students that
have a Start Date defined which is in the future. This
is typical if you enroll and schedule a student to start after a summer
break, etc.
Once you select the filter, then click on the down arrow next to View Guardian, and the appropriate names will be displayed. Remember that you can also begin typing in the guardian's last name, and SchoolLeader will locate that guardian for you.
Like all SchoolLeader folders, the Guardian Folder organizes and displays data within 'tabs' accessible from the bottom of the Guardian Folder. By clicking on a tab, you will gain access to specific information for the selected guardian. The Guardian Folder tabs are:
The <<COVER>> tab is the primary tab for the Guardian Folder. From the COVER, you can Add and Delete guardians, as well as display the primary information about each guardian such as name, SSN, and Family Group information. The COVER also displays various guardian Status/Alert icons along the bottom to provide you with a quick visual overview of the guardians' current status. Since these icons reflect the status of data in the guardian folder, the icons cannot be modified here, nor can you click on them to gain access to that particular area of data. Use the folder tabs to change the data displayed in these status/alert icons.
Four Guardian Alert lights provide a quick visual to some important conditions related to each guardian in your school. These conditions and their status are:
A/R Ledger
Green - The guardian's
account is paid in full or has a credit balance.
Red - There is an outstanding balance
(money owed) in the guardian's payment account.
Relations
Green - This guardian
is associated with at least one student.
Red - This guardian does not have any students associated with them.
This is
either an error, or this guardian should not be in SchoolLeader, and therefore
can be deleted.
Contact Info
Green - Contact
information is complete for this guardian.
Red - Contact information is not complete for this guardian.
CACFP Eligible
Green - Based
on your defined meal program rules, this guardian is eligible to have
their associated student(s) participate in the Food Program.
Red - Based on your defined meal program rules, this guardian is
NOT eligible to have their associated student(s) participate in the Food
Program.
To add a new guardian, click on the NEW GUARDIAN button. SchoolLeader will position a blinking cursor to the Guardian's last name and you can begin entering data
To modify an existing guardian's information, simply select the guardian from VIEW GUARDIAN. Type over the information you want changed, then click on SAVE. For example, if you realized you mis-typed the Guardian's last name:
select the guardian from the 'View Guardian' window .
correct the misspelled name in the 'Last Name' field.
Click on SAVE and then the newly typed name will now be displayed in 'View Guardian'.
To delete a guardian, select the guardian's name, and click on the DELETE key. You will be prompted to confirm the deletion. You cannot undo this action so be certain of your decision before you press OK.
You CANNOT delete a guardian that has accounting information associated with them. This is necessary to ensure the integrity and completeness of your accounting data. At the end of your fiscal year, you can archive your data. This archive process allows you to purge accounting data and delete obsolete guardians at the same time. To learn more about archiving, see the section titled Maintaining Database Archives in the DB-Support chapter
Click on the Family Setup Wizard button to display the window that allows you to quickly build basic Guardian Folders and Student Relations without using the Guardian Folder directly. Refer to the Family Setup Wizard section for details on this window.
Click on the Family Quickview button to display the Family Quickview window. The Family Quickview gives a summarized view of each family, including students, emergency contacts, contact info and account balances. Refer to the Family Quickview section for details on this window.
If you know the Guardian's ID Number you can quickly position to their folder by pressing this button. A box will be displayed where you can type in the Guardian ID number.
Enter the full name of guardian. This name that will be displayed in all reports and internally when referencing guardians. SchoolLeader will automatically capitalize the first letter of the last name and first name.
Try to avoid using special characters like hyphens and accent marks. It can make it more difficult to 'type search' for the name in the future.
Identifies the assigned unique ID number for this student. Student ID's are assigned automatically by SchoolLeader but can be changed by pressing the CHANGE button to the right of the field. Normally, the ID number is irrelevant to your operations. However, if you have other systems (e.g. Payroll System, etc.) which also have assigned ID number, then synchronizing the value across the different systems can sometimes have value.
Gender is for informational purposes only and displays on many reports. You must make a choose
Marital Status is for informational purposes only. You can choose <<Unknown>> if it is not needed.
SSN is for informational purposes only. It can be left blank if not needed
Driver License Number is for informational purposes only. It can be left blank if not needed
Select the Family Group representing this guardian. Your Family Groups should have already been defined. Family Groups are used to track revenue for each defined group and help segment data in some reports..
For primary guardian's only, enter their monthly household income. This is informational only and is used for the USDA Food Program. The field is grayed out for non primary-guardians.
For primary guardian's only, enter the household member count This is informational only and is used for the USDA Food Program. The field is grayed out for non primary-guardians.
This tab enables you to define the relationships between students and their guardians. There is an identical tab with these same functions in the Student Folder. In this Guardian Folder Relations tab, you define the relationship between this Guardian and all of the students this person is permitted to pickup, a primary guardian, or an emergency contact. This can include family members as well as students associated with other families (e.g. friends, neighbors, etc). When creating relationships between students and guardians, keep these concepts in mind;
In SchoolLeader, a family is simply a collection of students and guardians linked together by relationships. There are no limits to the number of guardians a student can have. This includes an unlimited number of parents, step-parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, neighbors, etc.
The student name does not have to match any of the guardian names, or vice versa.
Each student will have one and only one Primary Guardian. The primary guardian is the person financially responsible for the student's account. A primary guardian can be any adult financially responsible for the students charges, and does not have to be a parent or step-parent. Even if a mom and dad appear happily married, you must choose one of the guardians to be the primary guardian.
Each student and guardian actually have their own folder, so their information is entered once into the system. For example; a guardian (e.g. parent) of one child can also be an emergency contact for another families child. The guardian is entered once when creating their folder, and then that folder is linked to the two students
A guardian's information can be added, modified and deleted directly from this Guardian Folder, the Student Folder's Relations Tab, or with the Family Setup Wizard. In this section, we will discuss entering guardian information from the Guardian Folder.
During initial setup you will need to enter the student information for each guardian as well. The student and guardian information is actually kept separate and linked by the information you define here on the relations tab. Creating your student folders should be done before the Guardian Folders or at the same time. You can jump to the Student Folder from this location by simply pressing the View Student button on the right hand side of the grid. Details on how to enter Student information directly into the Student folders is discussed in this same chapter under the section titled Student Folder.
Regardless of which method you use, once the Students are created, you can assign the relationships between the various guardians and students using the buttons on this tab.
Click on the ADD/MODIFY button to add or modify the relationship between the student and guardian. You can also double click on the student's name to review or modify the relationship. Either way, the following window will be displayed:
This dropdown displays a list of students you can select for this new relationship with the guardian. NOTE: The student must already exist for the name to be displayed in this window.
This dropdown displays the different relationship types you can assign. Relationship types can be defined by you during setup of SchoolLeader. To learn more about this go to the "Initial Configuration Options" chapter and select the section titled Relationship Types.
These checkboxes define the attributes of the relationship. Each one provides different rights.
Primary Guardian -- is a special designation. Only one guardian can be the primary for any particular student. The "primary" guardian is considered the financially responsible guardian. They are given a payment account and will receive any bills associated with the students enrollment at your school.
Permitted to Pickup -- causes this guardian to display on the CheckPoint station for signin and signout. Without this being checked, the guardian will not be able to login at CheckPoint.
Legal Guardian -- designates this user as someone who has a right to see and access all documentation on file for this student. Also, guardians with this designation will be able to see account balance information on CheckPoint Station.
Emergency Contact -- causes this guardian to display on Emergency Contact reports for callout.
To remove a student relationship, click on the student's name, and then click on REMOVE. This does not remove the student from SchoolLeader, just the relationship between this guardian and the student.
If you want to jump directly to a student's folder, you can click once on the student's name and then click on VIEW STUDENT in the lower right hand corner of the relations tab.
Sometimes you will need to change the Primary Guardian for a student. It is a simple process but can be confusing if you've never done it before. Here are some simple steps;
If the guardian you wish to make the new primary does not already exist in SchoolLeader, enter the new guardian's information directly from this Guardian Folder now, otherwise go to step 2
From the Relations tab of this "new" guardians Guardian Folder, click on ADD/MODIFY button and define the relationship between the Student and this Guardian. Do NOT define this new guardian as the primary guardian yet, simply select all of the other relationship information, such as Parent, authorized to pick up, emergency contact. if you try to make them the primary now, SchoolLeader will tell you there is already a primary assigned and then stop you from going further.
Go to the Current / Old Primary Guardian's folder, move to the Relations Tab, and double click on the name of the student you wish to switch. The relationship window will display. Uncheck the primary guardian box and save the change. SchoolLeader will automatically prompt you to select the NEW primary guardian from the list of other guardians already related to this student. Select the new primary guardian's name from the list (created in step 1), then click on OK to complete the process.
SchoolLeader will automatically move any balances form the old primary guardian's account to the new primary guardian's account, during the book close process. You do not need to create new opening balances. Keep in mind that the HISTORY from the old primary guardian will stay with that guardian. There is no way to make it appear as if the new primary guardian has been paying the bills all along.
The Contact Info Tab has two sub-tabs (Phone Numbers & Addresses) and is used to add and maintain telephone numbers, work and home addresses, and email contact information for the selected guardian. The amount of contact information needed for each guardian is at your discretion. You can fill in only those fields you find necessary. However, it is recommended that contact information for the primary guardian be as complete as possible.
You do not assign contact or address information directly to a student. The contact information of the primary guardian becomes the contact information for the related student(s) on certain reports.
Please note: Although you can send an email to any guardian directly from the selected guardian folder, you must already have an email account configured on the PC before sending the email. SchoolLeader is not an email service.
For multiple guardians living at the same address (e.g. a mom and dad), you can use the COPY ADDRESS button to copy the address and telephone numbers from a guardian already entered into SchoolLeader.
Once you have completed entering the address information, click on the SAVE button along the top portion of this window.
SchoolLeader has an integrated electronic banking service provided by a partnership with national electronic processors. With this integrated service, you can process credit and debit cards, as well as ACH/EFT and electronic checks. All this is done conveniently from within SchoolLeader to vastly simplify your Accounts Receivable processes.
These features also allow you to take advantage of automatic recurring billing. If you want to take advantage of such time saving features, the first thing you must do is record and store the electronic account information on this Electronic Banking tab. You can setup recurring billing for Credit, Debit, and ACH processing.
To setup for Credit and Debit cards, you must at least define the Account type, Account Number, Expiration Date, and Account Holder name. The Security CVD code and Billing address are optional, however, providing this information can help reduce processing costs for you.
To setup for ACH/EFT processing you must define three fields. The Account type, Account Number, and Routing Number. If the customer wishes to use their checking account (and has a blank check handy), you can use the check scanner to read the "MICR" line at the bottom of the check and automatically populate these fields for you. To do this, simply insert a check in the scanner and press the "Scan for Acct Info" button. If you do not have a scanner, you can read the numbers off the check yourself and enter them in the fields.
To make it easier to distinguish the different numbers on the checks scan line, simply remember that the Routing number is always a 9 digit value. The other larger number would be the Account Number. You might also see the check# encoded on the line.
Once the account information is entered, press the VERIFY & STORE button to validate the information and activate the auto billing process. The Account Number will be blanked out except the last 4 digits. There is no way to view this number again after pressing VERIFY.
If you want to store the information but NOT activate the auto bill process, simply uncheck the ENABLE AUTOMATIC ELECTRONIC BANKING checkbox in the upper left corner. The account will not be auto billed each accounting period, but, the account info will be available for manual billings.
To learn more about how to post manual electronic payments, see the section titled Posting a Payment, and also the section titled Electronic Banking Manager.
The Family Fees Tab serves two purposes:
to add, remove or modify fees at a primary guardian (or family) level.
to review fees for all of the students associated with this primary guardian.
Although student related fees can be collectively reviewed from the Primary Guardians folder, they cannot be modified from here. To make changes to student fees you would go to the Fees tab of the Student Folder. These Fee tabs found in both the Student and Guardian folders work together to allow you to build your complete recurring charge definitions for the family.
Fees associated with the Primary Guardian are less common then fees for the Student. Most of your "tuition" type charges should be defined in the Student Folder. Fees associated with the Guardian are usually charges (or discounts) common to the whole family regardless of the number of students attending.
In this folder shown above, the primary guardian has 5 fees associated with her account:
one fee (actually a discount) was applied to her folder because she has multiple students attending the school. This is a family discount so the user decided to place it in the Primary Guardians Folder. However, it would have worked just as well if they placed a 10% discounts into each of the Student's folders. The advantage of placing it here is that you do not need to add the second entry and do not need to remember to add a third if another student started attending.
the other 4 fees are associated with her related students. They are visible here along with the family total, but cannot be changed from this window.
The total at the bottom reflects all the charges (and discounts) related to this primary guardian. This is how much will be posted to Janet's account when the Recurring Fee process is run.
To ADD a fee for this primary guardian, click on ADD/MODIFY. To MODIFY a fee, first click on the fee, and then click on ADD/MODIFY. You can also just double click on any existing fee to modify it.
This APPLY RECURRING FEE window allows you to assign any recurring fee/discount that you have already defined in SchoolLeader in the Recurring Fee/Discount Schedule.
Click on the down arrow next to Fee Schedule Assignment and select the fee for this primary guardian. If you choose a discount, the discount will be applied to the entire account balance and not to just one specific student.
Effective Period: there is no start date or end date for this fee defined in the recurring fee schedule. This means that this rate remains valid for this family until it is deleted or manually changed. If you had created a fee in the Recurring Fee Schedule with an Effective Start Date and End Date, those dates would be displayed here.
Fee Amount: this is a flat fee amount of $95.00. If this was a percentage based fee or discount, the flat fee amount would be zero, and the % fee would be filled in with the value from your recurring fee table. A fee is either dollar based or percentage based, but a fee cannot be both.
Highlighted in RED, use the Override Fee section to override the displayed fee. If you want to use the displayed fee amount, then ignore this section.
The override fees is particularly useful for setting promotional fees that have an expiration date. For example, if the regular recurring fee for infant tuition is $200/week, and you are offering a 4 week promotion and charging only $190/week for the first 4 weeks, then type in $190 in the override fee, with an expiration date 4 weeks in the future. SchoolLeader will charge $190/week until the expiration date passes, and then will automatically charge the $200/week from that point forward.
Do not use the Override Fee for recurring discounts, such as a 10% discount on sibling tuition. Instead, first add a fee to the student folder representing the full amount of the tuition, then add a second entry representing the discount amount to be taken off of the full tuition.
If you place the discount in the Student Folder than that discount only applies to that student. If you put the discount in the Guardian Folder, then the discount applies to all charges eligible for discounts.
The % Eligible box should be checked if you want this fee to be eligible for percentage based discounts. For example, if your weekly Infant Tuition fee is $200, and you offer a 10% Family Tuition Discount on this fee, then check the % eligible box for the Infant Tuition. If you do not want this particular fee to be eligible for discounts, then 'uncheck' this box.
This optional notes section allows you to type in any comments about this fee.
Click on OK when done with this recurring fee/discount.
This set of four check boxes are located along the top of the Family Fees tab. They allow you to temporarily suppress four different types of automatic postings. These indicators are set for a specific Guardian folder and can be checked or unchecked at any time.
This is particularly useful if you have agreed to not charge a guardian for a particular fee, but don't want to keep a written reminder. By checking any one of these boxes, SchoolLeader will bypass the specific charge for that period.
The 4 types of fees that can be temporarily suppressed are:
Recurring Fees
Attendance Fees
Late Payment Fees
Activity Fees
To REMOVE a fee for this primary guardian, click on the guardian fee, and then click on REMOVE. This will not remove any previously posted charges to this account. It will eliminate this charge from being posted in the future.
To view and/or modify the Recurring Fee/Discount table, simply click on the View Fee Table button. This window displays all fees/discount you defined in SchoolLeader. Any changes made to this table will be reflected throughout the system.
The payment account tab allows you to review and modify the A/R accounting activity associated with the primary guardian directly from the Guardian Folder. Although the fees are usually associated with the student, the primary guardian is the person financially responsible for the charges (the guardian pays the bill, not the student). When you view the payment account tab in the Guardian Folder, the displayed information is actually the A/R activity for all students associated with primary guardian. In other words, all the students which this Guardian is designated as the "Primary Guardian".
You can also view this payment account tab directly from the Student Folder Payment Account Tab.
A payment or charge posted to the guardian's payment account tab will immediately be reflected in the payment account tab of:
the Student Folder for all students who are associated with this primary guardian
the primary guardian (accessible from the Guardian Folder)
The Guardian Folder Payment Account Tab has the same look and feel as the payment account tab found in the Student Folder, and the Third Party Sponsor Folder.
The Payment Account tab lists all charges, credits and payments associated with the selected primary guardian and accounting period. If there were multiple students billed for this primary guardian, you would see all their charges as well with a total due for the entire family. In other words, this is not details for only this guardian or one particular student..
The Payment Account tab can be broken into 4 sections for ease of discussion:
Accounting action buttons along the top third of the window allow you to post manual transactions, change the view of activity displayed, and navigate through different accounting periods.
Each button's function is discussed in detail later in this chapter.
Accounting Period navigation buttons appear below the action buttons:
When you first click on the Payment Account Tab, you will be brought to the current accounting period data for all Primary Guardians. In this example, data is displayed for accounting period 3 in 2006, which starts 1/15/2006 and ends 1/21/2006.
To the left of the accounting period dates
are the accounting period control buttons. These
buttons allow you to scroll through accounting periods, either backwards
or forwards. The
circle button always brings you to the current accounting period.
The left arrow with the line brings you to the first
SchoolLeader accounting period for the current
fiscal year. Clicking twice on the left arrow with the line brings
you to the first accounting period defined in your fiscal calendar.
The right arrow with the line brings you to the last
SchoolLeader accounting period for the current
fiscal year. Clicking twice on the right arrow with the line brings
you to the last accounting period defined in your fiscal calendar.
The left arrow without the line moves backwards through closed accounting
period.
The right arrow without the line moves forward to the next (future) accounting
period
The "SET MAX PAYMENT AMT" checkbox allows you to set a "not to exceed" amount to bill in any given period. This can be useful if customers are setup on a budget and will be paying a given amount regardless of the current higher balance.
Accounting Data for the selected accounting period:
Accounting transactions are displayed for the selected accounting period in activity date order. You can double click on any transaction to see more details regarding that transaction.
Only transactions posted in the currently open accounting period (or the next period) can be modified and deleted. This restriction ensures integrity of your data. Transactions posted in prior periods cannot be changed but you can offset their effect by posting adjustments in the current period.
Accounting Period Totals and Account Totals are displayed towards the bottom of the window:
The breakdown of these totals is as follows:
Current Available - Pre-Payments: This is the total amount of pre-payment dollars currently available for this sponsor. A pre-payment occurs when a sponsor pays more than what is due. Any pre-payments represented here are a result of over payments made in prior accounting periods, or the current accounting period. This amount can be refunded or moved to a security deposit account.
Current Available - Escrow: This is the dollar amount currently available in escrow or as a security deposit.
Display Period Balances - Bal Fwd: The Balance Forward total represents any balances that been brought forward from prior accounting periods. In other words, this sponsor has outstanding charges or credits. The details of the balance forward transactions can be found above in the accounting data.
Display Period Balances - Charges: The total of all new charges for the selected accounting period are displayed here. If you scroll through accounting periods, this number will change based on the charges posted for that selected accounting period. This is particularly useful for guardians who want to know what their charges were in a prior period (e.g. 3 weeks ago).
Display Period Balances - Credits: The total of all payments and credits for the selected accounting period are displayed here. If you scroll through accounting periods, this number will change based on the credits and payment posted for that selected accounting period. This is particularly useful for guardians who want to know what their credits were in a prior period (e.g. 3 weeks ago).
Display Period Balances - Balance: The balance due for the selected period. This will be a sum of the Balance Forward, Period Charges and Period Credits/Payments.
Current Period - Advance Charges: Advance charges are displayed for the next accounting period. Some schools post their next accounting period charges while the current period is still open. The way that SchoolLeader handles the payments for advanced charges is discussed in detail in Setting Up Accounting Rules Advance Charge Rules.
Current Period - Current Balance: The current balance including past, present and advance charges/credits.
Current Period - Amount Due: The amount that is due by the sponsor after all things are considered..
The features and functions on this tab are primarily identical to the Payment Account Tab on the Guardian Folder, and the Student Folder.
These buttons allow you to post manual transactions against the sponsor's accounting data. Manual transactions can only be posted in the CURRENT or NEXT accounting period.
Posting a manual transaction is a very common accounting function. Since you are restricted from deleting or modifying transactions from closed accounting periods, SchoolLeader allows you to post manual transactions to correct a sponsor's accounting information. Manual transactions are often used for prorating tuition amounts, applying one time discounts, and for correcting human accounting errors.
A credit is NOT a payment. If you need to post a payment, then click on the PAYMENT button.
To learn more about posting a transaction, go to the Posting a Manual A/R Transaction section
SchoolLeader always accepts payments, whether or not there are charges posted to an account. However, payments can only be posted to the current accounting period.
To learn more about posting a payment, go to the Receiving a Payment section in the Accounts Receivable chapter.
The modify button is displays the same Post Transaction window as the Posting button. However, this button is used to modify an existing transaction highlighted in the grid. Note: Double clicking on a transaction also accomplishes the same thing. It allows you to modify the transaction. You cannot modify transactions in closed accounting periods.
To learn more about posting a transaction, go to the Posting a Manual A/R Transaction section
The REMOVE button allows authorized personnel to VOID or DELETE a selected transaction. The difference between a VOID and a DELETE is that a void leaves an audit trail in the sponsor's account, whereby a delete completely removes the transaction without an audit trail in the folder. SchoolLeader can still create an audit trail for transaction deletions if you have 'turned on' the event monitoring options discussed in the DB-Support section Event Monitoring Options.
To void a transaction in the current or next accounting period:
click on the transaction
click on VOID
you may receive a message that your security clearance allows deletion...do you want to delete this transaction. Click on YES to delete, or NO to void.
The refund button is used to refund any pre-payment or credit balance that exist in the account. A pre-payment is an overpayment of money that SchoolLeader will keep aside to offset future charges. A Pre-payment or credit must exist for the refund button to be activated.
To issue a refund, click on the REFUND button. The current credit balance amount will be displayed as the refund amount. Change the amount if necessary and click on OK to issue the refund. Press Cancel to exit and abort the refund. SchoolLeader does not create the refund check, but it does update your A/R subledger noting that the refund was given.
The escrow button is used to move money from pre-payment dollars to the escrow account. It is very unlikely that a third party will have a security deposit associated with the account. If you do have such a need, refer to the Student Folder Payment Account Tab for details on how to use the escrow function. The escrow functionality works the same way in the third party sponsor folder as it does in the student folder, and the guardian folder.
To define an escrow balance:
click on the PAYMENT button and enter the amount of the security deposit. Ideally, this should be completed before any charges are posted. Since the payment is made without any corresponding charges, the payment will be a 'prepayment', and will be displayed along the bottom of the window. If charges have already been posted, ensure that there is a payment to offset those charges before posting the payment for the Security Deposit.
now that a prepayment is defined, click on the ESCROW button
The prepayment amount is displayed in 'Current Available Prepayment Funds'.
In the field 'Prepayment Funds Moving', type in the amount of the prepayment that represents the security deposit. In this example, you would type in $120.00.
Click on 'TO ESCROW'.
Click on OK.
The Security Deposit is now represented along the bottom of the Payment Account Tab as an Escrow Amount. It is not considered part of the guardian's current balance. The Security Deposit will be printed on the guardian's statement for informational purposes only.
To apply the security deposit to the guardian's outstanding account balance:
click on the ESCROW button
the amount of the Security Deposit is represented in 'Current Escrowed Funds'
in the field 'Escrow Funds Moving' type in the amount you want applied to the guardian's balance
Click on 'TO PREPAY'
Click on OK.
SchoolLeader has now moved the dollar amount from the Escrow account to the Prepay account, which now allows this money to be used towards outstanding charges, or refunded back to the guardian.
At times, a sponsor's account may become delinquent and you have determined that you will not be able to collect the outstanding balance. You have the option to write-off the outstanding balance.
To do so, click on the WRITE OFF button, and you will receive a prompt to write off the existing balance. Click YES to write off the balance, click NO to cancel the write off.
The payment register is a centralized location of handling all of the sponsor's payments. Once a payment is received in SchoolLeader, that payment becomes accessible not only from the payment account tab, but also from the Payment Register.
The Payment Register is also accessible by clicking on the notebook icon on the top tool bar, or by clicking on Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Payment Maintenance, A/R Payment Register from the FrontDesk toolbar.
To learn more about the Payment Register, go to the A/R Payment Register section
The STATEMENT button allows to print the primary guardian account statement for the current accounting period, a previous accounting period, or as a running statement across several accounting periods.
To print a current period statement, ensure you are in the current accounting period, and then click on the Statement button.
To print a prior period statement, or a running statement across multiple accounting periods, use the accounting period 'back' arrow to position yourself to the requested accounting period. When you click on the Statement button, you will receive a prompt asking if you want to print the displayed period, or a running statement from the displayed period to the current period. Answer the prompt as needed for your situation.
FrontDesk Manager is Scanner/Camera ready and can be used to capture and organize photographic images . To use this feature all you need to do is connect any standard TWAIN compliant image capture device. In addition to capturing photographs, FrontDesk Manager also comes integrated with our optional SafePASS biometric identification system.
The left hand section of this tab is dedicated to configuring the SafePASS options. SafePASS can be used to control access to your premises and control who can sign students in and out at the CheckPoint Station. If student fingers are registered here on the Student Folder, they can then enter the premises and sign themselves in and out without the need for a guardian. This can be extremely useful for day camps and programs with older children.
Allow Access to Premises with SafePASS (CheckBox) - Select this box if you want a registered finger to be recognized by SafePASS. Unchecking this box can be useful if you want to temporarily suspend access without deleting their registered finger image.
Register Finger - Press this button to register a new finger template (or replace an existing one) . The following capture window will display. You must have a SafePASS Series 2600 scanner attached to this PC for this window to display. When the window displays, instruct the person to place their finger on the scanner glass, press firmly, and hold still. Once the image appears satisfactory to you, press the CAPTURE FINGER SCAN button and ask the person to remove their finger.
The finger image will now be displayed in the image display window of their folder (as shown above) and they can now use that same finger to gain access to the premises or access CheckPoint Station.
Erase Finger (Button) - Press this button if you want to permanently erase a stored finger template from your database.
SafePASS Access Rules (Grid) - This grid will display all the currently installed and configured door scanners (Series 3000 devices). The default access rules will display and unique rules for this particular person can be defined. This can be useful if you don't want this particular person to have access for all hours of your business day.
To learn more about controlling and configuring SafePASS for perimeter door access, go to the chapter titled SafePASS
To capture and manage images, double click anywhere in the white space of the Photo ID box. The Image Editor box will display. This window allows you to:
capture new images from an image device
load existing bitmaps, jpegs, etc from disk
To capture an image once the Image Editor window is opened:
select SCAN from the FILE menu to scan in the image. Once captured, you can save the image back to the Student Folder by simply closing the window OR you can manipulate the image first with the various image modification features found off the IMAGE menu.
select OPEN from the FILE menu to choose an already existing image. Select the location of the image file, then click on OPEN. The image is automatically saved when you close this window.
Click on the CLEAR IMAGE button if you want to delete the currently displayed image and return the window to a blank screen.
This tab allows you to add, review, and maintain notes about an individual Guardian. Each note is summarized on a single line in the grid shown above. It displays:
the Date the note was originally posted
the Userid of the person who posted it
Double clicking on the note will open the Note modification window so you can see the entire contents of the note and make changes if necessary.
This button displays a window which allows you to type a note with no limits on the total length of the text.
Pressing the Add / Modify button with a note already highlighted in the grid will cause this window to redisplay that original note. Otherwise, the window will assume you want to enter a new note and display a blank window.
Only the original creator of the note can modify its contents
This button will permanently delete the highlighted note from the database .
Only the original creator of the note can delete the note.
This button will allow you to print one or more notes for this Guardian. Printing notes can be useful if you need to collaborate with others over the comments stored here or you want to create a printed copy for a reminder to be left on your desk, etc.