If you did NOT purchase the SchoolLeader Accounting Package then you can bypass this section that discusses setting up your Accounting Period Events.
By this point, all of your SchoolLeader FrontDesk data has been entered and you are now ready to begin billing for your Accounts Receivable (A/R) items such as tuition, activities, meals, etc, as well as receive payments, post late fees, and deposit your receipts in the bank. You should also already have your A/R accounting periods defined. To learn more about that go to Chapter 3.4 Defining the Fiscal Calendars.
The SchoolLeader accounting system is based on standard accounting principles and practices. SchoolLeader manages your accounting data in Accounting Periods. An accounting period is simply a unit of time that you will define for tracking your A/R, A/P, and G/L. Within SchoolLeader, you can have either weekly, monthly or annual accounting periods. You have the flexibility to define each of these accounting periods within your A/R, A/P, and G/L fiscal calendars separately.
There are numerous benefits of using a period structured accounting system for your childcare business, including :
You will be able to easily analyze your accounting data for a given period, and compare your performance from one period to another.
For multiple site operators, you can compare and analyze accounting data from each individual location for a 'frozen' period of time.
Data in 'closed' accounting periods becomes permanently recorded, so you can have confidence in the stability of your historical data when sharing it with your accountant or a central/headquarters office.
SchoolLeader was designed to provide you with the most flexibility possible when it comes to setting up the accounting operations of your business. Although the basic accounting events (e.g. posting charges, applying late fees, etc.) that occur throughout an accounting period are the same for any business, the timing and the order of those events can vary. These differences may be due to the needs of the business or just personal preference. Regardless, you will want to give some thought to the order and timing of these accounting events and define a plan before you start using SchoolLeader.
The following is a list of the A/R Accounting Functions that should be considered when planning your accounting schedule. Once defined, you will quickly establish an accounting rhythm that will solidify the way you operate your business. You'll need to consider these questions:
When do I want to:
Post Recurring Charges such as tuition
Receive Payments
Post Recurring Activity Fees such as a weekly dance class
Post Late Payment Fees
Reconcile the day's receipts against the deposit batch ticket and send to bank
Close A/R Accounting Period (Bookclose) and begin the next accounting period
Although this sections examples define accounting periods as a "week", all these processes work the same with monthly and yearly periods.
As previously stated, the order and timing of these Accounting Events can vary based on your business needs and preferences, however, the following is a typical schedule for a weekly accounting period:
Once per week you will run the Post Recurring Fee Schedule Charges process. This will post all recurring charges (e.g. tuition) to the primary guardians' accounts.
2) Post recurring activity charges for the week (optional process).
This optional posting allows you to post recurring activity charges such as weekly dance or karate class to the primary guardians' accounts.
3) Receive Payments.
You will need to post payments received for balances due. Payments can always be received even if there are no outstanding charges. SchoolLeader will store the overpayment in a special bucket referred to as Prepayments.
As each payment is entered into SchoolLeader, an entry is being made to the SchoolLeader Deposit Batch Ticket. At the end of the day all receipts (cash, check, etc.) should be collected, totaled, and reconciled against the Deposit Batch printout generated from SchoolLeader. This batch should be taken to the bank for deposit.
Use the FILE, EXPORT function to create your backup to an external drive such as a zip disk. If you are a subscriber of the Kressa Software FTP DataVault Backup Service, verify the status of your backup.
Remember that it is your responsibility to take care of your data. Please take this responsibility seriously. The backup process is described in the Getting Started Chapter Defining Backup Specifications, as well in The Basics Chapter FILE Option.
1) Receive Payments.
You will need to post payments received for balances due. Payments can always be received even if there are no outstanding charges. SchoolLeader will store the overpayment in a special bucket referred to as Prepayments.
As each payment is entered into SchoolLeader, an entry is being made to the SchoolLeader Deposit Batch Ticket. At the end of the day all receipts (cash, check, etc.) should be collected, totaled, and reconciled against the Deposit Batch printout generated from SchoolLeader. This batch should be taken to the bank for deposit.
Use the FILE, EXPORT function to create your backup to an external drive such as a zip disk. If you are a subscriber of the Kressa Software FTP DataVault Backup Service, verify the status of your backup.
The day and timing of this process can vary greatly and will be based on:
When you expect payment in full and
The length of your payment grace period.
Assuming you request payments on Monday morning for the upcoming week AND you allow payment to be made through Tuesday, you would want to run the Late Payment Fee Process at the end of the day on Tuesday or first thing Wednesday morning. Anyone who has an outstanding balance is eligible to be charged a late payment fee.
2) Receive Payments.
You will need to post payments received for balances due. Payments can always be received even if there are no outstanding charges. SchoolLeader will store the overpayment in a special bucket referred to as Prepayments.
As each payment is entered into SchoolLeader, an entry is being made to the SchoolLeader Deposit Batch Ticket. At the end of the day all receipts (cash, check, etc.) should be collected, totaled, and reconciled against the Deposit Batch printout generated from SchoolLeader. This batch should be taken to the bank for deposit.
Use the FILE, EXPORT function to create your backup to an external drive such as a zip disk. If you are a subscriber of the Kressa Software FTP DataVault Backup Service, verify the status of your backup.
1) Receive Payments.
You will need to post payments received for balances due. Payments can always be received even if there are no outstanding charges. SchoolLeader will store the overpayment in a special bucket referred to as Prepayments.
As each payment is entered into SchoolLeader, an entry is being made to the SchoolLeader Deposit Batch Ticket. At the end of the day all receipts (cash, check, etc.) should be collected, totaled, and reconciled against the Deposit Batch printout generated from SchoolLeader. This batch should be taken to the bank for deposit.
Use the FILE, EXPORT function to create your backup to an external drive such as a zip disk. If you are a subscriber of the Kressa Software FTP DataVault Service, verify the status of your backup.
1) Receive Payments.
You will need to post payments received for balances due. Payments can always be received even if there are no outstanding charges. SchoolLeader will store the overpayment in a special bucket referred to as Prepayments.
As each payment is entered into SchoolLeader, an entry is being made to the SchoolLeader Deposit Batch Ticket. At the end of the day all receipts (cash, check, etc.) should be collected, totaled, and reconciled against the Deposit Batch printout generated from SchoolLeader. This batch should be taken to the bank for deposit.
At the close of each period, you should reconcile your daily deposit batches against the Payment Receipt Journal recorded for the entire week. Also, if you have a manual process for tracking money that flowed IN and OUT of your cash drawer, you should include these records in this process to verify that all receipts are accounted for and correctly balance to the Payment Receipt Journal.
4) Close Accounting Period (Bookclose).
This process reconciles all the accounts and closes the current accounting period from receiving anymore activity. Once a period has been closed, SchoolLeader automatically opens up the next accounting period, and your weekly schedule can begin again.
Some schools choose to post their recurring fee schedule charges right after they close their books at the end of the week. After the bookclose process is run, SchoolLeader automatically opens up the new accounting period week for you. Any charges posted will now appear in the new accounting period. Some schools prefer to post charges immediately following bookclose so that their 'books' are ready for Monday morning processing.
Use the FILE, EXPORT function to create your backup to an external drive such as a zip disk. If you are a subscriber of the Kressa Software FTP DataVault Backup Service, verify the status of your backup.
There are some schools who choose to receive payments this week for charges that will be incurred the following week. For example, by Thursday of this week, you expect full payment due for next week's tuition. SchoolLeader allows you to post recurring charges into either:
the current accounting period (current week or month)
the next accounting period (current week or month)
You can post charges into the next accounting period, and based on the rule you defined in Advance Charge Rules (Accounting, Accounts Receivable, A/R Rules, Advance Charge Rules), the balance shown may or may not reflect these advanced charges.
The decision on whether to post to the CURRENT period or NEXT period will be based upon how you lay out your accounting periods and when you want to apply charges and receive payments. Ideally, you should create your accounting schedule to reflect payments received in the same period for which they are charged.
There are situations where that may not be possible. Although SchoolLeader supports this "Split" plan, it puts your payment schedule out-of-sync with your accounting periods. Here's an example of receiving payments this week for upcoming charges next week.
You want your school to receive payments on Thursday or Friday for the upcoming week Tuition charges and,
You need your Fiscal Calendars Accounting Periods to run from Sunday to Saturday because of other requirements (e.g. a corporate HQ, Accountant, etc.) and,
Solution:
Setup your Fiscal calendar so the Accounting Periods will begin on the required days dictated by your accountant or Corporate Headquarters.
On the day before you want to begin receiving payments for the upcoming period, post the recurring charges, but direct them to the NEXT accounting period. Doing so will create advance charges that are booked to the NEXT accounting period, but still provides you with the ability to receive payments for those advance charges in the current period. However, this splits some of the payments and charges across two accounting periods
Example:
Wednesday - You run the Post Recurring Fee Schedule Charges process and direct the charges to the NEXT Accounting Period rather than the CURRENT Period. This will place all charges for next week's tuition services into next week's accounting period.
Thursday - you begin receiving payments from your customer. Although the charges are identified as "future" charges in your subledger, the customer's payment account makes no distinction so it is reflected in their current balance due and the payment process is unaffected.
Friday - Close Accounting Period.