JoomSchool - Manage Payments

JoomSchool's payment system records every fee a school charges, every payment it receives, and ties both to the student, the academic year and the billing month. This article covers the three building blocks (Pay Methods, Pay Types, Payments), the recording workflow, the bundled payment plugins (PayPal and Offline) and the most common reconciliation pitfalls.

Overview

Three concepts work together:

• Pay Method — the channel through which a payment is made (Cash, Cheque, Card, PayPal, Bank Transfer). The default install seeds three: Check, Cash and Card.
• Pay Type — a fee category with a default amount (Tuition, Lab, Activity, Transport, Library). Each pay type is associated with a numeric fee.
• Payment — a single transaction tied to a student, a class/section, a roll, a billing month and year, one or more pay types and a method. This is the row that appears on a parent's invoice list.

In addition, JoomSchool ships with two payment plugins that handle online flows: the bundled Offline plugin (records that the student will pay in person) and the PayPal plugin (sends the payer through the PayPal gateway and updates the payment status when it returns).

Prerequisites

• Students exist with class, section and roll number assigned.
• The currency is configured in Components → JoomSchool → Options → Payment (currency code, sign, decimals, position).
• The default payment method in the same options screen is set if you want a default to apply to new invoices.

Pay Methods

Components → JoomSchool → Pay Methods lists every channel available. The default install seeds Check, Cash and Card.

Adding or editing a pay method

1. Click New (or click an existing row to edit).
2. Fill in Name — the label parents see (e.g. "Bank Transfer"). This is a required text field.
3. Set Status to Published.
4. Click Save & Close.

Tying a pay method to an online plugin

For online channels, the pay method's name should match the plugin's element identifier (e.g. paypal). When an invoice's pay method matches an enabled plugin, the frontend payment view shows a Pay Now button that sends the user through that plugin's gateway flow.

Manual methods (Cash, Cheque) have no plugin — they are recorded by the admin after the parent pays in person.

Pay Types

Components → JoomSchool → Pay Types lists every fee category. Adding a comprehensive list at setup makes invoice entry much quicker — you pick from a dropdown instead of typing fees by hand.

Adding a pay type

1. Click New.
2. Fill in:

1. Click Save & Close.

You can have as many pay types as you need. Schools commonly create separate types for tuition, transport, lab, activity, library, ID card replacement, and any one-off fees.

Recording a payment

Go to Components → JoomSchool → Payments and click New. The form has two tabs.

Student Academic tab

Payment Info tab

Click Save & Close. The new payment appears in the Payments list and on the student's frontend invoice list immediately.

Status values explained

Partial payments and arrears

If a parent pays only part of an invoice, fill in Paid Amount with what was paid and Due Amount with the balance, and set Status to Pending. Open the same invoice next month, increase Paid Amount with the new payment, decrease Due Amount correspondingly, and update the status. When Due Amount reaches 0 and Paid Amount equals Total Bill, switch to Paid.

The accounting reports (Components → JoomSchool → Accounting) sum these amounts month by month so you can see at a glance how much of each month's billing was actually collected.

Receipts and invoice PDFs

Each row in the Payments list view has two buttons:

• PDF — downloads a printable PDF of the invoice using the layout configured in Components → JoomSchool → Options → Header / Footer / PDF.
• Invoice — opens a printable web view.

Both render the school's logo, name, address (depending on the Options settings) and the line-by-line breakdown of pay types, total, paid and due.

The bundled Offline payment plugin

Installed at plugins/joomschool_payment/offline/. Enable it under System → Manage → Plugins.

The Offline plugin is a placeholder for "the parent will pay in person". When the parent clicks Pay Now on an invoice that uses the Offline method, JoomSchool shows a confirmation page reminding them to settle the bill at the school office. No gateway is involved.

The bundled PayPal payment plugin

Installed at plugins/joomschool_payment/paypal/. Enable it under System → Manage → Plugins → PayPal - JoomSchool Payment Plugin. The plugin's Options screen has the following settings:

Basic fieldset

Style fieldset

Switching to live

When you're ready to take real payments, set Sandbox = No, save the plugin and run a small test transaction with a real card. PayPal credits the test amount to your business account; refund it after verifying.

Refunds and corrections

JoomSchool does not have a dedicated refund flow. The recommended way to handle refunds is:

1. Open the original payment record.
2. Set its Status to Cancel.
3. Add a comment with the refund reference and date.
4. If the parent later re-pays, create a fresh payment record rather than re-opening the cancelled one — accounting reports rely on records being immutable once cancelled.

Tips & Best Practices

• Define every Pay Type at setup. Typing free-form fee names on each invoice creates inconsistency in the accounting reports.
• Use a clear naming convention ("Tuition – Class 6", "Lab fee – Class 9") if fees vary by class. The accounting reports group by Pay Type name.
• Keep Cash, Cheque and Card as separate Pay Methods, even though the underlying transaction logic is similar — this is how income reports break down by channel.
• Run the PayPal plugin in Sandbox mode while training office staff. The full flow looks identical to live so the training transfers.
• Reconcile monthly, not annually. Each month, run Components → JoomSchool → Accounting → Income Month and compare the total against bank deposits.

Troubleshooting