First and foremost, thank you for creating such a comprehensive tool and making it open source.
As a first time user, I am finding it a bit difficult to get a hang of the finances. I couldn’t find any documentation on the subject at https://docs.gibbonedu.org/ and couldn’t find anything relevant in the forums either. I have mostly stumbled across questions from users who have obviously managed to set up billing schedules, managing categories and invoices etc. But there’s little out there for someone like me who is setting up this module for the first time.
Any pointers and guidance in this area would be immensely appreciated.
Hi akhan85, thanks for your kind words, and your willingness to persist in the face of lacking documentation (sadly, we just don’t have the needed volunteers in these posts…yet!).
In short, Finance is split into two areas a) billing and b) expenses. It sounds like you are interested in billing, so:
For Billing you’ll want to first visit Manage Invoicees, which will make sure that there is a valid invoicee record for each student in school, set with default records. You can then use Manage Billing Schedule and Manage Fee Categories to set up the parameters for creating invoices. Manage Fees is then optional if you want to have a set menu of fees: if not you can add ad hoc fees when creating an invoice. Finally, head to Manage Invoices to create invoices for one or more students within a billing cycle, or manually set a due date. The advantage of using billing cycles, is that additions can easily made, in bulk, to invoices within a billing cycle, allowing you to build invoices over time. Once invoices are ready, Issue them in bulk or individually. Once issued, they are fixed and can no longer be edited. As payments come in, mark invoices as paid.
Hopefully this gives an overview: reply with any questions that arise. Good luck!