Month-End School Fee Reconciliation Checklist for Bursars
By PayDesk · Updated
What should a bursar check at month end for school fees?
Prove three numbers agree: what the system says was collected, what the M-Pesa Paybill statement shows, and what reached the bank. Then clear unmatched payments, review overdue invoices and any waivers, and give the principal a one-page summary of billed, collected and outstanding.
Step 1: tie collections to the statements
- Total the month's completed payments in the system.
- Compare the total with the Paybill statement for the same dates.
- Investigate any difference by transaction code, not by amount.
- Confirm the settled amount against the bank statement.
Step 2: clear the loose ends
- Work through the Payment Operations page: unreconciled M-Pesa payments, orphan callbacks, amount mismatches, payments pending review and failed STK pushes.
- Allocate every unreconciled payment through reconciliation.
- Resolve payments that referenced an invoice already paid or cancelled. PayDesk does not apply those automatically, and lists them as unreconciled with the reason.
- Check payments reversed this month. Their receipts are invalidated automatically.
Step 3: review reductions and arrears
- List waivers and bursaries approved this month with approvers and reasons.
- List overdue invoices by age and the follow-up status of the largest.
Step 4: the principal's one-pager
- Billed this term to date.
- Collected this month and term to date.
- Outstanding and how much of it is overdue.
- Waivers granted and total unmatched amount still open.
Frequently asked questions
- Why would the system total differ from the Paybill statement?
- The usual causes are unreconciled payments not yet allocated, payments that referenced an already-paid or cancelled invoice (which PayDesk lists as unreconciled rather than applying), payments recorded on different dates around the cut-off, or reversals. Compare by transaction code to find the exact lines.
- How often should a school reconcile?
- Review unmatched payments weekly, and do the full tie-out monthly, with an extra check at the end of each term.
See it work with your own Paybill
PayDesk matches M-Pesa payments to invoices automatically. Book a short demo and we will show it on a sample school.