Prorating School Fees Digitally
Why digitizing prorates should be a mandatory requirement for any school.
What is prorating?
Generally, prorating is the act of charging someone based on the unit of time instead of a fixed cost. In the world of School Fee Management, prorating happens when a student joins late or attends early for an activity such as courses, extracurricular activities, and other programs. This allows families to pay the fee for only the amount of time where the child attends the program instead of the generally expected amount.
Example #1
If a student paid $100 for course fees but the student leaves halfway in the school year, the student would be refunded the prorated amount of $50. Prorating calculates the fee based on the amount of time an item was used instead of the scheduled price.
Example #2
When a student joins the school at the end of the first term, 1/3 of the year of the school district, the student would be charged for only 2/3 of the fee. If there is a $ 100-course fee, the student would be charged the prorated amount of $66.
Why is prorating important?
Prorating becomes important when a student has used or plans to participate in, something for less time than what is designated. In that case, those students will only want to pay for the portion they use. This is seen in a variety of different applications, shown below.
Examples when prorating occurs
- When a student switches classes mid or late into the semester
- When a student drops a 2nd semester course before the course even begin
- When a student gets injured halfway through the football season
- When a student leaves the district prior to the end of the school year
- When a student quits the marching band mid-season
- When a student participates in only a portion of a field trip
A fee management system with automated prorating features can help schools streamline their prorating processes. Without it, administration staff would be burdened with the task of manually calculating the refunds, discounts, and price increases. This is a cumbersome and tedious process.
There are many benefits of using automated prorating
- Improved Accuracy
Manually prorating can not only be labor-intensive but risks the potential for errors or fraud. Automated prorating ensures students are always assessed the correct fee amount and rules are consistent across all schools in the district.
- Save Staff Time
Save time and hassle by automatically calculating the adjusted fee amount. The system detects when students leave or join groups and seamlessly updates the student account accordingly. If a student joins the school 1/3 of the way through the school year the system can automatically bill 2/3 of the school fees. This occurs without any extra input needed from your administration staff.
Example of RYCOR’s prorating features
What separates RYCOR from the competition?
Unlike competing solutions, with RYCOR, there is no need to manually adjust fees for late arrivals or early departures. You determine how much to charge or refund based on specific date ranges during the school year or the number of days a student is enrolled and then the system will automatically follow these rules. Rules for school fees can be defined by easy to use prorate templates and be standardized on all fees that follow the same prorate rules.