• Getting started with Sematime Finances for the first time

  Sematime Finances is a comprehensive school fees management solution with invoicing, automated reconciliation with your school bank accounts or M-PESA paybill, pocket money collection, send e-receipts & automated fee balance reminders. The quickest way to access Sematime Finances is from the app launcher by clicking on 'My School Apps' as shown below. You can also click this link - https://web.sematime.com/finances. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/Few readers

• The Sematime Finances quick start guide

  You have just finished activating your Sematime Finances account. Good job! Now lets take a look at the top five essential functions you need to master and become a pro user. Exiting demo mode After familiarizing yourself with how the service works, it is now time to start adding your own school data. To do that, click the red 'Exit Demo' button as shown below. The system will promptFew readers

• How to admit or add new students on Sematime Finances

  Whenever new students join your school, you want to capture their records in your Sematime account for the system to include them in exam results analysis or in order to record their class attendance. Go to the 'Students' on the top-bar and then click the 'Admit New Students' button. There are two ways you can students: importing from an Excel file or key-in manually one-by-one. EFew readers

• How to edit student data on Sematime Finances

  You start by searching for the student whose details you want to edit as shown by the red arrow. The 'Student Editor' panel will show allowing you to enter your changes. Make the necessary edits and click 'Save Changes' to finish. Parents - enter the parent details for the student. You can record sevFew readers

• How do I delete a student after transferring to another school

  When a student transfers to another school it is important that you delete them from your current active students records. Deleting a student removes any data(attendance, exam results, discipline incidents, etc) associated with them from your account records. Once deleted it is not possible to recover this data. Start by selecting all the students you want to delete then go to the 'Student Actions' menu and choose 'Delete permanently'. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/webFew readers

• How to use student groups to invoice students for transport fees or other charges

  Student groups are a great way of organizing students in diverse arrangement plans separate from class units. For example, you can create a group for 'day scholars, special diet students, transport routes' etc. This can help when creating invoices for school bus transport, day scholars vs boarders etc. To add students to a group start by searching and selecting all the relevant students then go to 'Student Actions' menu and choose 'Add to group'. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/heFew readers

• How do I update student photos in bulk

  When you admit new students Sematime auto generates student photos for you. However, these photos are only temporary placeholders and are expected to be replace by actual student photos that will appear in official school documents such as result slips, report cards, etc. To get started, prepare a folder containing all the student photos with each photo having the student ID or admission number as the file name. See the image below. Then compress the photos folder into one ZIP file. (https:Few readers

• How do I promote students to the next class

  At the beginning of a new academic year you are expected to move students to a new class. For example, Grade 4 East 2023 now becomes Grade 5 East 2024. Before you get started, please ensure that you have created a new academic year to move the students to. Otherwise, you will get this error. How do I create a new academic year and set term dates (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/e59b9b7a5e03a000/pFew readers

• How to check a student's fee balance and generate their statement of accounts

  A parent has just entered your office and needs you to print for them a 'Statement of Accounts' for their child showing invoices(debits) versus payments(credits) made. How do you do it? The 'Balances' section is where you will find all this information. In additional to student fee balances it contains a summary report of current fee balances in your school. For example, you can check overall fee balance, current term balance, balances per year group, balances per votehead etc. You mayPopular

• How to send fee balances reminders to parents via SMS

  Reminding parents occasionally of their fee balances is a great way to increase school fees collections. Sematime makes it very easy to do so via SMS messages. To get started, go to 'Home' view and select 'Balances' from the menu then go to 'Balances Actions' and choose 'Send Reminders'. Start by specifying the criteria to use to filter student fee balances. For example, you caFew readers

• How correct wrong fee balances by rebuilding the school's fee statements register

  'To err is human' goes the age old adage. While every effort can be made in entering school fees payments correctly and generating invoices accurately we may still have instances of incorrect fee balance records for some students. For such cases, you may want to rebuild the fee statements register. This will force the system to clear all the transactions and fetch them afresh from your payments and invoices. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/e59b9b7a5e03a000/rebuild-stFew readers

• How to add school fees payments by importing from an Excel file

  There are two ways you add payments: importing from an Excel file or adding them manually by keying-in one by one. The Excel file option is the one you'll be using mostly to import payments data from M-PESA paybill and bank statements. To get started, go to 'Home' view and select 'Payments' from the menu then click the '+ New Payments' button. The system will prompt you to upload yourFew readers

• How to add school fees payments manually by keying them in one by one

  The manual payments addition option is ideal for instances where you need to add a few payments, 5-10 maybe. To get started, go to 'Home' view and select 'Payments' from the menu then click the '+ New Payments' button. On the dialog window that follows, select the 'Key-in manually' tab at the top and then proceed to enter the payment details. If you would like Sematime toFew readers

• How to view and print school fees payment receipts

  After receiving payments from parents schools are obligated to issue receipts with a breakdown of how the money was appropriated to settle the various voteheads as initially invoiced. There are a number of ways to print or download receipts. Searching for payment You can search for the payment using the reference number, student name or ID(admission number) as shown on the red box area below. Then click 'View Receipt'. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/e59b9b7aSome readers

• How to edit or delete a payment

  You just realized that one of the payments recently added did not capture the payment reference correctly or the amount indicated is wrong. To get started, search for the payment using the reference number, student name or ID(admission number). Then select the payment and choose 'Edit' from the 'Payments Actions' menu as shown below. Make the necessary adjustments and proceed to 'SaveFew readers

• How to check school fees prepayments and reconcile them with unpaid invoices

  When a parent pays more that the school fees balance for their child, Sematime converts the extra amount into a prepayment that can later be applied to future invoices or even refunded to the parent. If for example a parent owes KES 2,090 but pays KES 5,000 the difference will be recorded in your records as a prepayment. To view your account's prepayments go to the 'Payments' section on the 'Home' view menu and select the 'Prepayments' tab as highlighted below. we have masked stFew readers

• What are bank feeds and how do you reconcile them with unpaid invoices

  In an earlier article, How to add school fees payments by importing from an Excel file, we looked at how to import payments from your bank or M-PESA statements. Suppose we didn't have to manually add these transactions? Suppose it was possible for Sematime to get notified by your bank(or M-PESA) whenever a new payment has been made such that all the system has to do is reconcile the payment, issue a receiptFew readers

• How to undo school fees payments or invoices added erroneously

  'To err is human' goes the age old adage. You may have added some wrong payments to your account which messed up the student balances. Of course, there is the option of deleting the wrong transactions one by one but this may be too laborious and time consuming when you have hundreds of transactions to delete. Sematime keeps a 'History' of all the transactions you add to your account - be it payments or invoices. We provide an option to 'Undo Transactions' in batches making it superFew readers

• How to print or download an invoice

  Students who receive bursaries from well wishers, donors or government agencies may need to present physical copies of the school fees invoices as a pre-condition for receiving the funding. To print an invoice, select the 'Invoices' option from the 'Home' view menu and then open the 'Sent' invoices tab as shown below. Start by searching for the invoice you are interested in using the invoice number, student name or admission number. Once found, click 'View Invoice' to check it oFew readers

• How to edit or delete an invoice

  To get started, select the 'Invoices' option from the 'Home' view menu and then open the 'Sent' invoices tab as shown below. Start by searching for the invoice you are interested in using the invoice number, student name or admission number. Then click select 'Edit' from the 'Invoice Actions'. The invoice editor dialog window will show up allowing you to make all the necessary eFew readers

• How to generating student's fees statement and other reports

  Occasionally you may need to print school fees statements for a student showing invoices(debits) plus payments(credits) and how their fee balances was arrived at. Your school head may also need a weekly report on student fee balances by class, payments made per day etc. To generate these reports, go to 'Home' view and select 'Reports' from the menu then choose the kind of report you want as shown by the red box. We provide options to download or print reports. (https://storage.crispFew readers

• How to view message delivery reports for sent receipts, invoices or fee balance reminders.

  The 'Messages' sections shows delivery reports for all the messages you have sent from your account. For example, when you send fee balance reminders it is important to check who did receive the text message for you to follow up via other means. For starters, Sematime shows you a summary of the insights derived from your message logs: Messages delivery statuses - shows a summary of the stFew readers

• How to create a new academic year and set term dates on Sematime Finances

  Academic year 2023 is coming to an end and you now need to promote students into their 2024 classes. To do that, you need to create a new academic year then have the system automatically create the all the 2024 classes for you. To get started, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'Academic years' section as shown below. Click on the 'New Academic Year' butFew readers

• How do I add new classes, streams or year groups

  You have recently admitted more Form 1 students than you can comfortably fit in your existing classes and now need to add a new stream to host them. To do so, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'Classes' section as shown below. Classrooms - refers to the actual physical rooms where learning actually happens. You can add or remove any classrooms for this lFew readers

• How to change the letterhead and other school details on Sematime Finances

  To get started, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'School account' section as shown below. You can start by changing your school registration info such name, email address, etc or scroll a little further down the page. School letterhead - it is usually inserted at the top of each document or report we generate for you. Kindly adhere to the sizes specifieFew readers

• How to change my Sematime Finances password, profile photo or email address

  To get started, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'Change Password' section as shown below. You will be prompted to enter your old password, then new password and re-enter the new password to confirm you've typed it correctly. 'Save Changes' when done. If you do not know your current password, check out this article for help in creating a new one - How to reset my Sematime account password (/en/article/how-to-reset-my-sematime-account-password-1knyl93/Few readers

• How to renew your Sematime Finances subscription

  To renew your subscription, click on your profile photo and choose 'My Subscription'. In case your subscription has not expired, you will see the number of days remaining plus an option to 'Extend Subscription'. On the final step, you will be take to the payments processing paFew readers

• How to add other users to your Sematime Finances account and assign them rights

  You may want to delegate some tasks such as admitting students and teachers in your school to someone else. Instead of sharing your login details with the delegatee, you want to assign them their own login credentials and restrict their functions as desired. So you add them as a new user. To get started, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'User permissions' section as shown below. Click 'Add New User'. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/websFew readers

• How to add new payment modes, bank accounts or M-pesa paybill numbers

  To get started, go the 'Home' view menu and select 'Settings' then open the 'Payments' section as shown below. Adding a new payment mode Click on the '+New Mode' button and input the name of your payment mode. For example, 'Firewood' then save changes. You can also edit or delete existing payment modes by clicking the relevant buttons as highlighted in green. (httpsSome readers