School fee voucher format: what to print on it and how to issue it

The fields every voucher needs

Print these on every copy. If a field is missing, someone in the office will end up answering a phone call about it.

• School name, campus, address and a phone number that someone answers.
• A unique voucher number. Never reuse one, even for a cancelled voucher.
• Student name, father's or guardian's name, class and section, and admission number. Two students called Ali Raza in Class 5 is normal.
• The fee month or period the voucher covers.
• Issue date and due date.
• Each fee head on its own line: tuition, exam, transport, and anything else charged that month.
• Arrears from earlier months, as a separate line.
• The amount payable by the due date, and the amount payable after it.
• Bank name, branch and account number if parents pay at a bank, with space for the bank stamp.

Show arrears and fines as their own lines

A parent who sees one total they cannot trace will question all of it. If last month was Rs 3,000 short, print "Arrears (August): Rs 3,000" above this month's tuition instead of folding it into the total. The figures in this guide are only examples.

State the late fine as a fixed rule, such as Rs 200 after the 10th, and print both totals. Then the bank or the counter charges the right figure without calling the office, and nobody can say they were not told.

Discounts and concessions

Print a sibling discount, a staff-child concession or a scholarship as a minus line under the fee it reduces. Printing only the reduced tuition hides the discount from the parent and from whoever audits the fee register next year. It also makes the discount hard to withdraw later, because nobody remembers it was one.

Three copies, and why

A bank challan in Pakistan is normally printed three times on one sheet: a bank copy, a school copy and a parent copy. The bank keeps its copy. The school copy comes back stamped and is what the office marks as paid. The parent keeps the third as proof. If parents pay cash at the school counter, you need one voucher and a printed receipt instead.

Getting the voucher to the parent

Vouchers sent home in the school diary get lost, and a lost voucher becomes a late payment. Sending a PDF of the voucher to the guardian's WhatsApp number works better, because the parent can take it to the bank on a phone. For families without WhatsApp, a short SMS with the amount and the last date does the same job.