Guide for the bursar
Change your own name, phone or photo, set fee structures, invoice a cohort or one student, record payments with receipts, send invoices as PDFs, void invoices, follow what is owed and approve payroll - on a computer or a phone.
Who this guide is for
You run the bursary. You set what students are charged, raise their invoices, record the money they pay at the bursary, follow what is still owed, review what staff are paid, and sign off each month's payroll. Human resources builds the payroll; the bursary approves it. That split is deliberate: the office that builds a run is not the one that approves it.
Before you start
Open your institution's portal and sign in with the email address and password your institution gave you. Select Sign In.
You arrive on the Dashboard. On a phone it is the Today tab.
If your institution sent you a link to set your password, open it, enter a New Password and Confirm Password, then select Set Password.
Your pages are under Finance in the menu. On a computer the menu is down the left of the screen. To sign out, open the menu with your initials at the top right and select Sign out.
Use it on your phone
The portal works in your phone's browser, with the same account and pages as on a computer.
Open your institution's portal address in your phone's browser and sign in.
The first time, the portal may offer to install itself: Install app puts it on your home screen, where it opens like any other app. Not now closes the offer. On an iPhone the offer says to tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
The bar along the bottom has four tabs: Today (the Dashboard), Fees, Payments (Payment History) and Structures (Fee Structures), then More.
More opens the whole menu, including Salaries, Payroll Runs and My Payslips, with Appearance (System, Light or Dark), Language (English or Français) and Sign out below it.
The top bar shows your institution's name, the search button and your initials.
On a phone the invoice and payment lists are one card per row, with every column on the card. Select a card to open the invoice. Invoice PDF on a card opens the same choices as on a computer.
Change your own name, phone or photo
On a computer, open the menu with your initials (or your photo) at the top right and select My profile. On a phone, open More and select your name at the top.
Change your First name, Last name or Phone number, and select Save changes. The name and phone number on your staff account change with it, so colleagues and the staff list see the same name.
To add a photo, select Add a photo (or Change photo) and choose a JPEG, PNG or WebP image of up to 3 MB. Remove photo takes it off. If there is no photo button, photo uploads are not set up for your institution.
Your new name and photo show at the top of the page and in More straight away.
Your email address and password are how you sign in, so they are not changed on this page; Email and password says where to change them. If you sign in through the suite, Change password opens the suite's sign-in page, where you set a new one. If you sign in to this portal directly, ask your institution's administrator for a new sign-in link. To change the email address you sign in with, ask your institution's administrator.
Find a student or an invoice
On a computer, select Search at the top of the page, or press Ctrl K. On a phone, tap the magnifying glass in the top bar: the search opens full screen.
Type at least two letters of a student's name or matric number, or an invoice reference.
Results are grouped under Students and Invoices. An invoice shows what is still owing, or Paid. Select one to open it.
Follow outstanding fees
The Dashboard (the Today tab on a phone) shows the institution's Outstanding Fees beside Active Students, Academic Staff and the Registration Rate. Below them are the hostel occupancy, the enrolment and CGPA charts and the list of at-risk students.
Set up fee structures
A fee structure is the price list for a cohort: an academic session and, if you choose, one programme and one level. Invoices are generated from it, one semester at a time.
Open Fee Structures under Finance (the Structures tab on a phone), and select New fee structure.
Enter a Name, such as 200 Level fees, and choose the Session.
Choose a Programme and a Level, or leave them on All programmes and All levels to charge everybody in the session.
Under Fees, enter each fee's name and amount. Select Add a fee for another line. The Total is worked out as you type.
Select Save.
Amounts are in your institution's currency, with its own decimal places: a currency with no smaller unit takes whole amounts only. If the portal cannot tell your institution's currency from its country, the form asks for a three-letter currency code.
Once invoices have been generated from a structure, its fees, session, programme and level are fixed, so that the structure always describes the invoices raised from it. You can still rename it, or select Deactivate to stop offering it. A structure nothing has been invoiced from can be deleted.
Invoice a cohort
Open Fee Structures under Finance, and select Generate invoices on the structure.
Choose the Semester. Only the semesters of the structure's session are offered.
Choose a Due date if the invoices have one.
Before you generate anything, the form says how many invoices will be created, and for how much. It also says how many students in the cohort already have an invoice from this structure for this semester.
Select Generate.
The cohort is every active student of the structure's programme and level. Generating again is safe: nobody who already has an invoice from the structure for that semester is invoiced twice, and a student admitted since the last run is picked up by the next one. A voided invoice still counts, so a student voided off a run is not billed again by repeating it.
Raise an invoice for one student
For a charge that is not on a structure, such as a replacement identity card, or for one student the cohort run did not cover:
Open Fees under Finance (the Fees tab on a phone), and select New invoice.
Find the Student by matric number or name, and choose the Semester.
Choose a Fee structure to charge its fees, or leave it on Ad-hoc (no structure) and enter each fee and its amount.
Choose a Due date if there is one, and select Save.
The invoice opens once it is saved.
Follow invoices
Open Fees under Finance. Every invoice is listed, newest first, with the student, their matric number, the semester, the total, the amount paid, the balance, the due date and the status.
To see one student's invoices, find them under Student (optional) by matric number or name. Choose a Status to see only Unpaid, Part-paid, Overdue, Paid or Voided invoices.
Select a row to open the invoice.
An invoice is Overdue when its due date has passed and money is still owed on it.
Open Students to find a student by matric number or name. Their record's Fees tab lists their invoices.
Record a payment
When a student pays at the bursary, in cash, by bank transfer or on a card terminal:
Open the invoice from Fees, and select Record payment.
Enter the Amount received. It starts at the outstanding balance; change it for a part payment.
Choose How it was paid. For a Bank transfer or a Card terminal (POS) payment, enter the bank's or the terminal's Reference.
Check the Date received, add a Note if you need one, and select Record payment.
The payment is given a receipt number, and the receipt opens. Select Download receipt for the receipt as a PDF, or Print receipt to print it. Every payment on the invoice keeps its receipt: select Receipt beside it to see, download or print it again.
A part payment leaves the invoice Part-paid, with the rest still owed. Record the rest when it is paid.
An amount larger than the balance is refused. Record the balance, and refund the difference.
A reference that has already been recorded is refused, so the same bank slip cannot be entered twice.
Payments a student or parent makes online are recorded by themselves, once the payment provider confirms them. You do not record those.
Send or print an invoice as a PDF
Every invoice is also a PDF with the institution's name, the student's details, each fee, the payments received and the balance, stamped PAID, PART-PAID or UNPAID. Use the buttons at the top of an invoice, or Invoice PDF on its row under Fees:
Download PDF saves the PDF.
Print prints the PDF. On a phone it opens the PDF so you can print it from there.
Share on WhatsApp sends the PDF itself where your device can share files. Otherwise it opens WhatsApp with a short message and a link to the PDF, addressed to the student's guardian when their number is on file with its country code. The link works without signing in for 30 days.
Email sends the PDF as an attachment. The guardian's email on file is filled in, and you can type another address under Send to before you select Send. If your institution has no email set up, it says so and nothing is sent.
If your browser blocks the PDF from opening for printing, the page offers Open PDF: open it and print from there.
Void an invoice
An invoice raised in error, or for a student who no longer owes it, can be voided as long as nothing has been paid on it.
Open the invoice from Fees, and select Void invoice.
Enter the Reason, and select Void invoice.
A voided invoice stays on record with the date and the reason, and is no longer counted as owed. An invoice with money received against it cannot be voided.
Follow payments
Open Payment History under Finance (the Payments tab on a phone) to see every payment recorded, with its date, student, invoice, amount, method, reference, receipt number and status.
Find a student to see only theirs.
Choose a Method to see only cash, bank transfer, card terminal or online payments.
Choose From and To dates to see a period, such as one day's takings.
Select the invoice number on a payment to open the invoice.
Fees paid into students' own accounts
Where your institution takes fees by bank transfer through 9PSB, each student has an account number of their own for fees. It is opened the first time they pay, stays theirs and does not expire. Students and guardians can send any amount, in instalments if they like. Nothing is entered at the bursary:
Money that arrives is recorded once and applied to the student's oldest unpaid invoices first, so one transfer can finish one invoice and part-pay the next.
Each piece shows in Payment History as a 9PSB payment against the invoice it went to.
Money that arrives when nothing is owed waits, and is applied to the next invoice raised.
One-off payments, such as admission fees, still get an account for that payment only.
Student wallets
Where your institution runs 9PSB student wallets, Finance in the menu has Student Wallets. It lists every student's wallet, with frozen wallets first.
Under Show, choose All wallets, Frozen, Active, Being opened or Students who have left. A student who has left has their wallet frozen overnight.
Select a wallet to open it. It shows the Status, the Tier, when it was Opened, the student's own status and why it was frozen.
To freeze a wallet, write why and select Freeze wallet. To reactivate a frozen one, write why and select Reactivate wallet. The reason is kept in the wallet's History. A leaver's wallet that you reactivate stays open: the overnight sweep leaves it.
Pick a From and To date and select Show 9PSB's statement to see the wallet as the bank records it, with the balance after each line.
Review salaries
Open Salaries under Finance. It lists each member of staff with their grade, basic pay, gross and net pay. You can read it; salaries are set by human resources.
Approve a payroll run
Each month's payroll is a run, built by human resources from the salaries standing on the day it is built.
Open Payroll Runs under Finance. Each run shows the month, its status, the number of staff, and the gross, deductions and net totals.
Select Payslips on a run to check every member of staff's basic, gross, deductions and net pay. Select Hide payslips to close the list.
On a draft run, select Approve, then Approve again to confirm.
Say where each member of staff is paid
Salary accounts are set by whoever can change salaries (human resources).
Where your institution is connected to the payments service, salaries can be paid by bank transfer from the institution's own fee collections instead of by hand. Each member of staff needs a salary account first.
Open Salaries under Finance (under More on a phone).
Select Pay to beside the member of staff.
Select Add an account (or Change account). Under Pay into, choose A bank account or Their 9PSB wallet.
For a bank account, choose the Bank. Enter the ten-digit Account number (or the wallet number) and select Check and save.
The bank returns the Name at the bank. Check that it is this person before you rely on it; nobody types the name.
Anyone with neither a wallet nor a salary account is left out of a transfer and must be paid by hand.
Pay a run by transfer
Where your institution is connected to the payments service. Marking a run paid by hand works as before.
Open Payroll Runs under Finance and select Payslips on an approved run.
Below the payslips, the page shows the Settlement balance available for salaries: the institution's fee collections not yet sent to its bank. Select Pay by transfer.
Read the confirmation, which names the net pay and the balance, and confirm. The run is refused, and nothing is paid, if the balance will not cover it.
The result says how many salaries were paid, how many the bank has accepted and not yet settled, and who has no account. Salary transfers lists each one with its state and the bank's Transfer reference.
A Pending salary is money that has left or is leaving: never pay that person again; the list updates by itself. After adding a salary account for someone who was left out, open the run again and select Pay the rest. Nobody already paid or pending is paid twice.
Record a run as paid
Once the money has been paid out:
Open Payroll Runs under Finance.
On an approved run, select Mark paid, then Mark paid again to confirm.
Marking a run paid records that the money has left the account. It does not move any money itself.
See your own payslips
Open My Payslips under Finance (in More on a phone). Each month shows your net pay. Select Breakdown to see the basic pay, each allowance and deduction, and the gross and net.
Language and appearance
Language: on a computer, select EN or FR at the top of the page. On a phone, open More and choose English or Français. Not every page is translated yet, so some text stays in English.
Appearance: the portal follows your device's light or dark setting. On a computer, the sun or moon button at the top switches it. On a phone, open More and choose System, Light or Dark.
Tips and common questions
Why can I not change a fee on a structure? Invoices have been generated from it. Create a new structure for the new amounts, and deactivate the old one.
Why can I not void an invoice? Money has been received against it.
A student paid more than they owe. What do I record? The balance. The portal does not hold credit, so the difference is refunded.
Why can I not build a run? Building runs belongs to human resources. The bursary approves them.
Why can I not change a salary? Salaries are set by human resources, in Salaries.
Where are Salaries and Payroll Runs on my phone? Under More, in the Finance group.
Getting help
For help with the portal, contact your institution's administrators. The portal has no support chat or ticket desk of its own.
Try it yourself on the demonstration institution.
Try it yourself in the live demo.