To prepare fee balances for a move to new software, choose whether to bring opening balances or full payment history, agree a cut-off date, reconcile every student's balance against your bank and M-PESA records, prepare one clean row per student, and check the totals after the import. Getting this right is what makes parents and students trust the new system's statements.
Opening balances or full history?
You have two options:
- Opening balances only. Each current student starts in the new system with one amount: what they owe on the cut-off date. Quick and reliable. Detailed history stays in your old records.
- Full history. You import past invoices and payments too, so statements in the new system go back further. More work, and more chances for mistakes.
Most institutions start with opening balances, and keep the old spreadsheets for reference in case a historical payment is questioned.
Pick a cut-off date
Choose a date, ideally the end of a month or a term, after which every payment is recorded only in the new system. Then:
- Record every payment received up to the cut-off in your current records.
- Export balances as at the cut-off date.
- From the next day, record payments only in the new system.
Payments that arrive during the switch are where balances usually go wrong, so tell your finance team the exact date and time of the change.
Reconcile before you export
Do not migrate a balance you are not sure of. Before exporting:
- Match your M-PESA statement and bank statements against the payments recorded for each student.
- Find payments that were never allocated to a student, and allocate them.
- Confirm discounts, scholarships and waivers have been applied.
- Note students who have overpaid (a credit balance) separately.
Prepare the spreadsheet
Create one row per student who owes money, with:
- Admission number, exactly as it appears on the student's record.
- Amount owed as a plain number, with no currency symbols or commas.
- A short description, such as "Opening balance at 31 Dec 2026".
- Optionally a due date.
Leave out students who owe nothing. Handle credit balances separately with your new system's adjustment or payment tools rather than as negative amounts.
Check after the import
- Compare the total of all imported balances with the total in your spreadsheet. They should match to the shilling.
- Pick ten students at random, including some with large balances, and compare each statement with your records.
- Check that students with no balance show zero.
- Only then switch on payment reminders and the student portal, so nobody receives a wrong balance.
Once live, a reliable payment process keeps balances right. See the M-PESA reconciliation workflow.