Overview
Fee heads allow you to classify different components of a student’s total payable amount, such as tuition, transport, late penalties, or processing surcharges, into clear, manageable categories. This ensures better reporting, more accurate reconciliation, and easier fee configuration across various payment channels like workflows, Recurring Payments, etc.
Beyond just labels, they drive how fees are calculated, charged, and routed across gateways and bank accounts. Institutions can define rules for applying late fees, automate surcharge calculations, and align each component with specific bank accounts for precise financial tracking.
How to Navigate?
- Go to the Menu.
- Navigate to Fee Setup.
- Click on Manage Fee Head.
Collexo supports three primary types of fee heads:
- Base Fee Head: For standard charges like tuition or hostel fees.
- Surcharge Fee Head: For percentage-based or fixed charges applied over base fees.
- Late Fee Head: For penalizing delayed payments.
Let's delve into each of these fee heads to understand their functionalities and configurations:
Base Fee Head
- The Base Fee Head is designed for collecting various base fees such as tuition fees, development fees, mess fees, admission fees, and more.
- When adding a Base Fee Head, you need to specify the name of the fee head along with its status.
- Make sure that the “Is this a surcharge type fee head?” toggle is disabled in order to prevent it from becoming a Surcharge Fee Head.
- Collexo offers pre-existing base fee heads commonly used by institutes, which can be enabled or disabled using the status toggle.
Surcharge Fee Head
- The Surcharge Fee Head is designed to collect surcharges associated with other fee heads.
- You must ensure that the "Is this a surcharge type fee head?" toggle is enabled when creating a Surcharge Fee Head.
- Subsequently, users need to fill in specific fields, including:
- Fee Head Name: Enter a clear name for the surcharge fee head (e.g., Convenience Fee, Processing Fee). This helps in identifying the purpose of the surcharge during configuration.
-
Fee Borne By: Choose who will bear the surcharge: Student or Institute.
- If set to Student, the surcharge is added on top of the base fee-heads to the student’s payable amount.
Example: If a student is paying ₹1,000 and a 2% (₹20) convenience fee (surcharge) is applied, the total amount payable becomes ₹1,020.
- If set to Institute, the institute bears the surcharge cost, and it is not passed on to the student.
Example: If the student is paying a total fee of ₹1,000 and a 2% (₹20) processing fee (surcharge) is applied, the student still pays ₹1,000, but the institute will receive ₹980 after the deduction.
- Amount Type: Choose one amongst Fixed / Percentage, specifying whether the surcharge is a fixed amount or a percentage value.
- Amount Value: Enter the fixed amount/percentage value, depending on the selection of the Amount Type field by the user.
Additionally, while configuring the workflow, you can define whether a surcharge should be levied and how it should be applied either on the base amount or on the final payable amount. The Paying Surcharge is applicable only for online transactions and is not charged for offline modes such as cash or demand draft (DD) payments. Another type of surcharge, known as Surcharge on Surcharge, allows you to apply an additional surcharge (such as GST) on top of an existing surcharge, like a processing fee. You can also choose whether surcharges should apply to late fee heads or to another surcharge, and this can be managed through the Fee Connect configuration settings.
Late Fee Head
The Late Fee Head is designed to collect late fees based on predefined logic. Some predefined fee heads are already available by default, such as Late Fee (Daily), Late Fee (Monthly), and Late Fee (One-Time), each determining how and when late charges are applied.
To create a Late Fee Head, users need to fill in the following fields:
- Fee Head Name: Specify the name of the late fee head.
- Custom Frequency: Set how often the late fee should be applied, this could be every few days, weeks, or months (e.g., every 30 days). This allows you to control the recurrence of late charges.
- Status: Toggle to enable or disable the late fee head.
- One enabled you can set up a late fee from the fee connect. To know more, you can refer to this article.
Users can map different bank accounts (added in Collexo) to individual fee heads, giving institutions the flexibility to route collected payments to specific accounts based on the type of fee. When you click on “Map Bank Account”, a dropdown appears showing all available bank accounts grouped with their associated PGs. If a fees includes multiple fee heads and those fee heads have been mapped to bank accounts that are associated with the payment gateway used in the Fee Connect is configured with a payment gateway, and fee heads are mapped to different bank accounts, then the system will automatically split and route the collected amount to the respective accounts based on these mappings.
For example:
If a student is required to pay a total of ₹30,000, which includes:
- ₹25,000 for “Hostel Fees” mapped to Bank Account A
- ₹5,000 for “Transport Fees” mapped to Bank Account B
When the student pays ₹30,000, Collexo will:
- Transfer ₹25,000 to Bank Account A
- Transfer ₹5,000 to Bank Account B
This ensures that every portion of the fee goes directly to the correct account, based on how the fee heads have been mapped.
Conclusion
Fee heads in Collexo do more than just label charges, they define how fees are structured, applied, and routed. By configuring base, surcharge, and late fee heads thoughtfully, you can gain full control over how fees are collected, reported, and reconciled. Collexo ensures that every rupee collected reaches its correct destination while keeping the fee experience clear and streamlined for both applicants and administrators.