LEARN · Student Information

How to record a student's permanent and correspondence address in Inkwelly

For school office staff and class teachers handling boarding students, joint-family households, or parents working abroad — anyone whose home address differs from the address that should receive school post. By the end you will have two clean address records on the student profile, one marked Primary, ready for report cards, board correspondence, and the eventual Transfer Certificate.

To record a student's permanent and correspondence address in Inkwelly, open the student profile, switch to the Addresses tab, and add the permanent address first. Then click Add address again and choose Correspondence as the type — Inkwelly keeps them as two separate entries, and there is no 'same as permanent' shortcut. The whole flow takes under a minute and works for boarding students, joint-family households, and children whose parents work abroad.

Indian schools post a surprising amount of physical paper every year — over 78% of CBSE-affiliated schools still mail at least one printed report card or board notice per student per session (Inkwelly customer survey, n=412, 2025). When the family's legal home address differs from the address the postman should actually find — a boarding student whose parents live in Dubai, a class-9 child living with the maternal grandparents while parents work in Bangalore, a joint-family household where post goes to the eldest uncle — one address is not enough. Inkwelly keeps Permanent and Correspondence as two separate entries on the same profile so the school's print queue, the Transfer Certificate, and the parent app each pick the right one.

Step 1

1. Open the student profile and the Addresses tab

Open Inkwelly → Students. Search by admission number, name, or roll number, then click that name to open the profile. In the section navigation along the side, click Addresses. If no address has ever been added for this student, the empty state reads No address added with the helper line Add a permanent and current address for communication. Click the Add address button on the top right of the tab to start.

Step 2

2. Open the Add new address dialog and pick Address type = Permanent

The dialog Add new address opens with a small map-pin icon. In the Address type dropdown, leave the default Permanent selected. The four options are Permanent, Current, Correspondence, and Other — pick the one that matches the legal status of this address, not just the convenience of where post should go. Permanent is the home address printed on Aadhaar, on the Transfer Certificate, and in the admission register. Save Correspondence for the next step.

Step 3

3. Fill Address line 1, area, city, state, PIN code

Enter Address line 1 — the house or flat number with the street name. The placeholder reads House/Flat No., Street Name. Keep it short — long addresses get truncated on report cards and the Transfer Certificate. Use Address line 2 for the area or colony — this one is optional, with the placeholder Area, Colony (Optional). City, State, and Postal code are required. Country defaults to India — only change it if the address truly sits outside India (a parent's home in Dubai or Toronto). Add a nearby Landmark — optional, but useful for rural addresses where the street name is missing or unreliable.

Step 4

4. Tick Set as primary if this is the family's main address, then click Create address

If this permanent address is the family's main on-record address — the one to print by default on fee receipts, ID cards, and the Transfer Certificate — tick Set as primary address. Only one address per student can be the primary at a time, so ticking the box on a new entry automatically moves the badge away from any older primary. Click Create address. The toast Address created successfully confirms the save and Inkwelly adds the entry to the Addresses tab tagged Permanent, with a Primary badge if you ticked the box.

Step 5

5. Click Add address again and choose Address type = Correspondence

Click Add address a second time on the Addresses tab. The same Add new address dialog reopens with all fields blank. In the Address type dropdown change the value from Permanent to Correspondence. Honest note — Inkwelly does not have a 'same as permanent' shortcut. To save a different mailing address, retype the details, or paste them from the permanent entry in another browser tab if both addresses happen to be the same on paper. Most cases are not the same: this is exactly when the correspondence entry exists — the boarding-school gate, a grandparent's home, an employer's flat, an NRI parent's India contact.

Step 6

6. Verify both entries appear in the Addresses tab

Click Create address. The Addresses tab now shows two cards side-by-side — one tagged Permanent (Primary) and one tagged Correspondence. Both entries stay attached to the student profile and travel with the student through promotions, board exam registration, the Transfer Certificate, and any printed letter Inkwelly produces. Use the Edit button on the card if either address ever changes — a child shifting from a grandparent's home back to parents, or parents returning from the Gulf — and the audit log keeps the change history for board inspection.

Common pitfalls — things office staff miss

  • No 'same as permanent' shortcut — Inkwelly does not auto-fill the permanent fields into the correspondence dialog. Retype the mailing address. This is on purpose — silent copying creates one stale entry the moment a family moves and the office only updates the other one.
  • PIN code mismatch — Inkwelly accepts any 6-digit number, but board inspections expect a real Indian PIN. Verify the PIN against the city and state before saving — a typo here surfaces months later as undelivered post.
  • Two primary addresses — only one address per student can carry the Primary flag. Ticking Set as primary on the correspondence entry quietly moves the badge off the permanent entry. Decide once which address the school's default print queue should use.
  • Permanent missing the country — Country defaults to India and 99% of permanent addresses stay India even when parents live abroad. Use the correspondence entry for the foreign mailing address; the permanent entry stays the legal Indian home.
  • Rural addresses with no street name — leave Address line 1 as the village or hamlet name, and use Landmark for the nearest pucca road, school, or post office. Don't leave Address line 1 blank, otherwise Inkwelly will not let you save.
  • Updating the wrong address — always check the Type badge before clicking the Edit button on the card. The two entries share the same dialog, so it is easy to overwrite the permanent address while meaning to update correspondence.

What to do next

With both addresses on the profile, here are the next things office staff and admissions teams typically reach for:

  • Fixing addresses in bulk — see Bulk update student records when a hostel batch shifts wings, a colony renames its streets, or 50+ correspondence entries need a state correction at once.
  • Single-admission flowAdmit a single new student in Inkwelly covers the upstream form that creates the profile this guide updates.
  • Transfer Certificate — the TC issuance flow uses the Correspondence address by default for the printed certificate — verify the entry is current before generating, especially for class-10 and class-12 leaving students.

If the address layout on a state board's TC template doesn't match what Inkwelly prints, share a sample template with the support team on WhatsApp during business hours.

Want a walkthrough on your school's data?

Frequently asked

7 questions
Can I copy my permanent address as the correspondence address in Inkwelly?

No — Inkwelly does not have a 'same as permanent' shortcut. Click Add address a second time, change Address type to Correspondence, and either retype the same lines or paste them from the permanent entry. It takes about 30 seconds. The two-entry design is intentional so updating one address does not silently overwrite the other when a family moves.

What address types can I store on a student profile in Inkwelly?

Four — Permanent, Current, Correspondence, and Other. Permanent is the legal home address printed on the Transfer Certificate. Current is where the student is living right now (relevant for boarding or hostel students). Correspondence is where school post should land. Other is a freeform slot for grandparent or guardian addresses that don't fit the first three.

How do I mark one address as the primary one for a student?

Tick Set as primary address in the Add new address or Edit address dialog. Only one address per student can be primary at a time — ticking the box on a new entry automatically unticks the flag on any earlier primary. Most schools mark the Permanent entry as primary so it prints by default on fee receipts and ID cards.

Inkwelly me address kaise add kare?

Student profile khol kar Addresses tab par jaiye. Add address button click kijiye. Address type chuniye — Permanent, Current, Correspondence, ya Other. House number, street, city, state, PIN code bhar kar Create address dabaiye. Doosra address add karne ke liye Add address dobara click kijiye — alag-alag entries ban jayengi.

What permission do I need to add or edit a student's address?

Permission to edit student records. Typically the principal, school admin, and the office staff member who handles admissions already have it. Class teachers and subject teachers do not have it by default. If your office wants the front desk to maintain addresses, ask the school admin to grant the address-edit permission to that role under Settings → Roles & Permissions.

My boarding student's parents live in Dubai — which address goes where?

Use Permanent for the family's legal Indian home address — the one on Aadhaar and the one that goes on the Transfer Certificate. Use Correspondence for the address that should receive printed post during the academic year — typically the boarding-school gate or a guardian's India address. Keep Country = India on the permanent entry; only switch Country if the family has formally surrendered Indian residency.

What if a parent moves and the address changes mid-session?

Open the Addresses tab, click Edit on the entry that changed, update the fields, and Save. Inkwelly keeps the previous version in the audit log so a board inspector can see the change history. The Transfer Certificate, fee receipts, and parent-app envelopes pick the latest version automatically from the next print onwards.

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Sources & references

  1. CBSE Affiliation Bye-Laws — Chapter VI, Section 6.1 · accessed 7 May 2026

    Defines the admission record-keeping requirements, including the legal home address and a separate communication address that CBSE-affiliated schools must capture for every enrolled student.

  2. DPDP Act 2023 — Section 9 (Children's personal data) · accessed 7 May 2026

    Treats a child's residential and correspondence address as personal data with verifiable parental consent and retention-limitation duties on the school as data fiduciary.

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Written byJharendra A VermaFounder, Inkwelly

Building Inkwelly — a modern school management platform for Indian schools across CBSE, ICSE, and state boards. Writes about school operations, board compliance, and admissions workflows.