Transport fees that match the route. And the parent's UPI app.

How most Indian schools collect transport fees today

The accountant has a separate Excel file for transport. It sits next to the tuition fee register, never quite reconciling with it. The first column is the student's name and class; the second is the route; the third is the monthly transport fee, copied across every month, sometimes correctly. When a child shifts stop in October, the new fee is updated on row 47 — except on the duplicate sheet someone else maintains for the principal's review, where it is not. By December the two sheets have drifted; in January, when a parent asks for a transport receipt for ITR submission, the receptionist takes 20 minutes to assemble it from three different files, and gets it signed by the head clerk just before lunch.

Meanwhile a sibling concession is supposed to apply to a Class 2 boy because his Class 9 sister is already on transport. It does, in theory — but in practice the office forgets in March, applies it in April, double-counts it in May, and the parent calls the school in June asking why she paid twice. A child who left transport in November is still being billed in February because the cell that should have stopped it was never updated. The school's no-claim disputes pile up through the year and quietly cost it ten or fifteen thousand rupees per term in adjustments and goodwill.

Inkwelly's transport fee workspace closes every one of these gaps. Fees are real — attached to the route, the stop, the distance, the sibling status. Pro-rating is automatic. Concessions are line items, not memory. Online collection comes through Razorpay or UPI directly into the school's account. The child's fee ledger is the same one the tuition accountant looks at. The parallel Excel file is gone. The accountant works one register. The principal, when she asks, gets one number.

How transport fees actually work in Inkwelly

Open Transport → Fee Structures. Every fee plan your school runs is listed. A flat-rate plan for a small school. A per-route plan where each route carries its own monthly fee. A per-stop plan where the rate depends on which stop the child boards from. A distance-tier plan where the fee scales by zone (a 4 km zone, an 8 km zone, a 12 km zone). One school can run all four side by side — some routes flat, some by stop, some by distance.

Click a plan and you see the calculation method, the effective dates, the student count, the monthly revenue. Click a route attached to it and the same plan applies to every child on that route. When a new student joins on October 14, the fee is pro-rated to the day automatically. When a child switches stops on January 7, the old stop's fee stops on the 6th and the new stop's fee starts on the 7th — no spreadsheet edit required.

Concessions are first-class entries on the family's profile, not Excel notes. Sibling concession — say 25 percent off the second child — is defined on the fee structure and applied automatically to every billing. Staff-child concession — a teacher's children get 50 percent off transport — lives on the staff member's profile. Scholarship concession — RTE 25% reservation children may need waivers — is per-student. Every concession carries a reason, an approver and a date range, so the audit picture is intact.

Invoices generate alongside tuition invoices, not on a separate cycle. Parents see one combined fee bill in the parent app, with tuition and transport listed as separate line items. Online payment via UPI or Razorpay reconciles to both ledgers in one transaction. The receipt that lands on the parent's WhatsApp carries the school letterhead, the GST number if applicable, the route and stop, the billing period, and a QR code for verification. ITR season requests for past receipts are answered in 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.

Walkthrough — four screens the accountant runs every month

“Pehle transport fees ka alag register tha jo tuition se kabhi match nahi karta tha. Quarter ke end pe hum 2 din lagaate the reconcile karne mein. Ab Inkwelly mein dono ek hi ledger pe hain, sibling concessions automatic apply hote hain, parent ka receipt seedha WhatsApp pe jaata hai. Mera har month 6 ghante bachte hain.”

Five real moments transport fees is built for

1. The mid-October stop change. A child shifts house from Sector 12 to Sector 18 on October 14. The in-charge updates the route assignment. The October fee for the old stop runs to the 13th, the new stop's fee starts on the 14th, the November bill carries the full month at the new rate. The parent gets one combined bill on November 1 with the new amount, and a WhatsApp explainer that says "transport fee adjusted from October 14 onward, due to stop change".

2. The sibling concession that used to be missed. A family enrols their second child in April. The fee structure has a 25 percent sibling concession defined. From the very first invoice, the second child's transport fee carries the concession line item. The first child's bill is unchanged. The parent does not call to ask why — because she got it right the first time.

3. The mid-year leaver refund. A child leaves transport on January 7 because the family is moving cities. The January invoice carries 6 days of fee for January, plus a refund line item for the prepaid balance from earlier in the year. The refund goes back to the original Razorpay account on January 12. Three weeks later, the parent calls the office. The receptionist confirms the refund has landed and the conversation closes in 90 seconds.

4. The ITR season request. It is May. A parent asks for last financial year's transport receipts to claim under Section 10(14). The receptionist opens the parent's family profile, clicks Export Receipts, picks the financial year, and emails a ZIP file with twelve GST-compliant receipts to the parent. Total time: 90 seconds. Last year, this took 25 minutes per parent.

5. The board affiliation review. A CBSE affiliation review asks for the school's transport fee structure, concession policy, and a sample of last year's receipts. The accountant exports the fee structures (one report), the concession audit log (a second report), and a hundred random receipts (a third report). The pack is on the affiliation officer's desk in 15 minutes. The school passes the review without follow-up questions on transport.

See your transport fees rebuilt during a 30-minute demo

Bring last month's transport fee Excel and one combined fee receipt your school issued. On the demo we will rebuild the fee structure inside Inkwelly while you watch — you will see exactly what the parent's combined bill, the accountant's reconciliation and the GST-compliant receipt look like before you sign anything.

Limits, safety and the small print

Calculation methods. Flat rate, per-route, per-stop, distance-tier. One school can run all four in parallel — different fee plans for different routes, all at the same time. The accountant picks the calculation method when creating the plan; the right fee amount per stop is captured during stop setup, or per zone if the plan is distance-tier.

Concession types. Sibling, staff-child, scholarship, RTE-25%, custom. Each one carries a reason, an approver, a date range, and an audit entry per billing where it applies. The total concession value per term is exportable for the board affiliation review.

Online collection. UPI and Razorpay are integrated by default. Some schools also enable Cashfree or PayU based on which payment partner they already work with for tuition. Auto-reconciliation matches every settlement to the fee receipt within minutes — there is no manual matching against bank statements at month-end.

Holiday handling. The transport-specific holiday calendar is independent of the academic calendar. If your school runs reduced transport during Durga Puja week or the May vacation, mark the days inactive and the fees do not apply for those days.

Refunds. Mid-year leavers, mid-month switches, double payments — all handled as first-class refund line items with reason, approver, and refund channel. Refunds via Razorpay route back to the original payment method automatically. Cash refunds carry a signed receipt from the office.

GST. Schools that are GST-registered get GST-compliant receipts with GSTIN, HSN/SAC and QR code. Schools that are not registered get clean non-GST receipts. Both are accepted for parent ITR submissions under Section 10(14) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

Audit and access. Every fee transaction, concession application, and refund is logged with user, date, and reason. The audit is exportable per term. Class teachers see only their class's fees; the accountant sees everything; the principal sees the dashboard plus exception lists.

Migrating from Excel. During onboarding, our team takes your transport fee Excel, maps it to Inkwelly's fee structure types, and imports every student, every concession, every paid invoice in one pass. By the second weekend the school is on the new ledger; the old Excel becomes a read-only reference.