How to add an advance payment as a credit balance in Inkwelly

1. Open the student's fee profile

Open Inkwelly → Student Fee → Fee Profiles from the left sidebar. Search by admission number, name, or roll number and click the row to open the profile. The header shows the student's name, class, paid status badge, and the Edit, Recalculate, Info, Delete actions. The left sub-nav under the header lists Overview, Fee Structure, Invoices, Payments, Receipts, Refunds, Cheques, Discounts, Scholarships, Credits, Waivers, Fines, and Carry-forward.

2. Click Credits in the profile sub-nav

Click Credits. Inkwelly opens the Credit Balances page for this student. The header reads Credit Balances — Manage credit balances for this student and shows three live totals on the right: Total, Used, and Remaining. The Remaining figure in green is the amount Inkwelly will pull from for the next collection. A filter bar below lets the office filter by Source (All Sources, Overpayment, Refund, Adjustment, Carried Forward) and by Balance (All, Has Balance, Fully Used) — leave both on All when adding a new credit.

3. Click + Add Credit

Click the + Add Credit button on the top right. Inkwelly opens the Add Credit Balance dialog with a wallet icon and the helper line Add a new credit balance entry for this student. The dialog has four fields — Amount, Source, Expiry Date, and Remarks — plus the Add Credit submit button. There is no payment-mode picker here; mode (cash, UPI, cheque, NEFT) belongs on the linked Payment record. The Credit row is purely the surplus parked on the student's profile, regardless of how the parent originally handed the money over.

4. Enter the amount and pick a source

In the Amount field, type the credit amount in rupees — for example 25000 for an annual upfront parent who paid ₹25,000 against a ₹22,000 invoice and asked the school to hold the ₹3,000 surplus for July. In the Source dropdown, pick one of four options. Overpayment for surplus collected against an existing invoice. Refund when a refund disbursement is being retained as credit instead of being paid back. Adjustment for a manual book-keeping correction. Carried Forward when last session's unused credit is being brought forward into the new session. The source label is printed on the parent receipt and the audit ledger, so pick the one that matches the real reason.

5. Add a short remark and an optional expiry date

In the Remarks textarea, write a short line the office and the parent will both understand — for example Annual upfront against Inv 1207, surplus held for July installment or Refund of transport fee retained as credit per parent request. Avoid internal codes; this line appears on the credit list and the receipt. The Expiry Date is optional. Leave it blank if the school's policy is to hold credit indefinitely until used. Set a date — for instance 31 March of the next session-end — if the school's fee circular says unused credit lapses on session close.

6. Click Add Credit and verify the saved row

Click the Add Credit button on the bottom right of the dialog. Inkwelly saves the credit and the success toast Credit added successfully appears at the top right. The dialog closes and the Credit Balances table now shows a new row with the Source pill on the left, Amount in bold, Used at zero, Remaining in green equal to the Amount, the Expiry pill, and the date the credit was created. The Remaining total in the header card jumps up by the same amount. If you typed the wrong source or remark, click Edit on the row to fix it before any auto-allocation runs.

7. Watch Inkwelly auto-apply the credit to the next invoice

When the next installment is generated for this student — or when you next click Collect on a pending invoice — Inkwelly checks the Credits tab first, pulls from the oldest Remaining balance, and shows the deduction as a separate line on the invoice as Credit Applied. The Used column on the credit row goes up by that amount; the Remaining drops to match. The parent receipt prints the credit line in plain English so there is no surprise for the family. If the credit fully covers the next invoice, the invoice's payment status flips to Paid without any cash actually changing hands at the counter.