How to admit students mid-session without breaking class rolls

1. Open the New admission screen

Open Inkwelly → Students → New admission. The page title reads New admission with the subtitle Admit a new student to {session} — that {session} is the chip you set in the top bar, and it stays read-only inside the form. If the family is joining for the current year, leave the session as is. If they are joining for a session that has not started yet, switch the session in the top bar before opening this screen — otherwise you will create a current-year admission that has to be deleted.

The page has two columns. The left column is Student profile — identity, photo, parent details. The right column is Academic enrollment — session chip, class, roll, registration number, joining date, remarks. The Admit student button sits at the bottom-right.

2. Fill the student profile

In the left column, enter the child's first name, last name, date of birth, and gender. Inkwelly checks the date of birth against the class age band and shows a soft warning if the child is outside it — useful when a transferred student is repeating or skipping a class. Upload the passport photo (JPG / PNG / WebP, ≤5 MB; auto-cropped to a square). Optional but recommended: blood group, religion, mother tongue, nationality, Aadhaar / APAAR ID — the previous school's TC will already carry these values, so copy them across instead of asking the parent again.

For Hindi-medium and bilingual schools the name fields show two stacked inputs; tap the Sparkles icon to turn the English name into Devanagari automatically. To save further keystrokes, the page header has an AI auto-fill button — paste the previous school's TC text or a photo of the admission application and Inkwelly fills the obvious fields straight from the document, leaving you to check the rest.

3. Capture parent and guardian details

Still in the left column, enter the father's name and mobile, mother's name and mobile, and the optional guardian. Pick the primary contact mobile — that is the WhatsApp / SMS number Inkwelly uses for fee reminders, attendance alerts, and the parent-app login OTP. For a relocated family the working mobile is usually the one the parent answers in the new city.

If that mobile already belongs to a parent of an existing student, Inkwelly shows a sibling-link banner with a one-click Link sibling action. For mid-session admissions this comes up often — the elder sibling was admitted in March, the younger is joining in August. Tap the banner so the existing parent record is reused (address, occupation, emergency contact carry over) and any sibling discounts you have set up in Student Fee apply automatically when you save.

4. Set the Joining date and pick the class

This is the step that makes the admission mid-session. In the right column, pick the Class from the dropdown (placeholder: Select class) — only classes active in the current session show up. Then set the Joining date to the day the child actually starts attending — not today, not the date you are filling the form, but the first day the child sits in the classroom. For an August walk-in that is usually 1 August or the Monday of that week; for a November transfer it is the Monday after the parent finishes the previous school's TC formalities.

Inkwelly remembers the joining date — and from that day forward, attendance counts, fee timing, and class strength all line up automatically. Attendance is required only from the joining day onward, the next fee instalment is calculated from the joining day, and the class-strength dashboard counts the new child in the section from that day. Past months are not back-filled — the records simply show the child was not yet in the school then.

5. Assign admission number and roll

The Registration no. field accepts the school's own registration format (placeholder: REG2025001) — for a transferred student you can either generate a fresh number or carry over the previous school's number, depending on your school's policy.

The Roll no. field has two modes:

• Auto-assigned (default) — when Auto-assign Roll Number is on under Settings → Admissions, the placeholder reads Auto-assigned and Inkwelly gives the new student the next free roll for that class when you save. Existing rolls 1 through 42 in Class 5-A stay untouched; the mid-session entrant becomes roll 43. Class strength stays clean — the section's earlier roll order is not disturbed.
• Manual entry — when auto-roll is off, the placeholder reads 1 and you type the roll. If you type a number that another student in the same class already holds, Inkwelly stops the save and shows a clear message: Roll number already assigned in this class — pick a different number, or switch on auto-roll for the cleanest result.

6. Click Admit student and verify

Click Admit student at the bottom-right. In a single save, Inkwelly creates the student profile, links the parent records, assigns the roll number, allocates the admission number, opens the fee profile from the joining date forward, saves the joining date on the student's record, and (if the primary parent's mobile is verified) sends a parent-app onboarding link via WhatsApp Business.

The success card opens with the heading Admission successful, body {name} has been enrolled., and chips showing ID {studentId} and Adm no. {admissionNumber} — verify both match what you typed. Three buttons follow: View student profile, Admit another, Dashboard. The toast at the bottom reads Student admitted successfully with a sub-line {name} has been enrolled. Tap View student profile to confirm the new roll number is the next in line and the joining date matches what you entered.