School store

Overview

The store sells what you already keep in Inventory. Every sale is an order with its own number (SO/2026-27/00012), and its money is a charge on the child's fee account. That means everything that works for fees works for the store: receipts, the wallet, paying online, reminders, autopay and refunds. Stock leaves the store when the order is handed over. Nothing is deleted: an order is cancelled and kept, and a return is recorded against it.

Setting up

1. Give items a price. Open an item and enter Price to families. Priced items can be sold at the desk.
2. Choose what families see online. Tick Show it in the families' online store. Items with the same Shown as name (Summer shirt) appear as one card with their sizes. Tick the classes an item is for, or leave them all unticked for every class. Add a photo if you like.
3. Add a shop. In Stores & settings, add a store of kind Shop for each school (or one for the whole group). Online orders are filled from it. Move stock into it with Move between stores on the Stock tab.
4. Switch it on. Under The online store, tick Families can order online and choose how they may pay. To take money offline, tick Pay at the counter and/or UPI or bank transfer and enter your UPI ID or bank details.
5. Add collection points (optional). Under Collection points, add the counters families come to (with booked times if you like) and In class if you'd rather hand orders to children in class. With none, families collect at the shop.

What you can sell

A school store sells far more than shirts. Each item is sold one of three ways (Sold as on the item):

• About it: a line families see on the card (material, publisher, "runs a size small").
• Most one student can buy: one blazer, two house T-shirts. It counts every size on the card and what the child already has this school year. Kits can have a limit too.
• Online from / until: a book-sale week, passes that close before the event. Outside the window it isn't in the online store; the desk can still sell it.
• On the class list: tick it on items and kits every child in those classes needs. Families see their class's list at the top of the store, ticked off as they buy.

Pre-orders to buy (Store orders tab) adds up what open orders need beyond the stock you hold in every store and what suppliers are already bringing, so you know how many to order.

Kits for a class

A kit is a set sold as one: a class's books, a uniform. On the Kits tab, add its items and quantities, the classes it's for and its price. You're shown what the parts would cost one by one.

Issue to a class picks a class and a store and shows every student, ticking those who already have the kit. Issuing hands one kit to each of the others now and puts its price on their fee account. It's all or nothing: if there isn't enough stock for everyone, nothing is issued and you're told what's short. Issue it again later and only the students who don't have it yet get one.

Each order keeps the parts it was sold with, so changing a kit later never changes what a family bought. A kit you stop using is retired, not removed.

Selling at the desk

Store orders → Sell at the desk: find the student, choose the store, add items (or one kit), and say how it's paid: cash, UPI, card, bank transfer, cheque, the wallet, or add to fees. A fee receipt is issued straight away for money taken.

Write the reference: the cheque number and bank, or a bank transfer's UTR, are required (a cheque can bounce, a transfer has to be traceable); a UPI UTR or card slip number is optional. It's printed on the receipt.

It's handed over at once, unless you tick Later: then it stays an order to collect. Use that for a pre-order a parent pays for at the counter, or a size you'll fetch from the storeroom.

Ordering online

Students and parents open School store. A parent with more than one child picks the child. They see:

• the kits for the child's class;
• items on sale, with sizes, the price and what's left at the shop (a size that has run out is crossed out);
• their orders, with each one's collect code.

At checkout they choose a collection point (when you have them), a time if that counter takes bookings, and can name someone else collecting (a grandparent, the driver).

Prices always come from the school, never from the page. An order can't take stock another order is holding, so two families can't both buy the last shirt. A family can place up to five online orders a day, each up to the limit you set (₹20,000 to start with).

How families pay

An order waiting to be paid (online, at the counter or by transfer) stops holding its stock when its time runs out, so others can buy it; while a transfer the family reported is being checked, it keeps it. If the family pays later, the order goes ahead. The family can cancel an unpaid order themselves while it's still Placed, but not while you're checking their transfer.

Where and when families collect

• A counter ("Uniform counter, Gate 2") with directions families see. Tick Families book a time to spread the start-of-session rush: choose the days, opening hours, minutes per slot, families per slot, how much notice you need to pack, and how many days ahead to offer. A full slot isn't offered. An order waiting for a pre-order item doesn't book a time yet: once you mark it ready, the family books one from their order (and can change it until then).
• In class: you pack orders by class and they go to the child in class. No code is needed.

Store orders → Pickups is the counter's day: the booked slots for the day you pick, orders at each counter with no booking, and classroom orders grouped by class. Each group has its pick list (how many of each thing to pull) and prints packing slips, one per bag, with what goes in it, who it's for and any money to collect. A class's packed orders are handed over in one go with Hand over the packed; any that can't go yet (not paid at the counter, say) are listed with the reason.

Remind on a ready order tells the family it's still waiting for them (at most once a day).

Getting it ready and handing it over

New online orders are on Store orders → To hand over, oldest first, and the store's staff are told when one arrives. Each order shows whether it's paid and whether the shop is short of anything for it.

• Packed and ready tells the family it can be collected, with the collection note you set (Uniform shop, 8 to 9 am).
• Hand over asks for the family's collect code (six letters and numbers on their order), or a tick that it's going to the student themself. The stock leaves the store then.
• If money is owed, tick Take the payment now and choose cash, UPI, card, bank, cheque or the wallet, with its reference. The money and the hand-over are recorded together, with a receipt. Counter orders start with this ticked.
• Or hand it over unpaid with a tick: what's owed goes on the fee account (a counter or transfer order then falls due like anything added to fees).
• Take payment on any open order takes the money without handing it over: a family paying ahead for a pre-order.
• While a family's transfer is waiting to be checked, the desk can't take money for that order, so it can't be paid twice. Accept or reject the transfer first.

Checking UPI and bank transfers

A family who chose to pay by transfer (or at the counter) sees your UPI ID with a Pay with a UPI app link and a QR code, both filled in with the amount and the order number, and your bank details. After paying they send the UTR (12 digits for UPI) and, if they like, a screenshot.

It arrives on Store orders → Payments to check, and the store's staff are told. Find the UTR in your bank statement, then:

• It's in: a UPI or bank payment is recorded with the UTR as its reference, a receipt is issued and the family is told.
• Not found: say why. The family is told and can send the right reference or pay another way. The rejected one is kept on record.

One UTR can't be sent twice at your school, and an order has one transfer being checked at a time. If the order was paid another way meanwhile, accepting is refused: reject it and settle with the family.

Closing the counter

Store orders → Counter shows, for a day and each person who took money, what came in by method (cash, UPI, card, bank, cheques) with every receipt, the cash refunded, and what the drawer should hold. Online and wallet payments aren't counter money and aren't counted.

At the end of the day, count the drawer, enter it and Close the counter. The difference is recorded; if it's short or over, the owner is told. Each close is kept. Close again later the same day and the new one sits beside the first. Money taken after a close shows separately.

Handing over part of an order

When some of an order is in and the rest isn't (the shoes have come, the atlases haven't), Hand over part shows each line with what's still to go and what's on the shelf, and starts with what can go now. Change the numbers, and only that leaves the store. The order shows Part handed over until the rest goes.

• What's been handed over can be returned while the rest waits.
• Call off the rest takes only what hasn't gone off the order: its value comes off what's owed, anything paid beyond the new total is refunded, and the order is done.
• Families see what they've had and what's to come on their order. They can't cancel a part-collected order themselves; the office can.

Walk-ins and staff

In Sell at the desk, choose who's buying:

• A walk-in, someone not on the register (a new-admission family before enrolment, a visitor on sports day): their name, and a phone if you like. A business buying can give its GSTIN for the tax invoice. They pay at the counter, by cash, UPI, card, bank or cheque, with their own receipt (SR/2026-27/00001; refunds SRF/…), because there's no fee account to add it to.
• A member of staff, from the staff list. They pay at the counter or choose Deduct from salary over 1 to 12 months: it becomes a staff advance that payroll recovers each month. A return takes it off what's still to be deducted.

Their orders work like any other: handed over now or later, returned, cancelled. Find them by name in the order list; they're marked Walk-in or Staff.

Cheques

A cheque is received subject to realisation: it counts as paid, with a receipt and its number and bank as the reference, and waits under Cheques (on Store orders for the store, and on School fees for every cheque, fees included).

• Cleared: your bank statement shows it.
• Bounced: give the bank's reason. The payment is marked bounced, so what it paid for is owed again; its receipt stays on record, marked as not received. For a fee cheque you can add a bounce charge, due today on the same account, and the family is told. The books reverse the money out of the bank on the day it bounced.

A cheque that's been partly refunded can't be marked bounced; settle that with the family first.

GST tax invoices

A school registered for GST that sells goods needs to issue tax invoices. Turn on Stores & settings → GST tax invoices (it uses the registration in Settings → GST), and give each item its HSN code and GST rate; prices include GST.

• An invoice (SI/2627/00001) is issued each time goods are handed over, which is when they're supplied. A part hand-over gets its own. GST isn't charged on money paid ahead for goods.
• Each line's tax is carved out of its price at its rate, split into CGST and SGST, with a summary by rate.
• A kit sold for one price is a mixed supply: taxed at its highest-rated part, unless you give the kit a rate of its own.
• A return gets a credit note (SCN/…) against the invoice it went out on.
• Print from Invoices on an order; families open theirs from their order. ?kind=gst exports a month's invoices and credit notes for GSTR-1. In the books, the GST moves from Store sales to GST output.
• Rates change (the GST Council rationalised most goods to 0, 5 or 18% in 2025): take each item's rate and HSN from your accountant. tuition.in doesn't file returns or make e-invoices (IRN).

Stores run by a vendor

If a uniform or book vendor runs the shop on campus, open its store in Stores & settings and choose the vendor (one of your suppliers) and the school's commission. Then:

• its stock is the vendor's: deliveries into it aren't logged as the school's expense;
• families and the desk buy from it as usual, but the money is held for the vendor (Collections for store vendors in the books), and the school doesn't issue GST invoices for it (the vendor bills its own sales);
• Inventory → Vendors shows what's been handed over and returned since the last settlement. Settle now makes a numbered settlement (VS/…): the commission is the school's, the rest is due to the vendor. Record the payout (a bank UTR or cheque number), and download the vendor's statement. Nothing is ever settled twice.

The school settles on goods handed over, whether or not the family has paid yet: the school collects from families, and the vendor is paid for what left their shop.

Buying back used books

Turn on Stores & settings → Buying back books and set what the school pays (say 40% of the new price for a good copy; a fair one gets three quarters of that) and what used copies sell for (say 60%). Then Inventory → Buyback:

• choose the student selling (paid into their wallet, which they can spend on fees or the store) or someone not on the register (paid in cash, UPI or bank);
• add the books, their condition and how many. You can pay less than the price for a torn cover, never more;
• the copies go on the shelf as the book's (used) copy, made the first time, and sell like any item at the used price.

A mistake is reversed, never deleted: the copies come off the shelf (they must still be there) and the wallet credit comes back out (if it hasn't been spent). Buybacks post to Second-hand books bought back in the books.

The counter when the internet drops

Store orders → Counter mode opens a full-screen counter (/store-counter) made for the start-of-session rush. Open it once with the internet on and it keeps working when the connection goes:

• It keeps the catalogue, kits, students and staff on the device (names and admission numbers only), and picks the school's shop.
• Each sale prints a slip with a provisional number (OFF-AB12-0007) and waits on the device. When the internet is back the sales are sent, in order, and each gets its real order and receipt numbers. A sale sent twice (a lost reply) is still one sale.
• Offline it takes cash, UPI, card or a cheque, or adds it to a student's fees. Not the wallet, whose balance can't be checked.
• A sale really happened when the slip was printed, so it's accepted even if the shelf count says it's short; the count then shows below nothing so you can recount. Sales older than 30 days aren't accepted.
• A sale the school refuses (an item retired since, say) stays on the device, marked, for you to sort out at Store orders.

Cancelling, returns and refunds

Cancel (before it's handed over) takes everything still owed off the fee account. Anything paid is refunded:

• money paid from the wallet goes back to the wallet;
• other money goes back the way you choose: the wallet, cash, UPI, bank transfer, cheque, or back to the card for money paid online.

Return (after it's handed over) puts the stock back in a store you choose. The fee account comes down by the item's price, and anything already paid beyond the new total is refunded the same way.

Every refund goes through the usual fee refund path, with its own voucher. If the payment gateway refuses a refund, the order stays cancelled and the money waits under Refunds due until you refund it another way.

Fees, receipts and the books

• An order's charge shows on the student's fee ledger as School store SO/… (or the kit's name), and in the collection report under School store. It can't be deleted from the fees page; cancel the order instead. Late fines never apply to it.
• Money received posts to its own Store sales ledger in Books & Tally: cash and online payments as receipts, wallet payments as a journal from the wallets ledger, refunds back out.
• Store sales get a receipt; with GST tax invoices on, goods also get a tax invoice.
• Sales on the Store orders tab downloads every order line as a CSV.

Who can do what

Anyone with Inventory access runs the store: kits, desk sales, getting orders ready, handing over and taking money at the counter, checking transfers, closing their own counter, cancelling and returns. Refunds need Fees edit access, so a storekeeper can't hand out cash. The one exception is putting money back into the wallet it was paid from. A member limited to one school sees only that school's stores, items and orders.

Questions

Can parents have it delivered? Not home delivery. Orders are collected at a counter or handed to the child in class.

Can part of an order be handed over now and the rest later? Yes: Hand over part.

What if a cheque bounces? Mark it bounced under Cheques: what it paid is owed again.

Can we sell to someone who isn't a student? Yes: walk-ins and staff.

A family paid online but the size ran out. Cancel the order and refund it back to the card, or into the wallet if they'd rather buy something else.

Does the student's class decide what they see? Yes. Items and kits marked for certain classes show only to students placed in those classes this year.