Amaan Baig.

The redesigned Fee Master Template: one template holding its fee types, amounts and payment types

Cut fee management effort by 40 minutes

By reducing the fee templates a single classroom needed from an average of 9 to 1.

Team: Founder & CEO, Designer (me), Developers
Client: Excel Edge

The problem

The fee module needed an average of 9 fee templates for a single classroom, which made creating, editing and applying fees to classes and students an overwhelming task.

Existing module evaluation

The existing design applied fees and concessions to a class, and reached students only through their class, so every payment option needed its own template.

Old module flows: creating a template step by step, then applying it to a class, and through the class to its students — Old module flow

The existing Fee Master Template list in the test environment: a long list of templates, each tied to an academic year, stream and class — Existing design: fee templates list

An existing fee template in the test environment: name, academic year, stream and class, with a table of fee types and amounts — Existing design: fee template

The fee ecosystem: how fee, type, concession, penalty, schedule and amount connect to grade, stream, route and students — Design ecosystem

User problems

Problem

Templates multiplied with every payment option

What users faced

Users had to create more versions of each template as more payment types and concessions were needed.

A new template for every payment type and concession: one-time, EMI and monthly payments against 0%, 5% and 10% concessions — Templates per payment option

Problem

The same template, copied for every class

What users faced

Users managed separate copies of the same template for every class that shared a fee structure.

The same fee structure copied into a separate set of templates for each class — Template copies per class

Problem

Every change meant editing every copy

What users faced

Whenever a key piece of fee data changed, users had to edit and update every copy that used it.

One update has to be made in every copy of the fee templates, across all classes — Editing every copy

Designed solution

One template for all fee and payment options

A single template now holds every fee, payment option and concession for a fee structure, and applies to students directly, not through their class.

New module flows: creating a template with its fee types and payment types in one place, then applying it by selecting a class and a template — New module flow

Impact

A single template now does the work of 9, so fees are faster to set up and always stay consistent.

40 minutes saved

Less time spent creating, editing and applying fees.

9 templates to 1

A classroom needs a single fee template, not one per payment option.

Changes made only once

Fee data is updated in one template, not in every copy.

No missed copies

With no duplicates, no template is ever left out of date.