Sibling Discounts and Concessions Without the Spreadsheet

The accounts office keeps a spreadsheet called "Concessions FINAL v3". It has a tab for sibling discounts, a tab for scholarships, a tab for staff children and a tab nobody can explain. Every month, before vouchers go out, someone checks each discounted family against the sheet by hand. This month, a family whose eldest child left in December is still receiving a third-child discount for the youngest, and a scholarship approved for one year is now in its second without anyone having renewed it.

Concessions are the part of the fee process with the widest gap between decision and execution. A principal or owner grants them, often in a meeting, and an accountant applies them weeks later from a note or an email. This post is about closing that gap so that concessions apply correctly, stop when they should, and show their true cost.

Know which kind of concession you are dealing with

Different concessions behave differently, and treating them all as "a discount" is where most errors begin. A useful classification:

Each type has its own trigger and its own natural end. When the end is defined by an event (a sibling leaving, a parent's employment ending), the concession should follow that event automatically. When it is defined by a date, the date belongs on the record.

Sibling discounts: let the family record do the work

Sibling discounts go wrong because the system that bills students does not know they are related. The fix is structural: link siblings to one family, and calculate the discount from the family rather than from a list.

Decide how children are ranked

Is the "second child" the second oldest, the second to enrol, or the one in the lower grade? Many schools give the largest discount to the child with the lowest fee, which keeps the cost predictable. Whatever you choose, write it down. When Daniela, the eldest of the Moreno children, graduates, her younger brother becomes the first child and his discount should change from the next billing cycle. If the ranking rule is clear and the family is linked, that happens on its own.

Decide what the discount applies to

Does the sibling discount reduce tuition only, or every head including transport and examination fees? Most schools limit it to tuition. Spell it out, because a discount applied to the wrong heads is invisible until someone audits a voucher.

Scholarships and hardship: record the decision, with dates

Every scholarship or hardship concession should carry five things: the type, the amount or percentage, the approver, the reason, and the start and end dates. Without the end date, a concession runs forever by default. Without the approver, nobody knows who can renew or withdraw it.

For need-based support, use a review date rather than an open-ended grant. Consider a school that agrees a 40 percent concession for the Nguyen family after a change in circumstances. Setting a review at the end of the term means the conversation happens on schedule, the family knows to expect it, and the support continues or changes as a decision rather than by default.

Separate approval from application

The person who approves a concession should not be the only person who applies it, and the person who applies it should not be able to create one without approval. This is not about distrust. It protects both people when a family later asks why their fees changed.

Decide how concessions combine

The hardest cases are families who qualify for more than one concession. A staff member with two children, one of whom holds a merit scholarship, may qualify for three. Without a rule, the answer depends on who happens to be asked. Pick one approach and configure it:

• Stack: each concession applies in turn. Simple, but can produce large combined discounts.
• Best one wins: the family receives the single largest concession. Predictable and easy to explain.
• Stack with a cap: concessions combine up to a maximum, for example 60 percent of tuition.

If you stack, also define the order: a percentage applied before or after a fixed amount produces different results. These details sound minor until a parent compares vouchers with another family.

Make the cost visible

Concessions are a real expense, even though no money leaves the school. Leadership should be able to see, at any time, the total value of concessions by type and by approver, and how that compares with last year. Schools that track this often find the cost is larger than assumed, usually because of concessions that never ended rather than new ones.

Review the full list at least once a term. Look for concessions with no end date, concessions whose trigger has gone (a staff parent who left, a sibling who graduated), and one-off waivers that have somehow recurred.

Frequently asked questions

Should sibling discounts apply to children at different campuses?

That is a policy choice, but for schools with more than one campus the family relationship should be visible across campuses either way. Otherwise the decision is made by whoever notices.

What about concessions promised at admission?

Record them at the moment of admission, with the approver, before the first voucher is generated. A concession that exists only in an admissions conversation will be missed or disputed.

Can a concession be backdated?

It can, but treat it as a recorded adjustment with a reason, producing a credit against past vouchers. Never edit the vouchers that were already issued.

Retiring the spreadsheet

Concessions work when they are rules with owners and dates rather than rows in a sheet. For how they fit alongside structures, billing and reconciliation, see the complete guide to school fee management.

In Scolvia, siblings are linked to one family and concessions are recorded against each student, so vouchers are generated with the concessions recorded on each student. The Fee Management module page shows how.