The Complete ZivoFees Guide
Everything the platform does and how it helps your school run its finances — from setup and invoicing to AI insights, budgets, assets and donor funding.
1. Getting Started
ZivoFees replaces spreadsheets, paper fee books and manual bank reconciliation with one platform. Here is how a school comes on board.
Register your school
Visit zivofees.com, complete the school registration form (school details + your admin account). Your school is auto-approved on a 30-day free trial — no waiting.
Log in and complete your profile
Upload your school logo and fill in address, registration number and contact details. This branding appears on invoices, receipts and statements.
Invite your finance team
Add finance office staff by email. They are verified automatically and can log in immediately with their own role-based access.
2. Set Up Your Academic Structure
Done once, then reused every term. The school admin builds the structure that fees and invoices hang off.
Academic Years & Terms
e.g. 2026 Academic Year → Term 1, Term 2, Term 3. Term dates drive budgets and reporting periods.
Levels & Classes
Create levels (ECD, Grade 1–7, Form 1–6) and the classes under each (e.g. Form 3A, Form 3B).
Fee Categories
Tuition, Development Levy, Sports, Uniform, Boarding — the building blocks of every invoice.
Fee Templates
A reusable bundle of fees scoped to a level/class (and optionally a year/term). The system auto-matches the best template to each student when generating invoices.
Charge Rules
Automated discounts and surcharges — sibling discount, scholarship waiver, boarding surcharge — applied in priority order (student → class → level → school-wide).
3. Students & Funding
Add and manage every learner, including those whose fees are paid by sponsors.
Add students
Individually or via CSV bulk import. Each student carries their class, level, status and contact details.
Funding source
Mark whether a student is self/family-funded or Sponsored. Sponsored students show a clear badge across the system.
Sponsors (NGOs / donors)
Maintain your own list of sponsors (e.g. Beam, churches, companies). Each school keeps its own sponsors — names can repeat across schools.
Sponsored Students report
See every sponsored student grouped by sponsor, with outstanding balances and per-sponsor totals — so you know exactly what each donor owes.
4. Invoicing & Billing
The core finance cycle, run at the start of each term.
Generate invoices
One student at a time, or in bulk filtered by level, class, year, term and status. Choose Skip Existing, Regenerate, or Add Supplementary to control duplicates.
Batch tracking
Every bulk run is logged with a report showing which students succeeded, were skipped, or failed (and why).
Issue & notify
Review draft invoices, then issue them. Issuing notifies linked parents automatically by email/WhatsApp.
Invoice numbering
Sequential, gap-free invoice numbers generated safely even under heavy concurrent use.
5. Payments & Receipts
Record money in, from any channel, and issue receipts automatically.
Record payments
Cash, bank transfer/RTGS, EcoCash, OneMoney, InnBucks, Mukuru, card or cheque. Payments allocate against outstanding invoices and update status automatically (issued → partially paid → paid).
Automatic receipts
Every recorded payment generates a uniquely numbered receipt the parent can download.
Online payments (Paynow)
Parents pay directly from their portal via EcoCash or card; confirmed payments are recorded automatically via webhook.
Proof of payment
Parents can upload a bank slip or mobile-money screenshot for the finance office to verify manually.
6. Parent Portal
A 24/7 self-service portal that cuts the calls and queues at the bursar’s office.
Self-registration & linking
Parents register, search for their child, and request a link. The school approves it. One parent can be linked to several children across schools.
Balances & statements
Parents see current invoices, exact outstanding balances, and downloadable PDF statements of full payment history.
Pay & submit proof online
Pay through Paynow or upload proof of an offline payment, and download all receipts.
7. AI Financial Insights
A built-in AI engine builds a financial profile for every student and tells you where to act.
Risk scoring
Each student gets a 0–100 risk score and level (Low → Critical) based on payment timeliness, missed payments, recency and consistency.
Payment prediction
The likelihood a student pays on time next — so you contact the right families early.
Cash-flow forecasting
Expected collections for the period, weighted by outstanding invoices and student risk.
Actionable recommendations
Specific next steps: “Send reminders to 23 high-risk students”, “Escalate 5 critical accounts”, “Expect $4,200 uncollected this term”.
8. Budgets & Forecasting
Plan ahead, then measure reality against the plan.
Create budgets
For a term (dates auto-fill), a month, or any custom date range.
Income & expense lines
Plan expected fee income (by fee category) and expected spending (by expense category).
Exclude sponsors
Optionally exclude sponsored students from budget income so chronically late donors don’t distort your forecast.
Budget vs Actual
A live report comparing planned vs actual income and expenses with variance and percentage used — downloadable as PDF.
9. Asset Register
Keep a proper fixed-asset register for audits and accounting.
Register assets
Furniture, equipment, ICT, vehicles, buildings, library and more — with supplier, serial number, location and receipt attachment.
Automatic depreciation
Straight-line depreciation from useful life and salvage value, giving accumulated depreciation and net book value per asset.
Asset Register report
Grouped by category with cost, depreciation and book-value subtotals — on screen and as PDF.
Flows into the balance sheet
Total net book value appears automatically as a fixed-asset line on your Statement of Financial Position.
10. Reports & Accounting Statements
Everything the finance office and auditors need, generated on demand.
Finance reports
Payment Summary, Invoice Summary, Outstanding Balances and a Financial Reports dashboard.
Accounting statements
Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, Fund Changes, Aged Receivables, Fees by Class, Expense Ledger, Payment Journal and Invoice Register.
Student statements
A full chronological invoice-and-payment history for any student, printable as PDF.
Exports
Reports and statements download as PDF for board packs and audits.
11. Expense Management
Track every dollar going out, by category.
Record expenses
Capture amount, date, vendor, category, payment method and attach a receipt. Reference numbers are unique per school.
Expense categories
Organise spending into your own categories for clean reporting and budgeting.
12. Communication
Reach parents where they actually read messages.
WhatsApp messaging
Send bulk payment reminders, invoice notifications and announcements; delivery is tracked per message.
Email notifications
Automatic, branded emails for registration, approval, invoices issued, receipts and password resets.
13. Security, Roles & Subscription
Built for multi-school, multi-user operation with full accountability.
Role-based access
Separate access for School Admin, Finance Office and Parents. Finance staff can’t touch academic setup.
Full data isolation
Every record is scoped to your school — no data ever leaks between schools.
Audit log
Every significant action (logins, approvals, issued invoices, recorded payments, fee changes) is recorded.
Subscription
Starter, Professional or Enterprise plans with a 14–30 day free trial; pay your subscription securely online.
Ready to get started?
Set up once, then run every term with confidence. Start your free trial today.