Overview
The “Enable Financial Period selection per arrangement installment” is a setting located under Financial Settings > General Settings > Arrangements Parameters, in the Basic Settings sub-group.
What This Setting Does
This setting controls whether users can select a specific financial period for each individual installment of a financial arrangement. A financial period is a billing/accounting period that groups installments together (for example, for reporting or invoicing purposes).
When this option is turned on, a financial period field becomes available on each installment, and Classter automatically suggests a financial period based on the installment’s pay date. Users can then keep the suggested value or pick a different financial period from the list.
Where It Is Used
This setting controls a Financial Period column/selector that can appear wherever installments of a financial arrangement are listed or edited.
- Main Menu > Management > Students List > (open a _Student_) > Financial tab – the installment rows of the _Student_’s arrangement form show or require a Financial Period selector.
- Main Menu > Financial > Arrangements List – the installment-level filters and bulk-action screens (such as Mass Edit Installments and Bulk Collection Assignments) include the Financial Period column when this setting is not set to Disable.
- Main Menu > Financial > Installment Analysis (Vertical view) – the installment grid also shows the Financial Period column under the same condition.
Business Logic / Behavior
- This is a dropdown (single-select) setting with three possible options: Disable, Enable, and Enable Mandatory.
- When set to Disable, installments do not show a financial period selector.
- When set to Enable (the default), users can optionally select a financial period per installment; Classter auto-suggests one based on the pay date.
- When set to Enable Mandatory, a financial period selection is required before the installment/arrangement can be saved.
- Financial periods themselves are managed separately, from the billing dropdown lists configuration menu.
Example(s)
Example: at Beta Academy, tuition is tracked by billing quarter, with Q1 2026-2027 covering July-September 2026 and Q2 2026-2027 covering October-December 2026. The administrator sets this option to Enable. When a finance officer creates a new arrangement with four installments due September 15, October 15, November 15, and December 15, 2026, Classter automatically suggests Q1 2026-2027 for the September 15 installment and Q2 2026-2027 for the other three, based on each installment’s due date.
The officer still manually changes the December 15 installment to Q1 2026-2027 after the family pays it three weeks early, on November 24, 2026.
When to Use
Use this setting when your institution needs to associate each installment of a financial arrangement with a specific financial/billing period, typically to support period-based financial reporting or reconciliation. Choose Disable if financial periods are not relevant to your billing process, Enable if you want the flexibility of auto-suggested but editable periods, or Enable Mandatory if every installment must always have a financial period assigned.
Notes
Prerequisites: Financial periods should be configured in the billing dropdown lists configuration menu before this setting is useful, since the selector relies on that list of periods.
- Related setting: Enable Financial Arrangement Creation For Stopped Services (Financial Settings > General Settings > Arrangements Parameters > Basic Settings)
- Related setting: Enable Arrangement Review Option (Financial Settings > General Settings > Arrangements Parameters > Basic Settings)
- Related setting: Do Not Allow Educational Program Change To Registered If No Active Financial Agreement (Financial Settings > General Settings > Arrangements Parameters > Basic Settings)
This setting behaves the same regardless of whether Higher Education Mode (Enable Configuration for Higher Education) is enabled or disabled.
