Summary
Money Hub is the accounts-receivable side of a provider: what learners and sponsors owe, what has been received, and which receipt belongs to which person. It is deliberately separate from platform billing — your skillSYMS subscription is not in here, and learner fees are not in the subscription screens.
The work the module exists to remove is the monthly reconciliation where somebody reads a bank statement next to a spreadsheet and guesses which reference belongs to which learner.
Who This Guide Is For
- Finance staff and bookkeepers
- Administrators who chase outstanding fees
- Executives reading collections
Prerequisites
- Learners enrolled, with fees or funding attached
- Access to bank statements in a downloadable format
- Your legal entity details
Step 1: Set Up Entities and Bank Accounts
Navigate to Finance → Money → Accounts.
Capture the legal entity that trades and the bank accounts money arrives in. Providers running more than one entity should capture both — a receipt allocated to the wrong entity is a tax problem, not a bookkeeping one.
Note: Changes to banking details are recorded as changes, with who made them and when. That trail exists because banking-detail fraud is common in this sector and the change history is what makes it detectable.
Step 2: Open Learner Accounts
Navigate to Finance → Money.
Each learner has an account and a ledger: what was charged, what was received, what remains. Sponsors have the same, because a sponsored learner’s money is owed by the sponsor and chasing the learner for it is both wrong and ineffective.
Step 3: Import the Bank Statement
Navigate to Finance → Money → Import.
Import the statement rather than typing receipts. Import gives you the full transaction list including the ones you would not have thought to enter, and it is the input the matcher needs.
Step 4: Allocate
Navigate to Finance → Money → Bank.
The matcher proposes an allocation for each transaction — this receipt to that learner account — based on reference, amount and history. Confirm or correct each proposal.
Corrections teach it. A reference format your learners actually use will be recognised after you have confirmed it a few times, which is why it is worth correcting rather than allocating manually alongside.
Step 5: Clear the Unallocated Queue
Navigate to Finance → Money → Unallocated.
Money received that belongs to nobody yet. This queue should be short and old items in it should be investigated, not left. An unallocated receipt is usually a learner who believes they have paid and is about to be blocked for non-payment.
Step 6: Approvals
Navigate to Finance → Money → Approvals.
Refunds, write-offs and credits go through approval. Set the thresholds to match your delegation of authority, and resist the urge to set them so high that nothing is ever reviewed.
Step 7: Holds — Use Sparingly
Navigate to Finance → Money → Holds.
A hold restricts what a learner can do while an account is outstanding — typically results or certificates. Configure hold rules deliberately and check them against your own policy and the relevant funding rules. A hold that blocks a learner from an assessment they have already paid a SETA for is a hold that will be reversed publicly.
What Good Looks Like
- Statements are imported, not typed
- The unallocated queue is worked weekly and is short
- Sponsored balances sit against sponsors, not learners
- Hold rules are written down and match provider policy
Common Mistakes
- Manual allocation alongside the matcher. Correct it instead; it learns.
- Leaving unallocated receipts. They become disputes.
- Chasing a learner for a sponsor’s debt.
- Confusing platform billing with learner fees. Different modules, different money.