Masters
- Ledgers and ledger groups with opening balances
- Stock items, groups, units and conversions
- Cost centres (optional)
- Payroll masters (optional)
- Currencies (optional, multi-currency)
- Asset register with book and tax depreciation
Product
Everything the school runs on, in one place
Two modules, one database. Finance keeps the money straight; Academics keeps the marks and reports moving. The parts that need each other — fees, learners, scholarships — already talk to each other.
Finance & Administration
Books that agree with the fee counter
A complete double-entry accounting system designed around school income: term fees, boarding, transport, scholarships and supplier bills.
Transactions
- Fee receipts with quick, classic and touch POS
- Payment, receipt, contra and journal vouchers
- Sales invoices and purchase invoices with GRN
- Orders and notes
- Payroll vouchers with overtime, leave and appraisals
- Stock journal and transfers; day book
Controls
- Duplicate-transaction warnings before posting
- Voucher edit history and 50-version company history
- Per-screen user rights
- Bank reconciliation
- Budgets by period (optional)
- Offline QR code on printed receipts and invoices
Feature flags: inventory, tax, bill-wise tracking and bank reconciliation are on by default. Payroll, budgets, cost centres, multi-currency, TDS and fixed assets can be switched on in Features (F1) without reinstalling.
Academics & Reporting
From a class list to a signed report card
Built around the way a Ugandan secondary school runs a term: classes and streams, papers and CA components, subject comments, and a report-card day that does not end at midnight.
Students and classes
LIN numbers, classes and streams, parent contacts, payment codes and portal access. Import a learner list from the Excel template and promote a class to the next year when the term ends.
Marks and report cards
Enter marks by class or import lin,score files, then print detailed, concise or mid-term cards as a batch. Approve and sign before publishing to the portal.
Attendance and timetable
Term attendance totals (days present and days open), biometric-managed rows kept read-only, plus a weekly timetable with teacher, class and room conflict checks.
Parent and student portal
Learners sign in with a LIN and password to see marks, report cards and class notes. Parents are linked to a learner. An optional fee-balance restriction holds results until fees are cleared.
Messages and SMS
Message Centre notices, plus SMS through Ego SMS, Yoola, Genius, Africa's Talking, an Android phone over ADB or a GSM modem on a COM port.
Scholarships and class reports
Fixed-amount or percentage scholarships posted to Finance as journals, sponsor records, and class reports that summarise a whole stream.
Digital payments
Collect where parents pay — reconcile where you bank
Provider credentials live under Settings → Digital Payment Settings, encrypted on the Finance server. Collection screens stay under Transactions so bursars have one place to work.
- SchoolPayCompleted payments imported by date range and matched on learner payment code.
- Airtel MoneyPayment request, status check or pasted callback, posted as Dr Bank · Cr Income.
- ObPayMTN and Airtel prompts, hosted card checkout, verified receipts posted automatically.
- Review queueMissing codes, duplicate references and invalid amounts wait for a person — not a silent failure.
Reporting
Reports the board, the bursar and the auditor all ask for
All reports read the same vouchers. Pick a period, print or export, and the figures match the day book.
| Report | What it answers | Module |
|---|---|---|
| Trial Balance | Do the books balance at a date? | Reports |
| Profit & Loss / Income & Expenditure | Did the school surplus or overspend this period? | Reports |
| Balance Sheet | What does the school own and owe? | Reports |
| Outstanding (Bills) | Who has not paid, and how much is outstanding by learner? | Reports |
| Cash / Funds Flow | Where did cash come from and where did it go? | Reports |
| Bank Reconciliation | Does the bank statement agree with the ledger? | Reports |
| Group Summary and Stock Summary | Balances by ledger group; stock movement and value | Reports |
| POS Sales Dashboard | Receipting volume, stations and takings | Reports |
| Tax Summary and TDS | VAT, PAYE, LST and NSSF figures for review (calculation aids) | Reports |
| Ratio Analysis and Budgets | Key ratios; budget versus actual by period | Reports |
| Report Cards and Class Reports | Learner results, grades and stream summaries | Academics |
| Payroll Report | Gross, deductions, PAYE, NSSF, net pay and leave | Payroll |
Tax reports are calculation aids and must be reviewed against current URA rules before filing.
Platform
Installed once, used every day
A Windows desktop application with local services. No server room, no monthly cloud bill, no internet dependency for core work.
On your own Windows PC
The installer bundles its runtime and data services. Works on Windows 10 and 11, on an ordinary school computer.
Office PC or whole network
Run the server role on one PC and let staff open Books-pro from their own computers on the school LAN.
Backups and history
Daily database backups with 30 kept by default, plus JSON export and a 50-version history of the company file.
Multiple schools
School groups can keep a separate database per school and switch in Settings → Schools. Finance also supports multiple companies.
Optional remote access
Publish the portal, Academics and Finance over HTTPS for staff off campus — infrastructure and security review required.
Licensed, not rented by the learner
An annual licence key covers the host machine; client computers inherit it. Keys are signed and expire only when the term you bought ends.
Honest limits: Books-pro is not a cloud service. Remote access needs a public HTTPS address or a private network such as ZeroTier; LAN traffic inside the school is plain HTTP and should stay on the school network. Tax figures are aids, not a filing service. Attendance is tracked as term totals, not a daily register.
Which parts does your school need?
Tell us your learner count and how fees are collected today. We will map it to a plan and show the exact screens on a demo call.