Studioware distinguishes between 3 different type of students (Account Receivable) balances:

 

 

Current balance is the amount of money a student account (account receivable) owes today.   For example, suppose a student enrolls in a class that does not start for another 2 weeks.  Furthermore, assume that the first tuition payment is not due until the class starts.  Therefore, today the student does not owe any money on the account.  That is, the student's current balance is zero.

 

Studioware offers a lot of flexibility with the tuition payment configuration.  In the example above, the tuition is posted to a student's financial account in the future, hence the current balance will initially be zero.  Of course, if your class is configured to add the tuition at the time of enrollment, for example, the current balance on the student's account will be a positive value.

 

To further illustrate the current balance, let's use some dates.   Assume that today's date is September 7th, and the class starts on September 21st.  Since the tuition is not due until the 21st, and today is September 7th, the current balance on the account is zero.  The account will have a MTD and Total balance, however, the current balance is zero. 

 

MTD Balance is the amount of money that a student owes by the end of the current month.  Again, consider the example above: A student enrolls in a class that does not start for another 2 weeks, and the first tuition payment is not due until the class starts.  Assume that today's date is September 7th, and the class starts on September 21st.   The student's current balance is zero, however, the account's MTD balance will be a positive value.  In fact, the MTD balance will be the amount the student owes by September 30th.

 

If a student makes payments during the month of September, you will see their MTD balance reduce to zero if it's paid-in-full by the end of the month.  Obviously, as a new month starts, the MTD balance will be re-calculated for the new month.  That is, the MTD balance may be zero by September 30th, but come October 1st, the MTD balance will reset to include amount owed by the end of October.

 

When calculating the MTD balance, Studioware sums all the transaction amounts from the very first transaction in the account, and including all transaction up until the end of the current month.  If an account has outstanding balances from July form example, those balances will be carried forward to the MTD calculation for September.

 

The easiest way to think of MTD balance is it represents the total running balance of an account up until the end of the current month.

 

Total balance is the amount of money owed by a student's account.  This includes the sum of all transaction in the account, from the first/earliest transaction, to the last (possibly future) transaction.  If a student enrolls in a class that has month tuition changes, and the class goes for 8 months in the future, the Total Balance of the account will include all those future tuition changes.