Demo Learning Institute: enrolment to programme close

Demo Learning Institute is a fictional professional college with campuses in Dubai and Riyadh. It offers a six-month OSERP implementation diploma, bills learners in AED and sponsors in SAR, provides approved scholarships, employs instructors, and reports programme margin and completion. This case shows why a learner, sponsor, enrolment, invoice, attendance record, expense, payment, refund, and completion certificate are separate records.

Programme and cohort setup

The academic manager creates programme OSERP-FUNC-2026, title, level, duration, campus, start/end dates, capacity, instructor plan, fee currency, tax treatment, refund policy, and completion requirements. A cohort is a scheduled offering of the programme. The programme master describes what is taught; the cohort describes when and where it is delivered.

Field	Example	Purpose
Programme code	OSERP-FUNC-2026	Stable reporting and catalogue identity
Cohort	DUB-SEP-26	Time-bound learner group
Campus/branch	Dubai Knowledge Park	Capacity, timetable, and local cost
Fee plan	AED 24,000 in six instalments	Receivable schedule
Sponsor billing	Corporate or government sponsor	Separates payer from learner
Scholarship	25% approved reduction	Controlled change to receivable
Completion rule	Attendance + assessment + project	Evidence for completion status

A published programme is not an invoice. A learner can be enrolled while a sponsor remains unbilled, or a deposit can be received while the course has not started.

Learner, sponsor, and privacy scope

The learner record contains legal name, preferred name, contact, identity reference, emergency contact, accessibility requirement, nationality where policy permits, campus, and cohort. The sponsor record contains legal entity, billing contact, tax registration, currency, credit terms, and purchase order. The enrolment links learner, sponsor, programme, cohort, fee plan, scholarship, and consent evidence.

The finance user may see sponsor billing while an instructor sees only the learner data needed for teaching. Personal identity information must not be placed in public notes or demo screenshots. A consultant must document retention, correction, export, and deletion rules for the deployed country.

Enrolment and scholarship approval

Admissions records application source, applicant, programme, cohort, decision, conditions, and next action. When accepted, enrolment records start date, fee plan, sponsor, discount, scholarship, and payment responsibility. A scholarship request includes reason, percentage/amount, funding source, approver, effective period, and evidence. Approval changes the commercial amount; it should not be implemented by manually changing an invoice total without a source decision.

Example fee calculation:

Published programme fee             AED 24,000
Approved scholarship (25%)           AED 6,000
Net learner responsibility           AED 18,000
Instalments                           6 × AED 3,000
Sponsor contribution                  AED 0

If the sponsor pays AED 12,000 and the learner pays the remainder, both allocations remain visible. A payment from the sponsor must not be applied to the learner’s statement without an authorised relationship.

Invoice and instalment collection

The invoice header records learner or sponsor, programme/cohort, campus, invoice date, posting date, due date, currency, tax treatment, fee plan, and reference. Each line records tuition, registration, examination, materials, transport, or another service. The due date drives ageing; the cohort start date does not.

The learner pays instalment one by bank transfer. Finance records payment mode, bank account, reference, currency, exchange rate, date, and allocation. An unallocated receipt is cash received but does not clear an invoice. A failed card authorisation is not a payment. A sponsor purchase order is evidence of commitment, not settlement.

Attendance and completion evidence

The instructor records session, date, cohort, learner, presence/absence, late status, reason, and evidence. An attendance edit requires reason and audit history. Attendance is evidence of participation; it is not automatically revenue recognition. The academic policy may require 80% attendance, assessment pass, and a project submission for completion.

The completion record stores programme, learner, cohort, completion date, assessor, result, certificate ID, and verification status. A learner with an unpaid balance may still complete academically but be blocked from certificate release according to policy. Those are two different controls.

Instructor time, payroll, and expenses

Instructors record teaching hours, preparation, assessment, campus, cohort, project/cost centre, and billable/internal classification. Payroll uses employee and compensation data; the programme report uses the project dimension to attribute instructor cost. A teaching hour without cohort coding cannot explain programme margin.

An instructor claims SAR 1,100 travel and AED 450 materials. Each expense records currency, date, category, project/cohort, tax, receipt, purpose, and approver. The dated exchange rate translates the base amount; changing it to force a budget match corrupts the evidence.

Deferral, refund, and withdrawal

A learner withdraws before the first session. The withdrawal record carries date, reason, policy clause, refundable amount, non-refundable fee, approver, and original payment. The refund is a separate payment action with gateway/bank reference and tax reversal. A cancellation without a refund is not the same as a refund without a cancellation decision.

If fees are recognised over the teaching period, finance creates a schedule with source invoice, deferred ledger, revenue ledger, start/end dates, and recognition rule. Running the schedule posts period entries; cancelling it stops future entries but does not erase recognised history.

Programme economics

The programme controller reviews:

Measure	Example	Meaning
Enrolled learners	30	Commercial cohort size
Net fee per learner	AED 18,000	After approved scholarship
Contracted fee value	AED 540,000	Expected billings
Collected to date	AED 270,000	Cash allocation, not revenue
Instructor and delivery cost	AED 190,000	Approved actual cost
Materials and campus cost	AED 75,000	Direct programme cost
Forecast contribution	AED 275,000	Forecast, not posted profit

The dashboard must show enrolment-to-invoice time, collection rate, attendance, completion, scholarship approval time, refund cycle, instructor utilisation, programme margin, and sponsor ageing. A high completion rate does not prove cash collection; a positive bank balance does not prove programme profitability.

Close and consultant challenge

Close the cohort only after final attendance, assessment, certificates, refunds, sponsor allocations, learner balances, instructor claims, materials, deferred revenue, tax, FX, and open approvals are reconciled. Test a late enrolment, sponsor change, scholarship rejection, partial instalment, failed payment retry, withdrawal refund, attendance correction, instructor substitution, bilingual certificate, and privacy-restricted user.

For each test capture fields, owner, permission, source evidence, stage, ledger effect, learner communication, and report result. Label behavior as product-supported, configured, policy-dependent, or extension-required. Use this chapter with People, Partners, Projects and approvals, Advanced GL Mapping, and API Library.