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SIMS the MIS of choice supporting teachers, senior leaders and wider staff with the tools to efficiently drive improvement in their schools.
Dinner Money (DM) is a separately licensed module aimed at primary schools.
Partners may use dinner money APIs in schools without a requirement for the school to be licensed. If this is the case then the partner system would have to implement all of the product features required because the SIMS Interface will not show any of the additional/modified DM screens.
This document restricts the scope of guidance to the subset of functionality envisaged by the author as relevant to a provider of an external payment system.
Typically in primary schools, pupils are offered meals at fixed menu prices, this may vary with age in some schools. Typically VAT is not payable on pupil meals. Staff may also take meals which are usually subject to VAT.
Pupils are usually required to pay for meals in advance, historically the pupil would bring in cash or a cheque on Monday morning, the tutor would collect the money and pass it to the school office to bank.
At lunch time, the pupil will take their meal and the canteen staff will record who has had a meal. Usually pupils will not be refused a meal regardless of payment status. Some students are entitled for Free School Meals (FSM).
This is an internal process which is kicked off when a user in SIMS enters the dinner money menu items. If the clock is post meal sittings, it will make the meal intention in to meals taken. This process can pop a dialog in some circumstances and hence is not available to TIs to initiate.
DM supports the concept of an opening balance for staff and pupils. This defaults to zero.
Dinner Money supports the concepts of meal definitions for both pupils, staff and others.
Meal definitions have a set of charge rates for a period of time. Ergo the charge for a school meal may be different each term if required.
A meal type can be restricted to year groups.
There may be more than one chargeable meal type available to students.
It may be reasonable to charge a pupil for a missed meal, whilst defaults may be provided, additional or replacement codes may be created.
Are also available
When visitors attend a school, a meal may be provided and charged at an appropriate rate.
Some visitors may be given a complementary meal at the school. The school would then pay the caterer for these meals.
It is also possible to record sales of other items such as fruit, drinks and sandwiches.
These work the same as the staff meal definitions above.