Academy operations
Fee mandate
Definition
A fee mandate is the recurring-payment authorization a parent grants once, most commonly a UPI AutoPay mandate through Razorpay or a Stripe subscription outside India, so a chess academy's monthly fee debits automatically each cycle up to the approved amount. The mandate replaces manual chasing with a standing authorization the family can cancel or adjust at any time.
In practice
A fee mandate is set up once, usually during enrollment, when a parent approves recurring debit through UPI AutoPay or a card based Stripe subscription for academies billing outside India. Academy owners run into the term inside the enrollment funnel, since a family that skips mandate approval falls back to a manual payment link, and inside the guardian portal, where a parent can see an active mandate, its amount, and cancel it directly rather than emailing the academy. A failed or paused mandate is also what triggers a parent update reminder rather than a silent missed payment. Fee mandate is distinct from the fee itself: the mandate is the standing authorization, not the amount charged or the schedule of collection events. For the full collection stack a mandate sits inside, including the due date cycle, the payment link fallback, and the late payment ladder, read the linked guide below.
Read the full guide, then try ChessCore
This term lives in a longer academy guide. Open that next, or start an academy on ChessCore.