The Branch Admin playbook
The Branch Admin role is operational rather than strategic. You run a single campus — staff, students, fees, attendance — within boundaries set by the Institution Admin. The platform gives you everything you need; this article tells you how to use it day-to-day.
Your scope vs the Institution Admin's
| What | You can do | Institution Admin only |
|---|---|---|
| Approve admissions | ✓ (your branch) | — |
| Approve staff leave | ✓ (your branch) | Override leave policy |
| Approve expenses | ✓ (up to your threshold) | Above threshold |
| Approve payroll run | — | ✓ |
| Modify fee structures | View only | Edit |
| Create branches | — | ✓ |
| Edit roles | — | ✓ |
| Run year-end promotion | ✓ (your branch) | Override |
| Reset data | — | ✓ |
| View audit log | ✓ (your branch only) | All branches |
When something falls in the Institution Admin column, escalate cleanly — file a request via email or helpdesk rather than asking informally.
Daily rhythm (10 minutes)
Morning, before the school day
- Open the main dashboard.
- Check Today's Attendance card — does anything look off?
- Skim Pending Approvals — clear small items before they snowball.
- Note Today's Birthdays — share with the front office for student/staff acknowledgements.
During the day
You're the on-call escalation point. Common issues:
- Parent calls about an attendance dispute → check the attendance grid, see who marked.
- Teacher reports they can't enter marks → check their teacher assignments.
- Front office reports a duplicate payment → walk them through payment reversals.
- New parent enquiry walks in → handle warmly, ensure it's recorded in the enquiry pipeline.
End of day
- Verify all sections submitted attendance.
- Verify any new admissions today have their documents in the pending queue.
- Approve same-day leave requests.
Weekly checks (15 minutes)
Monday
- Branch-level audit log for the last week. Anomalies?
- Pending admissions stuck > 5 days. Chase.
- Pending document approvals stuck > 3 days. Clear or reject.
Friday
- Branch collections report for the week. Target hit?
- Section-by-section attendance for the week. Any section consistently low?
- Pending follow-ups in enquiry / admission to-dos. Reassign or escalate.
Monthly tasks (30 minutes)
Last week of the month
- Reconcile branch collections with bank statement (see the bank-reconciliation export in collections report).
- Send monthly fee reminder to defaulters in the 30+ day bucket. Use bulk SMS from the Defaulters report.
- Review expense breakdown for the month. Anything you should flag to the Institution Admin?
First week of new month
- Verify payroll for branch staff hit their accounts (Institution Admin runs the actual payroll; you confirm it landed).
- Open and approve staff leave for the month ahead — book vacations, plan substitutes.
Termly handover (1 hour)
Pre-exam
- Confirm the exam schedule is set up (verify with academic head — usually a coordinator).
- Confirm hall tickets are generated and distributed.
- Send a parent announcement about the schedule.
Post-exam
- Verify marks are entered + submitted for review.
- Approve marks submissions (you're typically the approver before results publish).
- Send a parent announcement about result publication.
Common escalation patterns
When to escalate to Institution Admin
- An expense above your approval threshold.
- A payment reversal above your approval threshold.
- A staff grievance that needs HR intervention.
- A cross-branch issue (transfer-out request, shared resource conflict).
- A policy question (can we accept this concession case?).
- Anything where the audit log shows misuse.
When to escalate to Schoolwati support
- A platform feature isn't working as documented.
- A specific record is showing wrong data and you've verified it's not a user-input error.
- An integration failure (Razorpay, SMS) you can't resolve from the settings page.
Open a ticket from /helpdesk — your signed-in details auto-fill.
Branch boundary discipline
Branch Admins should resist the temptation to do everything themselves. Delegate:
- Front office handles enquiry follow-ups, admission processing, fee collection day-to-day.
- Class teachers handle attendance + parent communication for their sections.
- Subject teachers handle marks entry for their assignments.
- HR / accounts handles payroll input + statutory filing.
Your job is the orchestration — making sure each function has what it needs and intervening when something gets stuck. If you're entering marks for someone, the system has a problem (or that teacher does).