Today's prompt has got me reminiscing about what happened years ago, which has also shaped my way of doing things since then.
When I was in secondary school, my aunt was my sponsor. She was responsible for my fees and she made sure I was not owing. But a problem occured. Her younger brother, my uncle, was the person in charge of taking the money to the bank to make the payment (then wire transfer was common, it was customised teller we used). The process was simple; our parents/guardian will go to the school, collect the teller, go to the bank with the cash and make the payment for the current term. After the payment was made, they would either take stamped receipt to the school by themselves or give it to their child or ward to go and submit for recording. It turned out that my uncle apparently stopped paying the fees, because my records were incomplete. By the time I got to senior secondary, things started going awry.
The most recent record of my fees the school had was the one I went to pay by myself, which was the first time I ever did it, and that was the first term of SS1. The school authorities has threatened to disallow us from coming to school if our fees were not paid by the next week. In panic, I went to my aunt's office that Friday and told her about it, and she asked me to come back on Monday. When Monday came I went to her office and collected the cash. I had collected the school teller the previous Friday, so from her office I went straight to the bank. After making the payment, and getting the teller stamped, I took the receipt to school for recording, though I went late because of the queue at the bank, but i was pardoned.
After submitting the receipt, I felt all was well and I went to my class to learn. The next day which was a Tuesday, the financial team came to our class to call out those that where owing, and I heard my name. At first, when they came in I felt relaxed because I was certain I wasn't owing them, but hearing my name sent my heart racing. I stood up and tried to protest but the official showed me the records. That was when I discovered that I was owing since JSS2 second term. That was also when I realised that the fees I had just paid was incomplete because I got the wrong figures. My heart dropped. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.
But because I had just paid my fees the previous day, I wasn't sent home like the others, I was only asked to tell my people about it, and they gave me a deadline.
When I got home and explained things to my grandma, whom I was living with then, she called my aunty and explained it to her, and my aunty was furious. She thought it was the schools fault that my fees records were incomplete, that they didn't do the book keeping properly.
After a lot of back and forth with me, my school, my aunty, and my uncle, it was discovered that my uncle didn't pay the fees from my JSS2. This meant that the fees I went to the bank to pay was recorded for the JSS2 second term. Which meant that I was owing for the entire JSS3 year.
Before it was discovered that my uncle stopped paying the fees as he was supposed to, my aunty had said she won't pay anymore until she sees the receipt of the ones she had been paying. Which also meant that I would stop school until my debts were cleared, I didn't want to stop going to school. I am someone that loves going to school. It got to the point that I had to be going to school very early in the morning. One time, I arrived at school before daybreak. This was after I had stayed home for a full week. I had to return to school because exams were approaching, and I didn't want to miss it because it would mean that I repeated that class. I just couldn't bear that thought.
After going to school like a fugitive student for weeks, I was caught on the first day of exams. The same official came to class to call out debtors and he saw me. He asked me to pick up my things that I was going home. Just as we were on our way out, he got pressed to go to the toilet and put me in the hands of one of the brigadiers that was with him. As we got close to the gate the brigadier left me and turn to go to his office. While still on the way, I heard the bell go off. Seeing that I was alone, I turned back and went to the class and sat for my exams.
After that term, I didn't return to school again. Because I couldn't bare to keep being a fugitive student.
Because of all that saga, I learned my lesson -- to always keep receipts of all payments made, no matter how small. Even when I was in the university, I made sure I kept receipts of all the payments made to show to my aunty because I didn't want history to repeat itself.
There is also a story of another student in the same school that tampered with his payment receipt. Our school fees being fourty thousand Naira in a particular term, this student when to the bank and paid only four thousand Naira. When he was given the receipt, he used a pen to include and extra zero to make it appear as if he paid the full amount. He got caught and was disciplined severely, and was suspended for 2 weeks.
So yes, the keeping receipts cannot be over emphasized.
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