Terminology TerminologyMany concepts are common across all schools - but these may be called by different names in different places. To prevent misunderstandings, here are the most important terms that KVS uses to refer to particular ideas:
Lesson. The basic unit of time in which course are scheduled. For example, if the length of a lesson is 45 minutes, then courses would meet normally meet for 1-1/2 hours or 2-1/4 hours. When students purchase the right to attend a course (a "booking"), they purchase a number of lessons. Example: John wants to attend course "London". This course meets twice a week, for 90 minutes each time. If the basic lesson length is 45 minutes, and John wants to attend for five weeks, he needs to purchase 20 lessons.
Event. One course meeting. If a course meets on 22 January 2002 at 10:00 for 90 minutes, this is one course meeting, i.e., an event. Events are entered automatically for courses with weekly meetings (see below), or can be added individually for courses that meet irregularly.
Meeting. A regularly scheduled weekly course meeting. If a course meeting is planned for every Tuesday at 10:00, then this is a meeting. For courses for which meetings have been scheduled, events are automatically added to the daily plan, vacation time and holidays excepted.
Course. A course is a series of events with the same students, to study a particular subject. Courses may be "variable" courses, meaning that they have no fixed end-dates. Or they may be "semester" courses, meaning that they start and end on planned dates. Many of the attributes of a course are taken from its "course type".
Course type. A course type defines a general category of course. This helps organize courses and saves re-entering data over and over again. A course type should group all courses which have the same attributes (e.g. size), the same bonusses for teachers and the same price. For example, one could define a type of semester course for small groups. Or perhaps a course type for diploma courses, for which teachers receive particular salary bonuses due to the need to correct homework.
Subject. The topic of a course. Subjects can be quite general - "English", "German" - or they can be more specific - "English Diploma", "German Business".Please note: How subjects and course types are defined will determine the appearance and organization of information in KVS. If you have very few course types and subjects, you will get only rough information out of KVS. If you have too many course types and subjects, you might lose the general overview.
Names. Price and bonus names define the levels in your price and bonus structure. For a given price name, each course type can have a different price. For example, you might define the price names "Standard" and "Discount". These would then be available for all course types - and for each course type you can define what exact prices are used. Price names are divided into those for individual bookings and those for group bookings. Bonuses are additional amounts paid to teacher, for instance because a course requires extra preparation time, or because the teacher must correct homework or because the an event takes place at off-hours. Time bonuses and other bonuses are managed separately. Time bonuses are managed solely in Accounting:Payroll:Time bonuses. Other bonuses are defined in Accounting:Payroll:Other bonuses and assigned in course types.
Amounts. Price and bonus amounts define the actual monetary amount to associate with a particular name. In the case of prices, one defines the price amount for each name/course-type combination. For bonuses, the amounts are defined per bonus. Under File:Options:General you can determine whether bonuses are fixed amounts or percentages (of salary).