This project is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade accounting and ERP system designed specifically for educational institutions, with a focus on the Ghanaian market. It provides a robust backend for managing all financial aspects of a school, from student billing to detailed financial reporting and auditing.

The system is built with a clear separation of concerns, ensuring that the core accounting engine remains reliable and independent, while allowing for intelligence and visualization layers to be built on top.

Core Principles

Accounting First: The system is built around a solid, double-entry accounting engine, ensuring all financial data is accurate and balanced.
Read-Only Insights: The intelligence and dashboard layers are strictly read-only, ensuring they can never corrupt the core accounting data.
Auditability: A comprehensive audit trail logs every significant financial action, providing a complete and immutable history.
Modularity: The system is designed in phases, allowing for incremental development and deployment.

Features (Phases 1-5)

The backend is functionally complete and provides the following features:

Chart of Accounts: A flexible and customizable chart of accounts to categorize all financial transactions.
Student Management: Manage student records and enrollment.
Fee Structures: Define complex fee structures and assign them to students.
Invoicing: Automatically generate and issue invoices to students.
Payments: Record and track student payments.
Expense Management: Manage vendors and track bills and bill payments.
Journal Entries: Manually create journal entries for adjustments and other accounting tasks.
Financial Reporting:
- Trial Balance: Ensure the books are always balanced.
- Income Statement: Track revenue, expenses, and profitability.
- Balance Sheet: Get a snapshot of the school's financial position.
- Accounts Receivable (A/R) Aging: Monitor outstanding invoices.
- Accounts Payable (A/P) Aging: Track outstanding bills.
Financial Controls:
- Accounting Periods: Close accounting periods to prevent unauthorized changes to historical data.
Audit Trail:
- Comprehensive Logging: Every key financial transaction is logged for full traceability.

Technology Stack

Backend: PHP 8.x (Vanilla)
Database: MariaDB / MySQL
Web Server: Apache
Frontend: React (rendered client-side)

Project Structure

├── api/                  # API endpoints
│   ├── reports/          # Financial report endpoints
│   └── ...
├── db/                   # Database scripts
│   ├── migrations/       # Database migration files
│   └── config.php        # Database connection configuration
├── includes/             # Helper functions and utilities
├── mail/                 # Email sending service
├── ai/                   # AI/ML integration hooks
├── dashboard/            # Frontend React application
│   ├── src/
│   └── ...
├── .htaccess             # Apache configuration
├── index.php             # Main application entry point (serves the dashboard)
└── README.md             # This file

Setup and Installation

Environment: Set up a standard LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack.
Database:
- Create a new MySQL/MariaDB database.
- Update the credentials in db/config.php.
Migrations: Run the database migrations located in the db/migrations/ directory in sequential order to set up the database schema.
Web Server: Configure Apache to use the project's root directory as the DocumentRoot.
Access: Open the project URL in your browser. The index.php file will automatically load the React-based dashboard.

API Endpoints

The core backend functionality is exposed via a series of PHP-based API endpoints in the api/ directory. The frontend dashboard interacts with these endpoints to display data. Key endpoints include:

/api/students_post.php
/api/invoices_post.php
/api/payments_post.php
/api/vendors_post.php
/api/bills_post.php
/api/reports/trial_balance.php
/api/reports/income_statement.php
/api/reports/balance_sheet.php
/api/reports/ar_aging.php
/api/reports/ap_aging.php

This README provides a high-level overview. For detailed API specifications and implementation details, please refer to the source code.