As the year draws to a close for schools, we have put together key End of Year processes you may wish to start thinking about. This includes supporting documentation for Finance Officers.
Rollover
Year Level Increment
At the beginning of 2026, Hero will run a Year Level increment across all schools which will increase the year level of all students by one.
Entering your Pre-Enrolments for 2026
Note: When entering students who are starting in 2026, ensure the year level is entered as their 2025 year level for existing students or Year 0 for new entrants. This ensures they will increment to the correct year level.
These useful articles will help you with your enrolment process:
- Link to Adding a New Student
- Link to Transferring Pre-enrols to Current Students in Hero
- Re-enrol a student
Classes
The system will automatically switch to your 2026 classes in the new year.
When you return in 2026, if you allocate your pre-enrols to a class they will appear in class lists even before their start date. This is to assist with your class planning.
If you have any students who have previously left and are returning to your school, please ensure that you re-enrol the student rather than create a new student. This will link that student to their existing NSN, attendance and learning record. These students will display their last known class so still need to be added to a 2026 class.
School Dates
Update your 2026 School Dates
Your 2026 school calendar can be set up at any stage prior to the start of the new school year. The help article will support you in managing your calendar. A half-day count has been added to assist with your calculations.
To find the 2026 MOE school term dates please click here
Start by including the MOE allocated number of Teacher Only days as part of your start and end date selection so that they are included in the half-day count. Once you are happy with the half-day count, close the Teacher Only days to prevent attendance from being taken.
Alternative Assessment Timeframes
You may also need to copy alternative assessment timeframes from 2025 to 2026.
Classes
Class Placements (including setting up of your 2026 Classes)
The following article includes the entire process of setting up your classes for next year and how to place the students in these classes.
Class Placements for Administrators: Only staff with Administration access have the ability to create classes. These need to be done before class placements can be carried out.
The class placement process will be carried out by Administrators in some schools and Teachers in others. Both options are provided for. The setting to allow teachers to perform the class placements process is under Basic Options in the Administration menu.
Class Placements for Teachers:
The click and drag functionality makes life much easier for teachers when placing their students for the following year. Therefore the way in which many schools handle this process is by providing all teachers with access for a set period of time to carry out the class placements process. This can then be turned off once the process is complete.
For New Schools Opening in 2026
If you wish to place students in classes before 1 January 2026 for planning purposes, set up 2025 classes exactly as they will be in 2026 and assign your pre-enrolled students to these classes.
Then perform the Class Placements process as above using the “Move All” option to copy your students to their 2026 classes.
Leavers
Processing your Leavers
The bulk unenrol process is best carried out after school finishes for the year, however in Hero a large part of the process can be carried out in advance to make this quick and easy to finish off on your last day. DO NOT perform the bulk process on your last day until your last attendance has been taken. If the school is marked as closed for the afternoon, you can process your leavers after the morning roll. As half-days are not blocked out in Hero a present mark will need to be entered for the PM for all students staying at the school.
What can be done in advance?
Any students leaving who are not in your highest year level can be unenrolled as soon as you are advised they are leaving. By entering a future leaving date (their last day) they will remain as Current until that date is reached and can then be processed on your last day (after the final roll take) as Pending Leavers. (Ie., Leavers pending processing.)
You are also able to enter the Destination Schools and Reason for Leaving for your highest year level in advance if you wish. Perform the Bulk Unenrol process for your highest year level ensuring that the last day of school is correct.
Update the Destination School and Reason for Leaving and process students. Because the leaving date is in the future, this will keep these students current but will make them Pending Leavers (ie., Leavers pending processing). They will be included as Pending Leavers when you run the final Bulk Unenrol on the last day.
When should unenrolment be done?
There are pros and cons to unenrolling after the rollover:
Cons: Inconvenient for administrators; ENROL update must be done in ENROL
Pros: Leavers are in groups for analysis; leavers' previous year class memberships show.
Staff Leaving
When a staff member leaves it is important to ensure that their access rights to Hero are removed.
If your Principal or Administrator is leaving and they use a generic principal@ or admin@/office@ email address, please advise Hero Helpdesk so databases can be updated.
Finance
End of Year Finance Processing
There is no Year End Rollover in HERO. Hero handles the year end by separating the processing for previous years rather than removing any detail.
If you do not want debt to carry over from one year to the next, it will need to be written off.
Capturing Your ‘as at 31 December 2025’ Totals
Schools will often be asked for the total of Payment in Advance, Donations and Debt as at 31 December. Hero's Debtors report allows you to generate the reports needed on a specified date to provide information to your supporting accountants.
Once all banking relating to 2025 is completed:
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Run the Debtor’s Report and file for your accountant. This will provide PIA as at 31 December 2025.
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Run the Ledger Analysis from 1/1/2025 to 31/12/2025. This will provide a snapshot of the entire 2025 year.
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If possible, run the Ledger Analysis for the entire period that you have utilised Hero student billing e.g. 1/1/2021 to 31/12/2025. The Unpaid column will provide you with all outstanding totals as at 31 December for all Ledgers. NB: This may not be possible for schools with very large numbers of transactions.
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