Choosing how your centre charges families

Why this exists

If your billing method is a mix of habits and spreadsheets, families are unsure what they owe and your team spends time working it out by hand. As the centre owner, you choose one way families pay and set its numbers, and every charge, invoice and statement follows it. Families see a consistent picture, and you see one record of the money.

Every centre chooses one way for families to pay, and sets every number in it. You do this once during setup and change it only when you need to.

Before you start

You need the settings.edit permission. The page is Settings > Billing and cancellations.

The four ways to charge

• Invoice after lessons. Lessons are taught, then invoiced. Families can always book, and you carry the risk of a late payer.
• Invoice before the period. An invoice covers a coming week, month or term, and lessons draw it down. You choose the day the weekly invoice goes out, and can tick True up after the week to credit back lessons that were billed ahead and then cancelled.
• Prepaid lesson packs. Families buy a block of lessons and each lesson spends one credit. When a student runs out, they keep being taught and each lesson is invoiced at the lesson price until they buy another pack.
• Prepaid account. Families pay money in ahead and lessons are taken from it as they are taught.

Set it up

1. Open How you bill.
2. Pick how families pay you.
3. Answer Are you registered for GST? Nothing is picked for you. Say yes only if you are registered; no means GST appears on nothing.
4. Set Days to pay for invoices.
5. Set your cancellation numbers (see the related article).
6. Set Days of notice before a change to how families pay.
7. Add a note on why you changed it if you like, then Save billing settings.

Lesson defaults

The Lesson defaults card at the bottom of Settings > Billing and cancellations holds four settings: the Default lesson rate used when a lesson has no matching service, Payment reminder emails for families whose payment failed, the Older cancellation notice (hours) and how many weeks until a makeup lesson expires. These used to be on a separate settings page.

Good to know

• Nothing on this page is ever edited in place. Each save adds a new version, and every charge records the version that priced it. The history is listed at the bottom.
• Changing the way families pay needs notice. The earliest start date is shown, and you should tell your families before then. Shortening the notice does not apply to the change you are making now.
• Lessons are priced from your own price list under Services. A lesson with no matching service uses your default lesson rate, and with neither, nothing is charged.
• Unused money and unused pack credits are refundable on request. This is fixed and cannot be switched off.
• Families read your rules, with your numbers, on your cancellation policy page.

Related

• Setting your cancellation rules
• Family balances and the ledger
• Moving across from Teachworks