UFSM - How does booking dinners online work for UFSM over the summer holiday period?
In SCO dinners, the academic year rollover happens automatically on 19th August (this is when dinner money meal counts are set back to zero and any credits or debits carried forward show as Paid in the Status column).
Pupil classes, year groups, new starters and leavers are not affected. You may see a message to this effect when you first start SCO on or after 19th August.
SCO assumes that any pupils marked as Year 2 in SCO prior to 19th August will be moving into Year 3 in September.
If those pupils order meals online for September before 19th August, they may be prompted to pay for the meals first or they may incur a debt in SCO (depending on the SCO settings).
Schools who have promoted their pupils to their new classes/year groups in SCO prior to 19th August will only be affected if any parents book meals online before 19th August.
What can we do to address any issues?
Action is only required if you promoted your Year 1 pupils to Year 2 in SCO prior to 19th August and your parents order meals online.
If you have promoted your pupils to their new year groups in SCO prior to 19th August, we recommend that you notify parents that they should not order meals until after that date, if possible.
Alternatively, it is possible to take dinners offline until that date (see Section 3 here). If you have an SCO login, you can install the software outside of school using the link here.
How can I manage the balances in SCO?
In the case that parents have booked online and pupils now have a debt in SCO:
If parents have booked meals online without paying and now have a debt in SCO, simply overtype their meal codes in SCO to update the meals from paid to free. This will also correctly update their balances.
In the case that parents have booked and paid online:
If pupils entitled to UFSM have paid for meals when they shouldn’t have, you can identify these payments by generating the Daily Payment Activity Report. Select Custom dates from the end of term to 19th August. Select the Payment method credit/debit.
You will need to overtype their meal codes in SCO Dinners to update the meals from paid to free. This will give them a credit balance which you can subsequently refund – see instructions here.